Robert W. Wilson

Robert W. Wilson
Delaware North -- Group President for Sportservice, UK,
Patina Restaurant Group and Operational Excellence

Robert W. Wilson is group president for Delaware North, a global leader in hospitality and entertainment with operations at high-profile places such as sports and entertainment venues, national and state parks, cultural landmarks, destination resorts and restaurants, airports, and regional casinos.
As group president, Wilson leads efforts to drive continuous improvement across the company to achieve superior business results. In his group role, he has oversight of Delaware North Sportservice – the company’s sports hospitality division – the hospitality business in the United Kingdom and the Patina Restaurant Group, a portfolio of high-profile street-side restaurants and catering operations. 

Wilson also leads operation excellence - the development of operational standards, concepts and processes, as well as approaches to leverage scale and deliver quality products and services across subsidiary operations. He works with stakeholders at all levels, including subsidiary leadership teams, to identify, prioritize, design and deploy strategic operational improvement programs and projects. He provides guidance and direction to operations teams regarding GuestPath, GreenPath, food and beverage, workforce management, operations systems and other drivers of operational excellence.

Prior to joining Delaware North in 2018, Wilson served as chief executive officer of GoodWest Industries LLC, a private-equity-owned company based in Philadelphia that offers turnkey and customized beverage solutions to more than 30,000 food service locations. He led efforts to transform the business via strategic plans for growth, sales and marketing, new product/research and development, and capital expenditures, with the initial efforts resulting in significant revenue and profit growth.
Wilson spent five years as vice president of North America consumer sales and marketing for Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA), a $13 billion global personal care products company based in Sweden. Prior to that he held senior management positions with Aramark, the Philadelphia-based, $13 billion food service and hospitality company. Over nearly a decade he served as president of Aramark’s Refreshment Services Group, executive vice president of its Senior Living Services and vice president of marketing for its Healthcare Group. 

Wilson earned an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics and marketing from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He was a board member of the National Automatic Merchandising Association and a corporate board member of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.