About Me
I grew up on the mean streets of Montreal. From age 6, I spent my summers in relative indentured servitude working at my aunt and uncle’s hotel in upstate New York washing dishes, hauling suitcases and pouring coffee. When I turned 18, I decided to wander and moved to Switzerland to study hotel and restaurant management at the Ecole Hôtelière in Lausanne. With students from over 40 countries, I was fortunate to get to share the cost of gas and travel throughout Europe, as well as save my catering pay for “educational tours” of North Africa and Southeast Asia.
When I completed my 4-year program, I moved to California and joined Hyatt Hotels where I worked every conceivable management position. After 4 years with Hyatt, I moved to New York and opened the Four Seasons Hotel on 57th Street. I became that company’s go-to guy and took on leadership responsibilities in Dallas, Beverly Hills, Carlsbad and Newport Beach. After falling in love with my wife of now 24 years, we planted roots in California and, while working as Director of Operations at Santa Monica’s Shutters on the Beach, I met and befriended my future business partners. With the three of us within six months of age of each other, tired of the rat race and ready for an adventure, we left Shutters in 2004, cobbled together $900,000 in friends and family seed money and opened our first Tender Greens restaurant on an up and coming street in LA in the summer of 2006.
Over the years, my partners and I built an incredible business. It has been said (not by me but by others) that I was “the company’s heart and backbone”. While my partners focused mainly on the yeoman lift of operations, I worked on the company’s culture - creating the kind of place where I would want to work - a place that valued our team members, cultivated excellence and compassion, and favored win-win outcomes and servant leadership. I brought my years of mentoring, self-study and a suitcase full of hard-learned lessons to hone, as Tender Greens’ VP of Operations called it, “a culture of love and discipline”. At the same time, I built out the company’s infrastructure - instilling a sense of thinking big and developing systems ahead of the company’s expansion. Responsible in the brand’s early days for all equity and debt facilities, financial management, compliance, leadership training, and human resources systems development, I laid the foundations for growth. I served as our first Chief Financial Officer and then President while chairing both the Advisory Board and Board of Directors. As the complexities evolved, I replaced myself with qualified executives while taking an active role in their on-going development as well-rounded, insightful, heart-centered leaders.
In October 2017, knowing that the Company was poised for yet another round of expansion, this time beyond the confines of California, I hired my replacement to run the day-to-day operations and devoted my time as the Company’s first-ever Chief People Officer - steering the company’s culture, people strategies and the development of our incredible talent. The Company grew to 30 restaurants and roughly $100 million in revenue.
The greatest joy in my career always came from those seminal moments when I was able to mentor someone in the organization to greater leadership effectiveness or expanded personal development. The advice “go talk to Dave” became code for leveling up. As part of creating “the kind of company, I would want to work for and people would never want to leave”, I developed and personally taught mindfulness, emotional intelligence, intentionality, holistic time management and full spectrum goal setting. My partners, our team, and I created a rich culture that lived up to the company’s founding mission; to create “restaurants people really love”.
In January 2020, with the company on strong footing, a world class executive team at the helm, and after 15 years of building and learning, I decided it was time for a new adventure and left active life at Tender Greens to found what has become an industry-agnostic coaching and advisory practice serving purpose-driven leaders. In this role, I am grateful to be able to call on my 30 years of business acumen, as well as my emotional and spiritual self-development, to partner with my clients to see what’s in their reserves and help coax it out. I intentionally wear two hats, Coach and Advisor. My clients include founders and entrepreneurs, CEOs across multiple industries and people transitioning to their next mountain as I’ve done. Whichever hat I wear, working with me involves going further into your understanding of self, reaching deeper into your leadership toolbox and taking thoughtful, intentional action to transition, transform or transcend your current situation.
In 2021, I and my business partner Erik published an award-winning business memoir called Ten Year Plan: How the Founders of Tender Greens Scaled Their Heart-Centered Brand. It’s currently used as a case study of purpose-driven business success in several MBA programs. I also serve on the board of directors of nonprofits, lecture at graduate programs, and have held leadership positions in international mentoring organizations. I recently began facilitating trauma groups for men in prison. I work in shamanic traditions and am an experienced pyschonaut. I’m deeply married and have two children who are the nicest people I know! We live in LA.
My Super Powers (acccording to my clients)
“Listening and asking great questions - discriminating between what is being said and what is not being said and reflecting both back so they can make better decisions.”
“He understands business - he’s industry-agnostic. He’s been there. He knows what it takes to scale a brand.”
“Has so much integrity - he’s trustable right away and maintains that trust no matter who’s paying his fee.”
“Coaching interpersonal relationships in organizations - using Emotional Intelligence to help leaders grow and work through conflict.”
“Helping leaders focus on what’s important to their businesses - gaining alignment - balancing the needs of all stakeholders (team members, investors, suppliers, community).”
“Helping business leaders navigate growth beyond their current comfort zone – Being able to create structure where it doesn’t exist. Simplifying things that have become overly-complicated.”
“Establishing organizational leadership competencies for all levels in order to create aligned hiring, training and development practices.”
“Conducting meaningful 360º peer reviews that go deep”.
“Holistic strategic planning, mission and principles and systems design.”
“Supporting conflict resolution, transition plans and hard goodbyes".”
“Bringing mindfulness and intentionality into company culture that stands for something and that makes a difference to team members.”
“Leaving his ego in the car and fully supporting his client to win. Dressler has already been in the front of the room. He is happy to watch from the back and coach later.”
How can I serve you?
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
— Robert Byrne
My Philosophy
I believe the best lives and organizations account for all the pieces of us -- our work, our families, our health, our communities, our hearts and our minds, our most valuable and unique efforts and gifts mattering in some way.
Bona Fides
Beyond my 30+ years of real life professional experience in the trenches and in leadership, I am also a certified coach. For my on-going learning, I benefit from the ACE program by David Goldsmith and David Peterson, as well as trainings by Marshall Goldsmith, Bryan Franklin and other teachers I admire.