Fellowship Council

B Brian Martin, Founder and Council Chair of AnalysisLAB, is a proven finance executive with a prodigious business background in retail, hospitality, entertainment, and real estate development. B Brian’s expertise in key facets of capital structuring, private placements, contract and lease negotiations, project developments, and corporate finance underscores his analytical and strategic acumen for expanding proof of concepts and accelerating brand expansions. His professional background includes large-scale entertainment developments and accelerated-growth strategies of notable national restaurant and nightlife brands.

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From entrepreneurial startups and proofs-of-concept to successes through brand expansions and exit strategies, B Brian's successful undertakings include significant industry innovators and leaders like Universal Studios CityWalk & Theme Parks, Innovative Dining Group, SBE Entertainment Restaurant & Nightlife Group, and House of Blues Entertainment, Kingsmen Creative, SusieCakes Bakeries, and Bungalow Hospitality Group.

Current projects include a $2.1B strategic acquisition and repositioning of Ciudad de la Luz Studios in Alicante, Spain. A $20MM structured equity raise for the development and expansion of Nerf Action Xperience Centers and a $25MM raise for a Los Angeles-based hospitality group.

B Brian holds a Master of Science degree, with distinction, in Business Analytics from Texas A&M and a Bachelor of Science degree in management with a dual concentration in accounting & finance and a minor in economics from the University of Massachusetts. Moreover, he was a prior Congressional nomination recipient to the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY.

Afshin Kateb

Committee Chair Business Capital

Afshin Kateb, DBA, is a Senior Fellow and Chair of AnalysisLAB Business Capital. Afshin brings over 30+ years of hotel finance, development, and investment experience to our fellowship. From startup luxury concepts to established global brands, Afshin has effectively directed the capital initiatives and financial imperatives of these stalwart hotel brands. With academics honed from a doctorate in business administration and the tenured temperament of a career CFO, Afshin is a leading expert on optimal capital structures.

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Afshin, heads the financial practices of Nimes’ Real Estates Group as CFO. Prior experience also includes CFO of SBE Entertainment where he provided strategic financial and operational oversight for its portfolio of hotels, restaurants, and nightlife assets. Prior to sbe, he was a Senior Vice President of Lowe Enterprises Investors (portfolio manager responsible for asset management, portfolio management and structured finance of investments of a $1 billion portfolio), founding CFO of KOR Group a/k/a Viceroy Hotel Group (oversaw the company’s development of a portfolio of assets that included 3,200 multi-family units, various domestic and international real estate development projects and approximately 2,000 hotel rooms under management), VP of Planning and Analysis at Destination Hotel and Resorts, and management roles at Ernst & Young and ITT Sheraton Corporation.

Afshin holds a Doctorate in Business Administration, DBA, from Grenoble de Management France and a MBA from Pepperdine University and a BS in Accounting from Woodbury University. Holds a 3rd Degree Black Belt Shotokan.

Varun Nayak

Committee Chair Business Strategies

Steve Martino

Committee Chair Business Prospects

Varun Nayak, MBA, Varun Nayak, MBA, is a Senior Fellow and Chair of AnalysisLAB Business Strategies. With over 15 years of experience within the casino industry optimizing casino and F&B operations. Varun is a computer scientist by training, a business strategist by trade and a value investor at heart looking to unearth opportunities of buying dollars for cents. Varun is an adherent acolyte on the virtues of a good value proposition and its impact on the effective rate of return. He excels in advanced modeling techniques and the complexities of market uncertainties. He is a noted expert on contrarian market strategies.

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Prior experience includes optimizing a gaming floor of 1500 tables and 6000 slots making over US$3 Billion in annual EBITDA for Sands China Limited, the world’s largest gaming operations in Macao, consulting for marketing and gaming strategy for some of the largest casino operations such as Melco, Galaxy, Crown and Genting and designing a table games pricing algorithms. Presently, he runs marketing and gaming strategy for Venetian & Palazzo at Las Vegas Sands as Vice President of Casino Analytics & Optimization.

Prior to working in the hospitality industry, Varun developed software tools such as graphics and physics engines for video games developers which have been used in numerous games on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo platforms. He has developed programming techniques for market-based simulations and data mining analysis that demonstratively outperform market indices.

With two distinguished master’s degrees, Varun holds an MBA from UCLA as well as a Master’s in Computer Science from University of Cincinnati.

