Guest Speaker for 2018

Cheryl Bachelder is a passionate, purpose-led business leader — the former CEO of Popeyes® Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. Cheryl is known for her crisp strategic thinking, a franchisee-focused approach, and superior financial performance. Guided by the servant leadership thinking of Robert Greenleaf, she believes highly-caring, collaborative leaders with big ambitions for the enterprise, not themselves, generate the conditions for people to perform their best work.

Cheryl served as CEO of Popeyes® Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., a NASDAQ traded company with over 2,600 restaurants in 26 countries, from 2007 to 2017. She led the exceptional turnaround of the Popeyes brand, with industry leading employee engagement and franchisee satisfaction. The story of Popeyes success is chronicled in her book, Dare to Serve: How to drive superior results by serving others. During her tenure, Popeyes’ stock price grew from $11 to $64, at which time the board sold the company to Restaurant Brands International Inc. for $1.8 billion dollars or $79 per share in March, 2017.

Cheryl’s earlier career included brand leadership roles at Yum Brands, Domino’s Pizza, RJR Nabisco, The Gillette Company and Procter & Gamble.

Cheryl is a director and compensation committee chair at Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (PIR). She sits on the advisory board of Procter & Gamble’s franchising venture, Tide Dry Cleaners. She is a member of C200, an organization that fosters, celebrates and advances women’s leadership in business. She is active in philanthropy, focusing on the development of strong leaders for non-profit organizations.

Cheryl holds a Bachelor’s and Masters of Business Administration degree from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. She is married 36 years to Chris Bachelder and they have three grown daughters, two terrific son-in-laws, and two handsome grandsons.

You can read more about her perspective on leadership at www.cherylbachelder.com.

Become a Table Host

We are looking for Table Hosts who will commit to reaching out to their coworkers, technology partners and friends here in DFW and invite them to join you at your table. The price to Host a table with 10 seats ranges from $300-$400 depending on the date, so go to our Table Host Sign up Page and submit your information today.

Become a Partner

There are partnership packages available for you to support this event and connect your company to our attendees and supporters. If you want to learn more about being a partner, go to our Partnership Package Page for information.

If you have questions contact us at [email protected].

Merv Tarde Values in Leadership

The Merv Tarde Values in Leadership Circle (MTVLC) is designed to recognize leaders who are boldly living out their faith in Jesus Christ as they serve others in the Technology Community of DFW. In 2016 Mark A. Stone joined Jeffrey Blackwell and Phil Farr in this group of Technology Leaders who modeled Servant Leadership here in the DFW area. Submit our nominations at our submissions page.

Volunteer

There is a place on our planning committee for you. Sign up to volunteer and help us make our 2017 the best yet.

Previous Events

2017 – Our speaker was Onyeka Nchege, CIO of Interstate Batteries. Matt Levy, Paola Saibene, David Stone, and Onyeka Nchege were inducted into the Merv Tarde Values in Leadership Circle.

2016 – We had over 700 people in attendance to hear Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VM Ware, share how he lives out his faith in his personal and professional life. We added Mark A. Stone, CIO for the Texas A&M University System, as the 2017 Merv Tarde Values in Leadership Circle. Visit our Facebook page to see photos from this event.

2015 – Our guest speakers were Todd Stewart of Gulf Wind International and Gary Peek of Rent-A-Center and we more than doubled our attendance from 2014 to see almost 500 people in attendance. Jeff Blackwell and Phil Farr were our first two inductees into the Merv Tarde Values in Leadership Circle. Visit our Facebook page see pictures from our 2015 event.

2014 – Our inaugural event held at the Irving Convention Center. Our guest speakers were Don Cosbie, President of SSIClaimsnet, and Steve Reiter, Executive VP and Chief Revenue Officer for entegra Technologies. We were excited to see over 200 people join us for our first event and excited to see where GOD will take the event in the future. See photos from our first event on our Facebook page.