PANELISTS

Derin Alemli | Founder & CEO | Square Roots Kitchen

Derin Alemli is a serial entrepreneur residing in Chicago. Having founded DownBeats in 2012, he is currently focused on his role as the Founder & CEO of Square Roots Kitchen, a fast casual healthy restaurant that opened their first retail establishment at 120 S Halsted in January 2018. SRK launched at the beginning of 2016 using non-traditional means to get to market before leveraging that success into their technology-enabled storefront. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur Derin worked in hedge fund portfolio management for Grosvenor Capital Management. Derin has an MBA from the University of Chicago in addition to holding the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Randy Gier | CEO | NRG Restaurant Group

Randy Gier is CEO of NRG Restaurant Group, parent company of Burger Monger. Previously, Randy served as CMO at GameStop and CEO of RAVE Restaurant Group, the parent company Pizza Inn and Pie Five Pizza Co. He also served as the Founder and Chief Eating Officer of Savvy Fare Restaurant Group. Prior to that, Randy spent 25 years in executive positions at blue chip Fortune 100 companies – PepsiCo, Yum! Restaurants, and Cadbury-Schweppes (now Dr Pepper Snapple Group). He has served as Chief Marketing Officer at Pizza Hut, KFC and Yum! International, as well as heading up Marketing, R&D and Strategy for Cadbury Schweppes North American Beverage group.

Akash Kapoor | Founder & CEO | Curry Up Now

Curry Up Now founder Akash Kapoor has been a self-employed entrepreneur and businessman since childhood. He moved to the U.S. in 1993 and successfully grew a variety of businesses before leaving the traditional business world in 2009 to start Curry Up Now with his wife, Rana. Curry Up Now was the first Indian street food truck in the Bay Area, and has since grown to include four food trucks, two craft cocktail bar concepts, and six brick-and-mortar locations, with over 50 franchised locations planned in nearly every major region of the U.S. Today, Curry Up Now is recognized as the largest and fastest growing Indian fast casual.

MODERATOR

Kris Bartel | Chief Business Development Officer | ZIVELO

Kris Bartel brings over 15 years of executive level leadership in supply chain and operations positions. Kris was most recently the Director of US IT Supplier Management for McDonald’s. Kris has also held senior positions at Discover and Arthur Andersen. He holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a BA in Psychology from Northern Illinois University.