Our Executive Team
Vine Solutions is a team comprised of some of the best and brightest restaurateurs and financial advisors in the Nation. We strive to hire a staff that brings a diverse and elite knowledge to our client base. Most everyone on our executive team has had first hand experience in opening and operating their own restaurants. We all have a great passion for the culinary world and a deep personal understanding of the restaurant business.
Executive Team
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Edward N. Levine, Chief Executive Officer
Edward N. Levine is the CEO and founder of Vine Solutions, Inc. He is also CEO and founder of Vine Dining Enterprises, Inc. and the developer and principal partner of the Left Bank brasseries located in Larkspur, Menlo Park, and San Jose (www.leftbank.com) and LB Steak located in San Jose (www.lbsteak.com). Since 1987, Ed has been involved in the development and financial management of hundreds of full service restaurants.
From 1987 to 1991 he was Chief Financial Officer of Il Fornaio (America) Corporation; a multiple unit, venture capital backed Italian restaurant and bakery company. Ed developed the business plan for the strategic redirection of this company and co-led the restructuring and turnaround. He was instrumental in opening five full-service restaurants in three years with average annual unit volumes exceeding $4 million. In addition to managing all financial and administrative functions, Ed reorganized and directed the production bakery division.
Prior to Il Fornaio, Ed was the Planning Director of Collins Foods International; a $700 million, publicly traded Los Angeles based food service Company with multi-concept/unit locations.
From 1993 to 1995, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, a multiple unit microbrewery restaurant company. He fulfilled these duties on a consulting basis and repositioned and grew the company from two to five units. In December 1995, majority control of Gordon Biersch was sold. During Ed's tenure, the valuation of the Company's equity increased approximately five fold.
Ed received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1981 and a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) from the University of British Columbia in 1978.
Ed serves on the Stanford University’s Advisory Committee for Residental and Dining Enterprises. He is also a Board Member of the Tom Steel Clinic, a Marin based AIDS treatment center. Ed has served as a guest lecturer at Penn State University, Stanford, as well as the Commonwealth Club. He was previously a member of the Board of Directors of Pasta Pomodoro, Inc. until it was sold in late 2009.
Residing in Marin County, CA, Ed spends his free time hiking with his dog, Coco, playing disc golf, dining out and adventuring.
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John Priest, Executive Vice President
John Priest is the Executive Vice President for Vine Solutions, Inc. John joined the Vine Solutions team in 1999 as a GL Accountant and soon found himself working in various positions to help develop Vine Solutions into a full scale accounting and consulting practice, eventually becoming a Client Manager.
In December of 2006, John took the reigns as VP of Operations where he guided the company to significant and sustained revenue growth. He has overseen the development of building individual departments for Accounts Payable and Payroll needs, expansion of the business into additional markets, and remains driven to continuously implement new technologies and strategies to help all clients of Vine Solutions compete in the complex restaurant business of today.
Before coming aboard at Vine Solutions, John has worked in the restaurant industry for over 12 years in many different positions and departments. Through this, he developed an extensive restaurant knowledge base and found his passion in helping others in the industry to succeed. John worked at Stars Restaurant as a waiter for many years before becoming their Controller and through this, found how important thorough and timely financial and accounting information is to a restaurant owner and operator.
John received his Master's in Business Administration from California State University, Bakersfield in 1992 with an emphasis in Business Statistics. John currently lives in San Francisco and enjoys collecting and drinking wine, Lakers basketball, Raiders football, and traveling to exotic places.
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Takashi Nikaidoh, Director of Accounting
Prior to entering the world of accounting, Takashi worked in various restaurants for more than 15 years, culminating his career as the general manager and wine buyer of a restaurant in the East Bay. Wishing to expand his knowledge of business, he went back to school.
While performing coursework at San Francisco State towards his MBA in 2005, Vine Solutions offered Takashi the opportunity to intern. He was trained and performed duties in various GL and payroll functions and engaged in P & L consultations with clients. Upon completion of his degree in 2006, he began work at Grant Thornton and performed audits on a broad range of clients including restaurants.
Coming back to Vine Solutions in 2011 represents the convergence of his careers in restaurants and accounting; he quips, "you cannot get too far away from restaurants, really, once you have worked in one."
When not making sure that debits equal credits, he participates on the boards of the Berkeley Buddhist Temple and Daruma no Gakko, an East Bay summer school program. He also attempts to impress his wife and 2 daughters with his cooking, plays basketball and regularly participates in the Bay to Breakers as a top 2,000 finisher.
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Paula Brannon, Human Resources Consultant
Paula is the Human Resources Consultant for Vine Solutions. With more than 20 years of management, she is well versed in all facets of Human Resources. She has worked with companies employing 20 to 3,500 people in various labor markets.
Paula offers Human Resource consulting in areas such as compensation, benefits, compliance, employment law, workers' compensation, and employee relations and retention to various clients. Paula has extensive experience in the restaurant industry. She works closely with senior management to develop and implement a human resources strategy compatible with the client's objectives and mission statement.
Previously Paula has been the Director of Human Resources for Left Bank Restaurant group and Restaurants Unlimited, a privately held restaurant corporation based in Seattle, Washington. Paula holds several professional certifications, including Human Resources Generalist, The Advanced Certificate of Employment Law, and the McGraw/Hill Supervision Series Seminar Trainer. She is also a member of the Society for Human Resource Management.