Steve Martino, B.A., is a Resident Fellow and Chair of AnalysisLAB Business Prospects with over 22+ years of experience in clothing, retail and entrepreneurial endeavors in retail manufacturing and point-of-sale. Steve has presided over the hyper-evolution of the clothing industry and recognizes the value implications imparted through technology and outsourcing in real-time. Socially adept in the realm of emotional intelligence and strategic communications.

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Founder of Steve Martino & Associates, representing clothing manufacturers with $60MM in sales including JCPenney, Kohl, Sears, Forever 21, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Dillard’s as key clients. Steve later created his own manufacturing brand, CDC Apparel, Inc. with 30 employees and $20MM in sales. His buyers included Top Shop, Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, PacSun, Zumiez, The Buckle, Delias, and Charlotte Russe. After several years of successful growth, Steve recognized adverse structural changes appearing throughout retail landscape. Thereafter, he maximized his position and sold his organization in lieu of future opportunities.

Steve’s passion for meeting and solving owner’s problems lead him to his current corporate career at Heartland Payment Systems. His entrepreneurial experience provided him credibility with startups and small business owners and allowed him to cultivate & build upon existing relationships that expanded into restaurants/bars, online retailers, wholesalers, e-commerce, medical and shipping companies. A perennial, serial entrepreneur, Steve established a real estate management company to manage holdings he acquired throughout the years. These vast experiences afford Steve valuable insight and perspective into a diversified portfolio of businesses spanning various industries and personalities.

Steve holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Communications from University of California Santa Barbara.

David Schnitt

Committee Chair Business Solutions

David Schnitt, MBA, is a Senior Fellow and Chair of AnalysisLAB Business Solutions. David brings over 30+ years in extensive globalization experience in both outsourcing and technology best practices. David is considered an industry expert on outsourcing trends and the evolution of the virtual business. He has spoken at numerous conferences and has been quoted extensively on these subjects in both the business and technology press and is a published author.

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David is Founder and CEO of IQ BackOffice, the leading provider of software and services to automate back office processes for global enterprises. With offices around the globe, IQ BackOffice services clients in multiple industries including manufacturing & distribution, restaurant &hospitality, energy, entertainment, real estate, non-profit and others. Before joining IQ BackOffice, David was Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of New Ventures for Resources Global Professionals (NASDAQ: RECN), a spin-off from Deloitte & Touche that provides outsourced specialists in the fields of IT, HR, finance, and accounting. It took only four years for David to help grow the company from zero to more than $150MM annually. Before this position, David founded and managed both of Resources’ Los Angeles offices and its National Information Technology practice.

While a Senior Manager with Deloitte & Touche, David advised and assisted clients in reengineering their finance and accounting functions, including the establishment of shared service centers, improving their operations, developing new strategies, business plans, and forming successful joint ventures. David has been responsible for the design, development, and implementation of several significant consulting projects with budgets of up to $11 million and staff numbering more than 8,500.

David received a BA from Cornell University, an MBA from the University of Michigan, and holds a certificate in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) from the American Production and Inventory Control Society.

Randal Ralph Thais

Research Fellow Business Policy

Randal Ralph Thais, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow and Senior Editor of Business Policy for AnalysisLAB. Randal is an academic of the highest order with a proven preoccupation with the hospitality industry. In his downtime, Randal, a/k/a Randy, earned three bachelors of sciences in English and a dual Ph.D. As a hospitality insider and prolific writer, Randy advances the academic profile and collective ideologies, methods, and values of the AnalysisLAB Fellowship.

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Randal has written over two hundred cocktail recipes, dozens of full cocktail menus and has been a consultant for some of California’s prestigious craft cocktail destinations. He is a multiple recipient of several of California’s periodical cocktail features and has taken cocktail recipes to the national competitive level, competing in Tales of the Cocktail twice. In 2017 Randal won the West Coast USBG Star-of-the-Bar competition and took his recipes to the finals in New Orleans Tales of the Cocktail.

He is an academic in English Literature focusing on Victorian/Romantic poetry and Feminist Theory. He is a UCI referent for Victorian authors and poets and has conducted extensive research on English linguistics as applied to literary theory. He is an adjunct instructor in English and Creative Writing and a contributing editor of poetry at The University of California, Irvine.

Randal’s undergraduate work was completed at The University of Cambridge, England, Pembroke College where he holds three bachelor’s degrees in English, English focused on Comparative Literature and Applied Linguistics. Randal holds a Master of Fine Arts in English; Creative Writing-Poetry, a dual Ph.D. in English and Applied Linguistics, all from University of California at Irvine.