VC-backed NoWait adds two VPs to team

NoWait, which is backed by Drive Capital and Birchmere Ventures, has named Jim Duddy as vice president of sales and Adam Gerson as vice president of operations. Both will be based in New York City. Previously, Duddy was a senior vice president of sales for Jibe and a director of sales at LinkedIn while Gerson worked at Hailo where he served as general manager. Based in Pittsburgh and New York City, NoWait is a mobile network for casual dining restaurants.

PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK (January 12, 2015) – – NoWait, the first and only mobile network for casual-dining restaurants, today announced the appointments of Jim Duddy as Vice President of Sales, and Adam Gerson as Vice President of Operations. Leveraging a recent $10 million investment from Drive Capital, NoWait created the new positions as part of its strategy to grow its restaurant and consumer network, ramp up engineering, and optimize the guest experience and restaurant operations through new products and services. Both executives joined NoWait last week and will be based in the New York City office.

“Since raising our Series B round with Drive Capital last May, we have been focused on growing our network faster and developing richer features such as reservations and guest data, especially since recently seating our 100 millionth guest,” said Ware Sykes, CEO, NoWait. “Best-in-class hospitality requires best-in-class leadership, and I am delighted to welcome Jim and Adam at a time when NoWait is well-positioned to expand our national footprint in significant ways.”

Duddy will focus on increasing NoWait’s lead in penetrating the casual-dining restaurant market. He has deep experience building high-performance sales organizations at high-growth companies and, most recently, served as Senior Vice President of Sales for recruitment-marketing platform Jibe, and Director of Sales for six years at LinkedIn – both pre-and post-IPO. Duddy started his career at staffing company Allegis Group, at which he spearheaded teams under its umbrella, including TEKsystems and Mentor 4. He holds a B.S. from Seton Hall University.

Responsible for building out NoWait’s operations to help support growth, Gerson leaves his post as General Manager at Hailo, a global mobile platform that matches drivers with passengers. Previously, he led operations for Efficiency 2.0 (acquired by C3 Energy), provided management consulting for Katzenbach Partners (acquired by Booz & Co.), and also served on a special task force at the Federal Communications Commission. Earlier in his career, Gerson counseled social entrepreneurs through his global work at New Sector Alliance and Ashoka. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a BA from Harvard University.

As the first and only mobile network for the casual-dining market, NoWait has increased the number of diners seated monthly to 10 million, and has on-boarded more than 1,000 restaurants to its consumer app since launching nationally less than a year ago. For its restaurant partners, NoWait helps them replace traditional pen-and-paper and buzzers with its full front-of-house, iPad-based system. Guests use NoWait’s consumer-facing application to view a list of nearby restaurants and real-time wait times, enabling them to join wait lists remotely from their mobile phones. Current NoWait customers include major national chains such as Chili’s, First Watch, and On The Border, as well as popular independent hotspots like Jose Garces’ Village Whiskey, Marc Vetri’s Pizzeria Vetri, and Hubert Keller’s Burger Bar.

About NoWait:
With offices in New York City and Pittsburgh, NoWait is backed by Drive Capital and Birchmere Ventures. The NoWait guest app is a complementary extension of the NoWait host app, which currently is used in casual-dining restaurants across the country, including major national chains such as Chili’s, First Watch, On The Border, and Buffalo Wild Wings, as well as popular independent hotspots like Jose Garces’ Village Whiskey, Marc Vetri’s Pizzeria Vetri, and Hubert Keller’s Burger Bar. To date, NoWait has seated more than 101 million diners and regularly seats more than 10 million diners every month. For more information, visit nowait.com, follow @NoWaitApp and like it on Facebook at facebook.com/nowaitapp. The app is available for Android, as well as iOS.
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