Hospitality Keynote Speaker For Hotel, Resort, and Hospitality Leaders
Tony DiSilvestro is a hospitality keynote speaker and the owner of the Ynot Italian restaurant group who speaks to hotel companies, hospitality associations, and restaurant leaders about the business side of the guest experience. He shows leaders how to build the standards, managers, and follow-through that keep service consistent when the owner is not on the floor.
Hospitality Keynotes for Restaurant, Foodservice, and Franchise Audiences
Restaurant groups and foodservice organizations each have their own keynote page, because a restaurant operators conference and a distributor's sales meeting need different examples.
Guest Experience Starts as an Operations Question
In a hotel or a restaurant, the brand promise is delivered by whoever is working that shift. When a standard lives only in the owner's head or in one strong manager's habits, it slips on the sold-out Saturday, during a new-hire week, or on the night a manager calls out.
Tony looks at that problem as an owner. He has spent 30 years building more than 30 businesses and leading more than 450 people, and his restaurant group puts him on the same side of the table as the operators in your audience. His keynotes treat consistency as a question of who owns each standard, how it gets taught, and how it gets checked.
- What managers do when the owner is not in the building
- How a standard gets handed from one shift to the next
- Where delegation breaks down in a busy operation
Three Clips to Share With Your Planning Committee
Three short clips of Tony your planning committee can watch before choosing a speaker.
See the Full Speaker Reel →
Six Topics, Weighted for Who Fills Your Seats
Tony's hospitality keynotes draw on six topics from his own companies. Select the group that fills most of your seats to see which topics apply to them most directly.
Standards That Survive the Shift Change
A guest should get the same stay or the same meal on a slow Tuesday and a sold-out Saturday. Tony walks through how to write a standard down, teach it, and check it so it does not depend on which manager is working.
Delegation in a Busy Operation
Hospitality leaders tend to jump in and fix things themselves because it feels faster in the moment. Tony explains the order of delegation that lets owners and GMs hand off work without it coming back half done.
Accountability for New Shift Leaders
Shift leaders are often promoted from the line and asked to hold former coworkers to a standard. Tony gives them a plain way to set expectations and follow up before small misses turn into guest complaints.
Running the Business or Building It
For groups adding a location or a property, Tony separates the owner's role from the entrepreneur's, and names the growth constraints that stall expansion when every decision still routes through one person.
A Brand Vision Staff Can Repeat
A hotel or restaurant brand is only as clear as the way a new hire would describe it. Tony shows how to define the brand in simple terms that the front desk, the servers, and housekeeping can act on without a complicated process.
Back to Day One for Established Operators
Long-running properties drift from what made them work. For a hotel or restaurant that has been open for years, going back to day one means asking again what the guest was promised on opening day and whether today's standards still deliver it.
He brings abundant energy, positivity, and knowledge to the small business community.
A Hotel Keynote Speaker Who Owns a Restaurant Group
Tony is a hospitality leadership speaker who runs a hospitality business. His operating background is his restaurant group and three decades of running companies, which means he talks about labor, guest experience, and margins as problems he has to solve himself.
On Tony D Talks, his interview show, Tony recorded a two-part conversation with Horst Schulze, co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Hotel teams can listen to both episodes before booking.
On the foodservice side, Tony spoke to a 175-person US Foods sales team at PNC Arena. He is also the author of The Business Scaling Blueprint, which covers the systems behind the companies he has built.
Listen to Tony D Talks →
Hospitality Conference Speaker Formats
Tony delivers four session lengths, and each suits a different spot on a hospitality event agenda.
Main‑Stage Keynote
A 30-minute talk for the opening or closing general session of a hospitality conference or an annual owners meeting.
Expanded Session
A 60-minute session for a hotel or restaurant leadership summit.
Interactive Breakout
A 90-minute breakout for general managers and department heads at a hospitality conference.
Half‑Day Workshop
A half-day session for a single hotel or restaurant leadership team.
Workshops →Hospitality Keynote Booking Questions
Hotel and hospitality planners most often ask these questions before booking.
What kinds of hospitality events is this keynote built for?
Hotel company leadership meetings, hospitality association conferences, restaurant group gatherings, and foodservice sales meetings. The talk works for independent operators, multi-location groups, and franchised brands, and Tony adjusts the examples to the segment in the room.
Tony's background is restaurants. Is he a fit for a hotel audience?
Yes. The problems he speaks to, such as standards that hold across shifts, managers who can run their department, delegation, and accountability, look the same at a hotel front desk as they do in a dining room. Tony has also interviewed Horst Schulze, co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, on Tony D Talks.
Can one keynote work for owners and shift leaders in the same room?
Yes. The topics cover both sides of the business: owners hear about delegation and growth, and managers and shift leaders hear about holding a standard on every shift.
What session lengths are available?
Tony delivers 30-minute main-stage keynotes, 60-minute expanded sessions, 90-minute interactive breakouts, and half-day workshops. Groups that want help after the event can follow up with business scaling consulting.
How far in advance should we book?
For hospitality conferences, Tony's team recommends reaching out three to nine months before the event. Send your date even if it is sooner, and his team will check his calendar.
Book Tony for Your Hotel or Restaurant Event
Tell Tony's team about your hotel, restaurant, or association event, and they will reply with his availability for your date.
- The date and host city of your hospitality event
- How many owners, managers, and shift leaders will attend
- Whether the room is hotel, restaurant, or foodservice
- The session length that fits your agenda
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Prefer to reach out another way? Contact Tony's team →