Multiple award-winning Terry Frishman (MBA, Columbia Business School), Founder, Culinest, has over 20 years of experience helping entrepreneurs strengthen their concepts and move their businesses forward with strategic and tactical assistance. She began her food career managing a $120 million brand and launching a profitable-within-1-year $20 million product line for Kraft General Foods (now Kraft Heinz), where she won six team awards and ran brainstorming sessions.

Through Culinest, a New York-based boutique consultancy, Terry takes food businesses to the next level with consulting and education. Aspiring entrepreneurs and established companies successfully launch and grow their food businesses with Culinest’s help — from brainstorming, strategy, branding and marketing to research, PR and sales. Clients have gone on to win Vendy and sofi awards, increase sales and profitably expand, and have included Sarabeth’s, Sylvia’s, Crepini, Chocolat Moderne, Nuchas Empanadas and The Lobster Place.

Terry has been a repeat guest speaker on Food Network, for the Specialty Food Association and the International Restaurant Show, and regularly teaches business classes, seminars and workshops. She is in the Society of Fellows for the Culinary Institute of America, a KIVA Trustee, and has served as President of the Roundtable for Women in Foodservice (NY) and VP for both the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance and the International Wine & Food Society (NY).

Missy Koo: Inspired by the creative energy of the beloved borough in which they both live, Missy and her business partner Stacy Cole named their endeavor Brooklyn Piggies to tackle a simple goal: take America’s favorite hors d’oeuvre and make it better… Way better! Since launching in 2012, Brooklyn Piggies has been met with immediate success, becoming a 2x Oprah Winfrey Favorite pick, landing a feature on NBC’s Today Show and placements on menus as far reaching as Madison Square Garden to the AirForce Base in Okinawa, Japan. These days when Missy and Stacy serve their guests, they are still surrounded by happy hordes.

Sara Meyer: A candied jalapeño connoisseur, a former TV sound technician, and now founder of Little Bird Kitchen, Sara Meyer started a food blog and tried her hand at candying, eventually going after a leftover bag of jalapeños. They were such a hit with friends and co-workers that she ​ran ​home to tell husband​,​ and ​now ​co-founder, Corey Meyer, that they were starting a business. The duo took their new venture from their home kitchen to a food incubator in Long Island City, NY, where Little Bird Kitchen really started to take off. Today, Sara leads most of the operations including recipe development, ingredient sourcing, equipment research and more.​ Little Bird Kitchen has its own facility in Plainview, NY.