Rafi Taherian

Senior Consultant and Strategic Advisor

A widely respected figure in hospitality and higher education, Rafi Taherian has long been a recognized voice in conversations about the future of campus dining. He has spent more than thirty years arguing that what a university puts on the table reflects what it stands for. As a senior leader at both Yale and Stanford, he helped transform campus dining from a service function into a civic institution — a place where food connects people, provokes questions, and puts institutional values into daily practice.

His work sits at the intersection of culinary craft, hospitality, institutional purpose, and a deep belief in the connection between human and planetary health. A telling example of that approach is his collaboration with the Mediterranean Diet Roundtable, where he has worked to bridge food culture, science, and product innovation in service of a deceptively simple idea: that healthy eating and memorable, delicious experiences are not in conflict. That partnership has helped translate the principles of the Mediterranean diet into viable, scalable concepts for campus dining — proving that what is good for people can also be what they actually want to eat.

He has built partnerships between universities, farmers, food producers, researchers, and industry leaders, with work that has extended to efforts connected to the White House, the Vatican, and Good Food China. He has earned IFMA’s Silver Plate and Gold Plate awards, among the highest recognitions in the field.
Today, Rafi serves as a Leadership Strategist and Senior Consultant at Brailsford & Dunlavey, advising hospitality organizations navigating change and opportunity. He is also, by all accounts, working through a fairly ambitious bucket list.