Food and beverage keynote speaker
Shelves and apps are crowded. Guests choose the brand that feels human.
Real rooms. Real people. Real change.
Everyone now has the same AI, the same data and the same tools.
The only difference left is your people.
Kiosks take the order, apps deliver the meal and a store brand copies your recipe within a season.
The brands that keep growing are the ones guests can still put a face to.
When the order comes through a delivery platform, the platform owns the relationship and your kitchen becomes a supplier. Winning the guest back takes a reason to choose you that no app can list.
In restaurants, plants and on delivery routes, someone new is always learning the job. People stay where they feel they matter, and guests can taste the difference.
Next to your label stand forty others and a private label at a lower price. Buyers, operators and distributors back the brands whose people they trust.
Food, beverage and guest-service brands that trusted me, among others
Whether they run a pass, a route or a brand, one of these is on their mind.
Will a machine do my job?
The better the machines get, the more your people will set you apart.
Why it lands with food & beverage audiences: AI now forecasts covers, suggests menu prices and takes drive-thru orders. This shows operators, chefs and brand teams the human work that keeps guests loyal, from reading a table to standing behind a product when something goes wrong.
Why does someone else get chosen?
What your people know rarely gets them chosen. What others see in them does.
Why it lands with food & beverage audiences: guests, buyers and operators decide in seconds whether to trust a brand, a server or a sales rep. This shows your teams how the five dimensions, from the apron and the plate to the review page and the dining room, decide who gets chosen.
My corporate years ended at the head of the leadership academy of Europe’s largest retail and tourism group, a business that lived on how guests were treated. I know how fast a service standard fades between the training room and a Friday dinner rush.
Before your event, I work side by side with your team to understand your people: general managers, chefs, distributor reps, brand managers. Then I use your concepts, your products and your guest moments on stage instead of generic restaurant stories.
I can open a restaurant group leadership summit, kick off a CPG food sales meeting or close your franchisee convention, in person or hybrid for teams who cannot leave the kitchen. I schedule around service hours, so morning sessions, short after-lunch slots and dinner keynotes all work.
Your teams create experiences for guests every day. The 3D immersive keynote gives them one of their own, with holograms on stage, at the operator conference or brand summit you want remembered.
Food and beverage events bring operators, suppliers and brand builders together who rarely share a room. The keynote has to speak to the chef and the CFO at once.
No slides, no pre-recorded hologram beamed in from somewhere else.
I stay live in the room while your leaders, sponsors and theme step into the story.
How clients describe it, in their own words.
How clients make it their own.
Italian in my kitchen, guest service in my career. I help food and beverage teams stay the brand guests ask for by name.
I’m Sylvie di Giusto. Austrian by birth, French in my heart and Italian in my kitchen, so food is never just food to me. My corporate years ended at the head of the leadership academy of Europe’s largest retail and tourism group, a business that rose and fell with how guests were treated. Today I’m a CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame keynote speaker, and among others, Nespresso, Hilton, Henkel or the Columbia Tower Club trusted me with their people. Food and beverage teams can spot a fake in one bite. I bring them ideas they can use at the next service, the next buyer meeting or the next launch.
In their words, not ours.
This was the BEST presentation we had during this meeting and that I have ever experienced. There was so much value in what you left with us. I think you have taught me something that will stick with me forever and that I will be able to share with others in and out of work.
Sylvie was a pleasure to work with from the very start. She was responsive, well priced and accommodating to come into the office and meet with our team a few times. She exemplifies the characteristics that she teaches.
It couldn’t have gone better! With her high energy style and sense of humor, she quickly had everyone’s attention. She showed us how we assess, and judge people based on just a few seconds of visual contact. But it went even deeper into other concepts around our motivations, our self-perception and how it impacts those crucial first seconds when meeting someone new. The interactive exercise engaged everyone as part of the program, not simply as the listening audience. She was a gem and I highly recommend Sylvie and her program in today’s return to work business environment.
In 27 years of planning conferences and hearing thousands of speakers, it’s truly rare to be enlightened and moved by one. I heard Sylvie di Giusto speak recently and she blew me away.
The Power of Choice is built on my book The Image of Leadership, and its Hospitality edition, with a foreword by Matt Kyle Schechter of NYC Tourism + Conventions, speaks straight to anyone who serves guests. Restaurants, bars and food brands live by the same rule: guests choose people before they choose the menu.
It shows operators, servers and brand teams how appearance, behavior, communication, digital presence and environment decide whether a guest trusts them, orders again and tells friends. Some clients put a copy on every seat to keep the conversation going after the event.
Kiosks, delivery apps and AI drive-thru ordering mean many guests never meet a person from your brand. Forever Human shows operators where the human touch still decides whether a guest comes back.
Readers learn to let technology carry the routine while their crews own the moments that build loyalty, from a remembered order to a mistake made right. Many operators give a copy to every attendee at their meeting, so the ideas reach each kitchen and dining room.
Sylvie di Giusto is a CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame keynote speaker whose clients include Nespresso, Hilton or Henkel, among others. Her keynotes, Forever Human and The Power of Choice, show restaurant, foodservice and food brand teams how to stay the people and the brands guests choose. Each one is customized to your concepts and your event theme.
The Power of Choice fits restaurant groups focused on guest experience, because it shows how guests judge a server, a dining room and a brand in seconds. Forever Human fits leaders rolling out kiosks, AI ordering and automated kitchens, because it shows where people still make the difference. Many operators book The Power of Choice for general managers and Forever Human for their executive team.
Yes. Sylvie di Giusto’s Forever Human keynote addresses what happens to guest loyalty when apps, kiosks and AI take over ordering. It shows restaurant teams how to protect the human moments that make guests ask for a brand by name, even when the meal arrives in a paper bag.
Sylvie di Giusto’s The Power of Choice works well for foodservice distributors and packaged food sales teams, because operators and retail buyers choose suppliers they trust when products look alike. The keynote shows reps and account managers how five dimensions of trust decide who wins the account, the menu placement and the shelf.
Sylvie di Giusto helps restaurant and foodservice leaders show their crews why they matter, which is where engagement starts. Her keynotes focus on what makes each person irreplaceable to guests and colleagues, with examples customized to your concepts, so managers walk away with a shared language for the conversations that keep good people.
Yes. Both keynotes are available in person, hybrid or virtual, which helps when general managers cannot leave their restaurants during service. Every version is customized to your audience and theme.
Yes. Sylvie works with speaker bureaus around the world and is glad to book through the bureau your team already relies on.
I also serve audiences in hospitality & travel, retail and events & meetings industry. See every audience I speak to.
Dates, formats, the 3D experience and logistics for your event.
