Sponsored By

CREATE Experience to host TED-style talks with Lauren Fernandez, Juan George, and Sean Tresvant at Palm Springs event Oct. 2

The representatives form Taco Bell, Full Course and 858 Partners to share their expertise on finance, technology, and the guest experience

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 21, 2023

2 Min Read
RestaurantHospitality logo in a gray background | RestaurantHospitality

One of the highlights of the CREATE Experience, being held Oct. 1-3 at the Margaritaville Resort in Palm Spring, Calif., will be a series of TED Talk-style presentations from restaurant industry leaders on topics that many operators are grappling with these days.

These CREATED Talks will be held on the event’s main stage on Monday, Oct. 2 from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m., each lasting around 20 minutes.

“Our CREATED Talks will welcome three restaurant experts who will both educate and inspire our attendees with their thoughtful insights on the state of the industry as it relates to finance, technology, and customer experience,” Informa Restaurant & Food Group editorial director Sam Oches said in announcing the talks.

Lauren Fernandez, CEO and Founder of the investment firm Full Course, will talk about finance. Her expertise is on educating small business owners about how to spruce up their operations and balance sheets to get them ready for private equity partners.

Juan George, Cofounder of 858 Partners, is an investor in restaurant technology and will provide insights into how operators should organize their tech stack and what innovations they should expect down the road.

Discussing the guest experience will be Sean Tresvant, chief global brand & strategy officer for Taco Bell, which has established itself as a master at engaging with its guests inside and outside the restaurants.

Related:NRN announces the Table Talk Roundtables lineup for CREATE in Palm Springs

“Restaurant chains both big and small are wrestling with the same issues today, chief among them being how to finance their growth, how to build a scalable tech stack, and how to create a customer experience that drives customer loyalty,” Oches said in explaining his selection of the speakers. “We’re going to get to the heart of these issues with our main-stage CREATED Talks session, and I’m certain attendees will leave with valuable ideas that they can take back to their businesses.” 

Informa Restaurant & Food Group has reserved the entire Margaritaville Resort property to allow attendees to be fully immersed in the conference, which has been organized to maximize networking time between short but impactful educational sessions, obviously with plenty of food and drink mixed in.

More information can be found at create.nrn.com.

https://create.nrn.com/

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

Subscribe to Our Newsletters
Get the latest breaking news in the industry, analysis, research, recipes, consumer trends, the latest products and more.

You May Also Like