Robert Ancill
Restaurant Consultant. Author. Futurist.
For decades, Robert has worked at the intersection of hospitality strategy and customer psychology. His work challenges conventional thinking and reveals the invisible forces that determine whether businesses thrive or fade.
Author & Thought Leader
Published author of The Relevance Code and The New Rules of Restaurant Relevance, with a body of work exploring consumer behavior, hospitality strategy, and the future of dining.
Restaurant Consultant
Founder of The Next Idea Group and TNI Restaurant Consultants, advising restaurant brands across multiple markets on relevance, customer retention, and experience design.
Futurist
Recognized for identifying the forces reshaping customer behavior, from the situational customer to the invisible exit, and translating them into actionable frameworks for business leaders.
Philosophy
A Different Lens
Robert’s approach begins with a fundamental challenge to conventional wisdom: that performance determines success. While the industry has spent decades optimizing operations, menus, and systems, customers have quietly changed how they think, decide, and choose.
His work identifies the gap between what businesses measure and what customers actually experience, revealing that the metrics most organizations rely upon confirm what has already happened, rather than predicting what is about to happen.
Through frameworks like The Relevance Code, The Invisible Exit Curve, and The Drift Model, Robert provides business leaders with the tools to detect disengagement early, align with shifting customer needs, and design experiences that people actively choose to return to.
Connect
Find Robert Online
Beehiiv
Essays on relevance, customer behavior, and industry strategyRobertAncill.com
Author website and speaking engagements