25 years of recruiting across restaurants, hotels, tech, and venue operations — based in Nashville.
I'm Peter Platt. I've spent my career on one problem — finding operators who can run 10, 40, or 200 units, and matching them to the companies that need them. Everything Platt Partners does starts there.
My story
How the practice came together
I've been at this for 25 years. Recruiting wasn't the plan when I started — it became the plan. Somewhere around the first handful of placements, I noticed the same thing kept happening: the right operator was almost never on a job board, but they were almost always one call away from someone I already knew. I built the practice on that observation and haven't left it since.
Restaurant and multi-unit ops is where the phone kept ringing. Growing brands need Directors, VPs, and Regional leadership who can hold operational rigor together while the concept scales — and those hires are a different animal than a corporate function search. The network compounded: the Regional I placed at one QSR ends up at a growth-stage taqueria five years later; the VP HR who helped a multi-unit chain scale becomes the person calling me from her next role. Restaurants and hospitality is a small world, and 25 years of steady work in it puts most of it a call or two away.
The network runs on presence, and Brentwood puts me in the middle of it.
Nashville was a deliberate move. Middle Tennessee has quietly become one of the densest multi-unit ops corridors in the country — Dollar General, Cracker Barrel, Tractor Supply, Bridgestone, Nissan North America, and HCA all headquartered within a short drive of the office, plus a new wave of restaurant and hotel operators choosing the metro on top of that. Being physically here means coffee with a District Manager on Tuesday instead of a Zoom in three weeks.
Today the practice places Directors of Operations, District Managers, VP HR, CHROs, and Regional Ops leaders at brands people recognize — Dollar General, Starbucks, Jack in the Box, Cracker Barrel, Wendy's, El Pollo Loco, Del Taco, QDOBA, Petco. The engagement model flexes between executive search, RaaS, and consulting, the vertical widens into hospitality, technology, and sports & entertainment, but the promise is the same: a practice built on 25 years of operator relationships, not a database pull.
By the numbers
A track record of measured results
Not a network claim — operating metrics from active and past client engagements. Every number ties back to a specific engagement.
AI-enabled sourcing on the Jack in the Box / Del Taco engagement
Corporate placements across 5+ years at Jack in the Box / Del Taco
ATS optimization + weekly executive reporting at Jack in the Box / Del Taco
Talentvisor engagements across retail, technology, and industrial clients
Why Nashville
Middle Tennessee is a multi-unit ops corridor.
The hiring problem for multi-unit brands is finding the operator, not the headquarters. A growing share of the country's multi-unit ops leaders already live and work inside a 30-mile radius of our office.
Dollar General
Goodlettsville, TN
20,000+ store multi-unit retail HQ
Cracker Barrel
Lebanon, TN
660+ location restaurant + retail operator
Tractor Supply
Brentwood, TN
2,200+ store multi-unit retail — same ZIP code as our office
Bridgestone Americas
Nashville, TN
Company-owned retail network + Americas HQ
Nissan North America
Franklin, TN
Multi-facility regional operations bench
HCA Healthcare
Nashville, TN
Multi-site operations at the largest hospital operator in the US
When a multi-unit ops leader gets promoted, changes companies, or starts a new role, the odds keep rising that it happened inside the Middle TN network. Being anchored here means the calls are shorter, the intros are warmer, and the coffee is in person. I've placed operators all over the country and I'll keep doing that — but starting from Nashville is a real edge.
In their words
What people say about working with Peter
Twenty-five years is a long time, and the practice has touched more than one vertical. A cross-section of the people we've placed and worked with:
“Truly a wonderful experience from start to finish. With Platt Partners support and coaching, I felt prepared every step of the way.”
“Platt Partners did a wonderful job of matching my desired role. Their understanding of my skill set and what it takes to succeed were perfectly aligned.”
“Platt Partners is a top-notch search firm. They are very knowledgeable, well-connected and have the highest integrity.”
Selected engagements
Named placements across multiple verticals
A cross-section of the searches — from a marquee hospitality build to hard- to-fill technical hires to multi-year corporate placement engagements.
