Tricia Tolivar

Company: CavaTitle: Chief Financial OfficerIndustry: Food/restaurantNotable in 2024: Tolivar played a key role in Cava's exceptional growth in its first full year as a public company.

Since going public in June 2023, Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava has been one of the biggest success stories in the fast-casual food industry with its focus on healthy food and bold flavors, and healthy stock returns.

Helping fuel that growth is Tricia Tolivar, who joined the company as CFO in 2020 after serving in the same role at GNC for five years.

Tolivar, who also held numerous financial leadership positions at Ernst & Young as well as AutoZone, has helped to steer the company's massive growth spurt at a time when many other restaurant companies have reported declines in visits as consumers pull back their spending. Cava has bucked that trend. In its third quarter, which ended in November, the company said it saw a 12.9% increase in guest traffic. The company also reached 352 restaurants, a 21.4% increase year-over-year.

The rapid ascent has meant getting hands-on, literally. Cava encourages its executives to work in its restaurants every quarter, and Tolivar told CFO Brew earlier this year that during her visits, when she asked workers what would make workflows better, many told her that they would prefer not to slice onions.

That led Tolivar and her team to work with suppliers to make sure that restaurants were getting freshly sliced onions for workers to use to make the chain's beloved pickled onion condiment.

"It's an opportunity for us to give something back to our team members, and make their jobs easier, because, in the end, happy team members lead to happy guests — and that results in a happy P&L," Tolivar told CFO Brew.