Wendy Davidson, chair of the Women’s Foodservice Forum, opened the 2016 Leadership Development Conference.

“Being a trailblazer might just be the most important role that any of us can play,” Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, said Sunday after receiving the Women’s Foodservice Forum’s Trailblazer Award at the opening general session of the Women’s Foodservice Forum’s Leadership Development Conference. 

The Fritzi Pikes Woods Trailblazer Award, which was renamed in 2014 to honor the WFF’s late CEO, is given to an individual who has shown dedication to improving the foodservice industry through support of gender diversity; creating new pathways for women in their company and the industry at large; and implementing those pathways at all levels of their organization.

Rob Dugas (left), Chick-fil-A’s chief procurement officer, and team members Sonya Leathers, administrator supply chain, and Jessica Jones, food safety specialist, accept the Leader Engagement Award Sunday at the opening general session of the Women’s Foodservice Forum’s Leadership Development Conference. Katherine Hammett (right), the WFF’s vice president and chief learning officer, holds the award.

Wendy Davidson, new chair of the Women’s Foodservice Forum’s board, and Hattie Hill, WFF president and CEO, thanked current and retiring board members Sunday at the opening general session.

“Fear and failure had to become my best friends,” said Nely Galan, founder of The Adelante Movement, of her own entrepreneurship journey at the Women’s Foodservice Forum’s Entrepreneur Boot Camp on Sunday. The Adelante Movement aims to further Latina-owned business.

“We need to reach out that hand and help the next generation coming into our businesses,” said Ann Compton, the retired ABC television White House correspondent, in addressing WFF attendees at Sunday’s opening general session.

“When we decided to start the very first conference, no one knew who to call. So I started calling our vendor partners, and two of them asked me: ‘Are you going to burn your bras?’” recalled founding WFF member Julia Stewart (center), now CEO of DineEquity Inc., citing a historic protest action “that was a thing a long, long time ago.” 

Stewart made the recollection at the general session with first-conference organizer Pat Harris (left), global chief diversity officer for McDonald’s Corp., and Hattie Hill, WFF’s president and CEO.

James Pogue, an expert on Generation Z, said employers, in the process of hiring members of that generation, should look for passion first and then train for talent. He spoke Sunday during the Women’s Foodservice Forum’s Entrepreneur Boot Camp.