Predicting the future with Denny Marie Post

From Yum! Brands to Burger King to Starbucks to Red Robin to Nextbite

Expedite’s Women in Restaurant Tech column highlights exceptional women in our industry and the ideas, platforms, companies, and technology that will change the future of hospitality. Representation matters!

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Denny Post knows the restaurant business. In her decades-long career, she’s held high-powered roles at plenty of them, including years as CEO of Red Robin. She sits on five company boards, including Bluestone Lane and P.F. Chang’s. And last June, she was named co-president of virtual brand company Nextbite, where she served as an advisor for close to a year. 

“I believe if you’re not evolving, you’re preparing to die,” she told me in a recent interview. 

You could say the same for the restaurant business. 

From 2016 to 2019, Post led suburban burger chain Red Robin, a place she described accurately as “one of those places you can take a three-year-old who may not be on their best behavior.” 

When she left the organization, she said in a statement, “We made great strides evolving the brand and have a strategy in place which will ensure Red Robin serves generations of families for years to come,” which is the sort of thing you expect to hear from an outgoing CEO. At the time, Post was just one of two women in the top office at a publicly held, Colorado-based company, per the Denver Post.

A few years later, the restaurant veteran is co-leading a virtual brand company, overseeing its marketing, operations, and culinary innovation. “It’s the intellectual challenge of my lifetime,” she said of the Nextbite role.