Joe Essa has spent more than three decades running restaurant companies, not advising them from the outside. He has served as President & CEO of Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, President & CEO of the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, and Chief Operating Officer of Gordon Ramsay North America, building and scaling global brands across fine dining, licensed concepts, catering, and consumer foodservice.

He is also a Certified Public Accountant. That is the unusual part. It means he can sit in a diligence meeting and a kitchen on the same day, read the model and the operation, and tell an investor which of the two is lying. Sponsors typically hire two people to do what Joe does alone.

Joe is a past Chairman and active board member of the National Restaurant Association, where he led the industry's national board. He has also served as a court-appointed receiver, trusted by a court with an asset in dispute, a standard of independence and rigor well beyond consulting.

Through MKM Hospitality Group, he now brings that combination to investors, boards, and management teams. His current work includes leading Golden Corral Corporation's long-term strategic growth initiative, serving as Managing Director of a 13-concept airport food-and-beverage program he won and financed, and conducting diligence for private equity sponsors evaluating foodservice platforms.

He takes on a small number of engagements each year, and structures them so that his outcome tracks the investor's.