Taylor Ceithaml

Taylor has more than 10 years of professional experience in the hospitality and leisure industry, driving process improvement, growth strategy, and operations-planning initiatives. She joined AlixPartners' Restaurant, Hospitality, & Leisure practice in 2022, prior to which she held various management and engineering roles at Costco Wholesale and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts.

Through close client partnerships and a strong analytical foundation, Taylor has successfully driven change by focusing on revenue growth through pricing and menu innovation, operational efficiency improvement, demand planning, new product development, and international expansion strategies. 

Key Engagements:

• Developed next-generation menu for large national casual dining chain, simplifying core menu offerings and operational complexity while driving over $35M in EBITDA.
• Improved CDR chain's off-premise channel profitability by $20M through pricing, packaging costs, and third-party delivery partner commission renegotiations.
• Optimized labor, operational hours, and entertainment offerings while balancing the guest experience; result was 16% savings for a large theme park resort with minimal guest impact.
• Identified ~$20M synergies from regional convenience store mergers from merchandising opportunities and field labor consolidation.
• Managed 4-walls operational efficiency program at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World's Epcot, focused on labor reductions and service improvements.
• Supported design and technical delivery of new digital product for theme park group, thereby optimizing the guest experience and generating an estimated $300M in annual revenue.
• Developed the strategy for Costco Wholesale's successful expansions in China and the European Union; managed transformation of European distribution network including vendor selection and IT system development.
• Identified $20M in gross margin through SKU reductions and $5M in inventory optimization savings at a large food and beverage company.
• Led theme park capacity and demand planning, including annual forecasts, park hours planning, holiday restricted-access support, expansion labor analyses, and new ticketed event design.