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Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group hires Rani Yadav as CMO and Patti Simpson as chief people officer of the restaurant company in New York

New executives to oversee marketing and human resources departments

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

February 3, 2020

1 Min Read
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Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group has named Rani Yadav to the newly created position of chief marketing officer and it has hired Patti Simpson as its chief people officer, the New York City-based restaurant group said Monday.

Yadav most recently was in charge of marketing for meal kit delivery company Blue Apron, where she was the first marketing hire and spent nearly five years overseeing paid marketing, marketing analytics, public relations, creative agency management and social media. In her new role she is responsible for growing USHG’s brands, developing new concepts and working with the hospitality and technology-related businesses that are part of the company’s investment arm, Enlightened Hospitality Investments, which has interests in fast-casual concept Dig, delivery platform Goldbelly, website designer Bentobox, third-wave coffee concept Joe Coffee Company and artisan ice cream maker Salt & Straw.

Yadav has an MBA in entrepreneurship and marketing strategy from Wharton Business School in Philadelphia, a bachelor in economics from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and certificates in cuisine and pastry from Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris.

Simpson joins USHG from casual-dining chain Ruby Tuesday, where she also was chief people officer for a little over a year. Prior to that she held the same position at Au Bon Pain for a year and half. At USHG, which runs around 20 foodservice operations in the city, including Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and The Modern, Simpson is charged with overseeing all human resources systems and benefits.

Related:Union Square Hospitality Group to open first D.C. restaurant, bar

Simpson has a bachelor’s degree in special education from Cabrini University in Radnor, Pa.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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