Michele Ardoni

International QSR & Foodservice Ambassador at Experviser

Speaker

Michele Ardoni is an Italian entrepreneur, investor, and strategic advisor with more than twenty years of experience in the international foodservice and retail industries. Based in Milan, after two decades of professional work across Eastern Europe and India, he brings a global and execution-driven perspective to brand growth, franchising, and operational strategy.

Throughout his career, Michele has supported restaurant and retail groups in transforming ideas into scalable business models. He has led market entries, format creation, and restructuring projects for quick-service and casual-dining operators, guiding their evolution from concept stage to mature multi-unit organizations.

In the early 2000s, he developed Italy’s first temporary and “on-the-move” restaurant formats—pop-up and travel-retail solutions that reshaped convenience dining. He also designed the first franchising format for a public-administration initiative, creating a replicable operational model for community water stations that combined environmental and social value with sustainable business logic.

Recognized as a key reference figure in Italy for the Ghost Kitchen and Cloud Kitchen sector, Michele has been an early advocate of digital transformation in foodservice—helping operators redefine business models, integrate delivery-native operations, and design digital customer journeys that enhance both efficiency and guest experience.

As an advisor, he has guided health-focused and plant-based restaurant concepts from startup to national scale, supporting international market entry, franchising frameworks, and governance design. His investment activity focuses on emerging restaurant chains that align innovation with ethical and sustainable values—brands in which he personally identifies and contributes to long-term strategic development.

Beyond advisory work, Michele is a regular speaker and educator on restaurant innovation, digital transformation, and franchising. He collaborates with executive training programs and professional academies to deliver sessions on cloud kitchens, scalable operations, and next-generation foodservice ecosystems.

Today, he supports international brands entering the Italian market and Italian operators pursuing cross-border expansion, combining analytical rigor with hands-on execution to build growth models that last.