Hospitality & Gaming
Yaamava' Resort & Casino
Head of Construction
500+ room hotel and casino resort — capital-project leadership placement for a marquee hospitality build.
Retail & E-Commerce
Petco
Chief Information Officer + multiple senior corporate roles
C-suite technology leadership plus adjacent corporate placements at a national multi-unit retailer.
Restaurant Corporate
Jack in the Box / Del Taco
VP Applications, VP Strategy, Chief Accounting Officer, Director of Digital Marketing, Director of Kitchen Innovation, Senior Manager of Construction
Ongoing contract talent-acquisition engagement since 2018 — 95% corporate-placement retention across five years.
Technology & Engineering
SpaceX + General Atomics
Hard-to-fill technical searches
Additional technology clients include GitLab, Avetta Software, and ODK Media.
Multi-unit openings
Del Taco Orlando + Jack in the Box Louisville: screened 200+ applicants per site to deliver 80 hires each — on the opening deadline. Four restaurant openings across two new markets.
Common questions
About Peter and the practice
Short direct answers to the questions we get most. If yours isn't here, the first conversation is a call.
Who is Peter Platt?
Founder of Platt Partners, a Nashville-based recruiting practice with 25 years placing operators, HR, and executive leaders. Before founding the firm in 2003, Peter was Director of Talent Acquisition at Adecco, designing the corporate recruiting function for four divisions across 100+ US offices. He holds an MBA from Pepperdine. Peter runs every search personally — no rotating account team, no offshore sourcing pod. Based in Brentwood, TN; searches run nationwide.
How long has Peter Platt been recruiting?
Since the early 2000s — 25+ years in operator and executive placement. The practice started in restaurant and multi-unit ops and now runs across four verticals: restaurants, hotels, tech companies, and sports & entertainment venues.
What kinds of companies does Peter Platt work with?
Multi-unit restaurant and hospitality brands (QSR, fast-casual, hotel groups), growth-stage technology companies (SaaS, DevOps, infrastructure), and sports & entertainment venue operators. Named engagements include Jack in the Box, El Pollo Loco, Del Taco, QDOBA, Petco, Oracle, PwC, GitLab, and SpaceX.
Where is Peter Platt based?
Brentwood, Tennessee — inside the Nashville metropolitan area, at the center of the Middle Tennessee multi-unit operator corridor (Dollar General, Cracker Barrel, Tractor Supply, Bridgestone, Nissan North America, HCA all headquartered nearby). Searches run nationwide from the Brentwood office.
What is Peter's approach to recruiting?
Peter runs every search personally — the person on the first call is the person calling references and running the process to close. Screening verifies operational scope (multi-unit P&L or technical accountability at the level you are hiring for), and references are back-channeled from operators who reported to or alongside each candidate, not from LinkedIn connection lists.
Does Peter Platt only place in restaurant and hospitality?
No. Four practice areas run at equal weight — restaurants and hotels, tech and venue operations. Cross-vertical placements include senior engineering leaders at companies like SpaceX and GitLab alongside the multi-unit operator work in restaurant and hotel groups.
How is Peter Platt different from a large recruiting firm?
Founder-led, not a rotating account team — Peter conducts every search from first call to close. Twenty-five years of cross-vertical network compound into direct calls to operators most engagement teams would take weeks to identify. Screening is concept-fit and technical-fit, not resume-fit.
What engagement models does Peter Platt offer?
Three engagement models. Executive search at a flat 20% fee for senior, confidential, or exclusive engagements — VP Operations, Regional Directors, VP HR, and roles where back-channel referencing and market intelligence decide the outcome. RaaS (Recruiting as a Service) on a monthly retainer for growth-stage operators that need an embedded TA function — Peter runs the recruiting like an in-house Head of Talent, without the FTE cost. Consulting by the hour for comp benchmarking, JD calibration, ATS + interview-loop audits, or one-off strategy sessions. See /fractional-recruiting for the RaaS model in depth.
Let's talk about what you're trying to fill.
Based in Brentwood, TN. Working on searches nationwide. First conversation is a call — no forms, no gates, no automated funnels.