David Bagley is Investment Director for EMERGING. He has over thirty years of experience in corporate finance, operations management, profit improvement consulting, and financial advisory services specializing in franchise and the restaurant and hospitality industries. He has been recognized nationally for his work and won recognition for Turnaround of the Year and separately, M&A Advisor for Sale of the Year. Dave has managed or advised a variety of multiunit companies throughout his career including Popeyes, Santa Fe Cattle Company, The Clubhouse, Restaurants America, Bar Louie, Granite City Food & Brewery, Sonic Drive-In, Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken, Burger King, Restaurants Unlimited, and Giordano’s. He has served as CFO, COO and CEO, including both public and private boards.

Mathew is the Founding Managing Partner of EMERGING. He has a passion for helping best in class restaurant and entertainment operators onto growing as recognized national leader in their category. Mathew has served hundreds of restaurant–entertainment founders and CEOs. Mathew is founder of EMERGING, Emerging Concepts, Consolidated Concepts, Acutely, and FB Insights. During his 25+ year career, he has led the growth of numerous early-stage concepts and technology investments to national scale.

Mathew has created operating companies that focus on capital, real estate, supply chain, technology, and reducing operating cost. Mathew has worked with following restaurants and entertainment concepts; Puttshack, F1 Arcade, Flight Club, Blue Sushi, Federales, Silverspot Cinema, Pour House, City Works, Doc B’s, The PUB, Levity Live, Improv Comedy Club, Bar Louie, Cheesecake Factory, Brio, Bravo, Blue Martini, Hyde Park Steakhouse, Lucky Strike, Houston’s, and many other restaurant and entertainment concepts.

Prior, Mathew was Vice President or Executive of RKF Retail Property Advisors, Sierra Advisors, Pyramid Companies, and Steiner & Associates providing comprehensive leasing, marketing, and consulting services to developers and emerging chains.

Mathew earned a Masters of Business Administration in Finance and Real Estate and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

Tim began his career as physicist, then ultimately building mathematical real estate models for McDonalds. He has 28 years of building the most advanced predictable models in real estate, site selection, sales projection, and cannibalization. His experiences include McDonalds, Chipotle, Boston Market, Redbox, and most recently Puttshack, Flight Club, Immersive Gamebox, Biscuit Belly, and many more emerging concepts.

Nate recently joined as an Associate at Emerging Concepts, focusing on market research, leasing, and national tenant representation. He graduated from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business with a major in Finance and International Business. Nate also spent time studying in China and Spain during his education.

As Partner, EVP in the Chicago office, Robert focuses on national tenant representation, new development consulting and strategic capital partnerships.

Since joining EMERGING he has played an integral role in the fundraising, data science and national growth strategy for early to mid-stage restaurants and entertainment concepts in the US and UK.

Robert has been a crucial component in building the national tenant representation group by partnering with teams of data scientists as well as managing real estate brokerages in major markets across the US.

Robert earned his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Indiana University and Master of Science in Real Estate Finance from Depaul University, Chicago. He holds his real estate license in Florida and Illinois and is an active member of ICSC and CCIM.

Prior to joining EMERGING Robert worked at R.J O’Brien as well as Milliman FRM.

Spending the majority of his career in hospitality, Alan brings extensive experience and knowledge in fundamental business facets including real estate, data analytics/site selection, supply chain, operations, marketing, and technology. Inherently entrepreneurial, Alan has been a cornerstone in building the EMERGING family of companies. Over the years, Alan has worked closely with hundreds of leading restaurant and entertainment groups throughout the country; consulting on creating strategic real-estate expansion plans, fundraising, and building supply chain infrastructures. Alan deploys a dynamic understanding of both growth and operations; having been instrumental in creating back-of-house efficiencies and reducing cost through negotiating distribution agreements, manufacturer contracts, and implementing technologies to help optimize day-to-day operations. Alan holds a degree from Depaul University in History/Pre-Law and Hospitality Management and Leadership. He holds his real estate license in Illinois and is an active member of ICSC.

Megan Kazlow is a Director at Emerging Concepts, and focuses on national tenant representation strategy and leasing. Since joining Emerging Concepts, Megan has played an integral role in national growth strategy for early entertainment and restaurant concepts from both the US and UK.

Megan earned a BBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double major in Real Estate & Urban Land Economics and Marketing. She holds her real estate license in Illinois and Wisconsin and is an active member of ICSC. Megan is an Associate Market Director for the Illinois Region of the Wisconsin Real Estate Alumni Association and is also a mentor in the Wisconsin Real Estate Student Mentorship Program.

Prior to joining EMERGING, Megan worked at EY, a big-four accounting firm, in their Transaction Real Estate group, performing commercial valuations in almost every asset class including, hotels, industrial, medical, and retail.

Amy has extensive real estate industry experience working closely with small businesses to build and maintain the most effective accounting systems and strategies. In 2017, she was awarded LinkedIn's Profinder Best of Accounting Consultants

Luis Lara works with some of the top concepts and private equity firms in the restaurant industry. He is responsible for identifying opportunities for restaurant companies to reduce cost and improve their profitability. Luis has helped clients add millions of dollars to their bottom line without disrupting the restaurant’s operations or affecting quality or the integrity of the brand.

