Author: Mathew Focht

Mathew D. Focht is the CEO of EMERGING.

Mathew has a passion for helping grow best in class restaurant and entertainment operators into national leaders in their categories by optimizing them for sustainable growth and profitability. Emerging is a platform that elevates restaurant and entertainment concepts to be among the top in the industry.

His services include creating strategic growth plans, site analytics, data science, negotiations, securing real estate sites, financial analysis, capital raises, proforma building, cost sensitivity analysis, and feasibility studies. The family of companies includes Emerging Concepts, Acutely, Tipzyy, Restaurantrak, and Emerging Capital Partners. Mathew is co-founder and Chief Strategic Officer of Consolidated Concepts, today’s largest restaurant purchasing partner supporting over 400 chains with reducing food costs and providing procurement solutions.

Mathew has worked with hundreds of restaurant and entertainment concepts including; Silverspot Cinema, Craveable Markets, Acebounce, Flight Club, Puttshack, Blue Sushi, Pour House, City Works, Doc B’s, The PUB, Levity Live, Improv Comedy Club, AZN, TAPS, Flip Side, 3 Palms, Blue Lemon, Adobe Gilas, Bar Louie, Concepts America, Devons Seafood, Houlihans, Cheesecake Factory, Brio, Bravo, McCormick & Schmick, Blue Martini, Hyde Park Steakhouse, BICE, Lucky Strike, and many more.

Prior to Emerging, Mathew was a Principal at Sierra Advisors and Vice President of RKF Retail Property Advisors providing comprehensive leasing, marketing, and consulting services to owners and developers of malls, lifestyle centers, and mixed-use projects. He was responsible for securing national expansion sites for over a dozen top restaurant and entertainment chains and executing leasing of the restaurant tenant mix for hundreds of thousands of square feet around the U.S. Prior to RKF, Mathew was with Pyramid Companies and Steiner & Associates where he was responsible for leasing the firm’s superior-regional mall redevelopments and mixed-use lifestyle projects.

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. He is a member of International Council of Shopping Centers, National Restaurant Association, and Chicago Leadership Alliance.