Clay Dover

CEO at SAVORY

Speaker

Clay Dover is a purpose-driven restaurant executive with 35+ years of experience building iconic brands, scaling high-performance teams, and delivering exceptional shareholder value. As CEO of Savory Fund, he leads a private equity platform singularly focused on acquiring and accelerating emerging restaurant brands with the potential to become household names. Savory's portfolio-wide "Savory System" brings repeatable operational excellence, infrastructure, and strategic capital to bear across a curated collection of high-growth concepts — giving brands the runway and resources to scale without losing what makes them special.

Before Savory, Clayton's career spans some of the industry's most recognized growth stories. He served as CEO of Metromedia Restaurant Group, overseeing 700+ restaurants and $1.7B in sales across multiple global brands. As President & CMO of Raising Cane's, he helped grow the brand from 62 to 232 locations while building the culture that drives its expansion today. As CMO of Pei Wei, he led a brand transformation that resulted in a strategic sale within 18 months. Most recently as President & CEO of Velvet Taco, he established and scaled the industry-leading brand from 4 to 54 locations and executed a sale to Leonard Green Partners.

Clay is a voice in the industry named to NRN Top Influential CEO List from 2020 to 2023 and recognized as a 2024 and 2025 Fast Casual Top 25 Mover & Shaker. He serves on the Texas Restaurant Association Board and has held leadership roles with the National Restaurant Association's Fast Casual Industry Council and Marketing Executives Board.