Prior to joining Emerging, Luis worked for a top Illinois financial institution, BMO Harris Bank, and for two of the leading technology companies in Chicago, Careerbuilder and Belly. Luis graduated from the business school at Elmhurst College with a double major in International Business and Finance.

Jack Neill is an Associate at Emerging Concepts, with responsibility for national tenant representation, market research, and supporting all members of the EC team. Jack has worked hand in hand with some of the industry's best restaurant and entertainment concepts including: Puttshack, F1 Arcade, Museum of Ice Cream, BRKTHROUGH, Sandbox VR, and more. Prior to joining Emerging, Jack interned for a large owner and operator of multifamily real estate. Jack graduated from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business earning a Bachelor's of Science in Business with a double major in Finance and Real Estate. He holds a real estate license in the state of Illinois.

Fernando is a Sr. Developer at Tipzyy, responsible for maintaining, improving Tipzyy's IT infrastructure and bringing new features into life. He was in charge of moving Tipzyy from an outdated monolith to microservices, pushing Tipzyy's infrastructure and scaling capabilities to a new level. Grew up in Venezuela where he studied to graduate as Systems Engineer in 2012. He's always been fond of innovative solutions for everyday problems. Has a strong passion for cars, motorcycles and horsepower.

Hudson joined Tipzyy three years ago as it's first employee! As COO, he manages the product development and operations teams. He uses his extensive background in team building and project management to deliver high quality products and customer service to Tipzyy clients.

Hudson has held senior roles at leading interactive companies and gamification for over 20 years. He has managed multiple Mobile Gaming Groups and responsible for client management and overall direction of several apps in parallel. Has extensive history with product vision, client coordination and project management for games, educational apps and consumer branded mobile apps.

Jim is the Senior Vice President of Acutely. He is started his career at McDonald’s in 1973 with the primary responsibility to develop statistical and mathematical models to predict new store sales volumes. Starting as a single person department, Jim’s career expanded to his final position as Senior Vice President, Global Development.

Clarissa is a seasoned copywriter with 10 years of experience writing engaging advertising copy for e-commerce businesses, SAAS, and the hospitality industry. Clarissa specializes in writing creative product copy and loves to make words dance.

Amanda is a recent member of the Emerging Concepts team responsible for National Tenant Rep & Market research.

Her career history is in office leasing and working with hospitality groups in Chicago on the marketing and design front. Graduate from Illinois State University with a major in English Communications/ minor in Psych.

With over 12 years of experience in start-ups and publicly traded companies, Hilary has a proven track record in scaling businesses, driving strategic projects, and negotiating successful deals. Her experiences are across a range of start ups and publicly traded companies such as Grubhub, Just Eat Takeaway, Choco, Tapingo as well as consulting for many startups on their Go-to-Market strategy. Hilary has led and assisted with BD deals with large companies like: Aramark, Sodexo, Starbucks, and Chick-fil-A, Bacardi, and ABI. She has extensive experience negotiating and providing great outcomes in gaming, sports, alcohol, food supply chain, logistics, and restaurants.

Throughout his near 20 year Real Estate and Hospitality career Steve has represented best in class multi concept chef driven, corporate, franchised and emerging food and beverage concepts on a regional and national level. Steve has seamlessly implemented strategic development growth plans for his clients by drawing on his his extensive knowledge of the restaurant business, operations and industry trends.

Expertise include an in-depth understanding of an operators business, market and date analysis, site selection, negotiation and relationships with developers and restaurant service providers. He is dedicated to building a true business advantage for his clients by engaging, managing and overseeing the master brokerage model. Steve has also consulted for developers in curating their food and beverage merchandise mix.

Steve’s has been involved in a wide range of asset classes across the US that include mixed use projects, emerging urban neighborhoods, suburban lifestyle centers, land and CBD street retail. His range of representation of restaurant concepts include Multi Unit/Concept Chef Driven, National QSR’s/Fast Casuals, Casual/Polished National Dining and Breweries. Steve’s approach is meticulous, innovative, relentless in pursuing the best markets and locations whilst always reviewing their return on investment. He has a proven track record of long term strategic planning, client retention and closing of deals, Prior to joining EMERGING Steve worked at Colliers International, Goodman Real Estate Group and most recently as part of CBRE’s Restaurant Practice Group where he focused on restaurant tenant representation and consultation

Steve grew up in the UK and graduated with a Hospitality Degree from The University of Salford, Manchester.

Noah’s passion for food & beverage goes back to his childhood, whether enjoying great home cooked meals or experiencing delicious food while traveling with my family, the love began early.

Noah has spent the entirety of his professional career tied to F&B in one capacity or another. First, on the operator side overseeing and developing several successful beverage programs across at some prominent Chicago restaurants. He then stepped over to the distributor side, selling wine and spirits; growing his business 3x. Most recently, Noah joins us from Pernod-Ricard, where he worked 3 years as a market manager bringing sales and marketing programs alive in both the on and off premise.

Noah grew up in La Paz, Bolivia and holds two degrees; one in Business Administration and the other in International Relations from Beloit College.

He is excited to bring his entrepreneurial spirit and drive to the Tipzyy and Emerging team.

Veronica has extensive experience building brands nationwide and creating comprehensive sales-driving solutions in the beverage industry. After completing her MBA, Veronica spent eight years working in the advertising agency world creating award-winning campaigns across channels. Her business background coupled with her creative experience fuel her passion for innovative strategy and technology.