The “Wow” Factor: Guest Experience That Turns One Order Into a Regular

Claudie Newman is a hospitality leader with more than 20 years of experience in food and beverage, event sales, private dining and catering. Her career has taken her from South Africa to Las Vegas, and San Francisco and Washington, DC, where she has focused on driving growth and innovation for multiple nationally recognized restaurant brands. Claudie currently leads catering sales for New York Based Founders-Table, the company behind: Chopt Creative Salad Co. and Dos Toros Taqueria. Claudie is focused on strengthening brand reputation and sales to deliver a best-in-class catering product that continues to expand in step with her company's rapid growth.

Dipesh Patel is a strategic operations and brand leader with over a decade of experience driving growth across the restaurant and foodservice industry. He currently serves as Vice President of Driver Operations at Meals Now, where he oversees driver staffing, recruitment marketing, and delivery quality standards. Prior to Meals Now, Dipesh held senior leadership roles spanning some of the industry's most recognized brands: as Vice President of Catering & Off-Premise at Steele Brands, he directed digital and off-premise strategy for the CRISP & GREEN and PURALIMA brands; as Sr. Manager of Off-Premises Strategy at CAVA, he led catering, first-party, and third-party delivery businesses, growing digital sales revenue by approximately $100 million; and at Inspire Brands, he led off-premise brand experience and value strategy for Buffalo Wild Wings, including the national launch of the Buffalo Wild Wings GO® brand.

Becca Ridgway is a hospitality and catering professional with more than a decade of experience across restaurant operations, catering sales, and multi-unit growth. After eight years with honeygrow, Becca helped grow the brand from 27 to 79 locations while building its catering department from the ground up. Today, she serves as Director of Catering & Sales at NAYA, leading catering strategy across sales and operations. Becca believes sustainable catering growth starts with the foundation: strong operations, well-trained teams, and the right systems to deliver a consistent guest experience. Her approach combines operational strategy, sales, and relationship building to develop the infrastructure needed to make catering growth repeatable, scalable, and built for the long term.

Kelly Tranfaglia is a Catering District Manager with Tatte Bakery & Cafe, overseeing catering operations across the Boston and Washington, D.C. markets. She brings more than 20 years of leadership experience, including five years focused specifically on catering operations, team development, and business growth. Kelly is passionate about building strong teams, creating efficient operations, and growing catering businesses while never losing sight of the guest experience. Her experience is rooted in high volume, drop off and corporate catering, giving her a practical perspective on how to balance sales growth, operational execution, food quality, and profitability. A recipient of Tatte’s Founders Award, Kelly especially enjoys developing leaders, solving operational challenges, and sharing the lessons both successes and opportunities that come with growing a catering business.