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Kelly Esten believes in letting her clients tell their very own authentic stories.
Esten is the Chief Marketing Officer at Toast, an revolutionary restaurant sales and management systems company. Since joining the team, she has played a significant role in building Toast’s customer-centric fame.
When it involves marketing, he knows the goal is to maintain it real. “We always try to keep in mind the person on the other end of a marketing email or ad and how we’re trying to reach them,” Esten says. “It’s much more impactful and authentic when a restaurant can say, ‘Hey, here’s how I use Toast, and here’s my story,’ than anything we can say.”
Toast’s Journey
Esten remembers his first day at Toast thoroughly. It was 2017, and Toast’s offices were in an incubator near Fenway Park in Boston.
“Job No. 1 is ‘do no harm,’” he recalls. “Find out what’s working, make sure we’re building on that early success that we’ve had. Building with restaurants has really made us so successful.”
As Toast took off as a company, it began to take up more room. There were desks in every single place, Esten recalls, and the makeshift décor and mismatched carpets were clear signs that the company was in a growth phase.
“A lot has changed since those early days, but it’s been an incredible journey,” he says.
Her expectation from day one was to return in and contribute to what the team was building. It was, like many startups, an “all hands on deck” scenario.
“I’ll always remember those first few weeks,” he says. “Toast was growing really quickly; it was really popular with restaurants at the time, and we definitely had product-market fit. Restaurants were using our outlet all over the country, and things were going really well.”
She found her footing under the guidance of former Toast CMO Kevin Hamilton and Toast CEO and co-founder Aman Narang. Esten attributes much of her skilled growth to their mentorship.
“Kevin Hamilton was a great mentor of mine, someone who taught me a lot about marketing, but also about leadership and gave me the opportunity to learn and grow,” he tells Shawn Walchef of Cali BBQ Media during a tour of the company’s recent Boston headquarters, which is able to open in 2024.
Esten has built on the legacy of her mentors by strengthening Toast’s customer-centric marketing efforts. Her philosophy is to actively hearken to customers and empower them to share their very own stories.
When she began at Toast, the marketing department employed about a dozen people; now it has greater than 200.
Her goal then, as now, was to assist independent restaurants. “A lot of what we do today also comes from the early days of Toast Marketing,” she says.
Launching the Toast Now app
One of Esten’s most significant achievements at Toast is the successful launch of Toast Now.
He attributes the product’s success to its close collaboration with Toast’s partners, which resulted in a cloud-based solution that resonated strongly with the restaurant community. That deep commitment led to widespread day by day use and made Toast Now one of the most important product launches in the company’s history.
“One of the things that was really rewarding for me was that we also released a video about how it was made, because it was made with input from our customers,” he shares.
Esten’s approach to marketing and leadership at Toast emphasizes customer engagement, mentoring, and collaborative product development. Her commitment to understanding and meeting customer needs has led to successful product launches and a culture of growth and inspiration inside her team.
“When I think about my leadership role at Toast, that’s a big part of the job—how do I get the right people, set them up for success, and help them grow their careers?” he says. “Because that inspires people to do great work.”
Disclaimer: Restaurant Influencers host Shawn Walchef is a paid consultant and content creator for Toast.
About Restaurant Influencers
Restaurant Influencers is an initiative from Toast, an advanced restaurant management and sales system that helps restaurants improve their operations, increase sales, and provide higher guest experiences.
Toast – Supporting Successful Restaurants. Learn more about Toast.
Restaurant Influencers is also supported by Ovation. Learn how Ovation’s guest review platform actually increases revenue with actionable insights Here.