ABOUT US
ax·i·al shift
Axial Shift was founded by restaurant owners that understand the value of service, feedback, and data to achieve sales goals and empower team members. Our goal is to provide restaurants with software that is experience-focused, frictionless to implement, available to all roles in the business, and continues to innovate the industry.
Our Story
Axial Shift understands firsthand the critical purpose of the unit level workforce and more importantly the challenges those teams face every day.
Managers struggle to connect their activity on the floor with the reports they run in the back office. Too much time can easily be spent doing repetitive admin work rather than spending critical time coaching and developing staff and service.
Axial Shift set out to develop a platform that was not the traditional restaurant software that could take months to integrate – costing more valuable time to restaurant owners, managers, operators, and training teams.
Our simple, easy-to-use mobile app requires from 5 minutes to 2 days of implementation time, depending on the POS system currently used. Our demos and training take about 15-30 minutes of your time. We are constantly innovating and integrating with new platforms, such as Slack, Airtable, Quickbooks, Ceridian, and others. We will keep working on our side, so you don’t waste time on yours.
Our Team
Ellis Winstanley
CEO/Founder
Ellis Winstanley is a seasoned restauranteur and business executive with a successful track record of starting up, turning around and growing businesses in the hospitality, software and several other industries. Ellis began turning around historic restaurant brands while in college and has played key roles in dozens of restaurant related operations over the years. It was during this time that Ellis realized there was there was a huge opportunity to improve the experiences of unit level restaurant team members. His passion for solving this problem led him to assemble a team to build Axial Shift, with the core focus of driving great employee experiences through transparency and purpose-driven growth.
Andrew Markley
Co-Founder/Architect
Andrew Markley is an innovative tech leader who began developing technology several years before attending the University of Texas to formally study computer science. Andrew has played key roles in the development of several business systems across dozens of technology platforms. After years of working with Ellis on a variety of projects Andrew became a Co-Founder of Axial where he oversees strategic initiatives and is passionate about the architecture and usability of the Axial platform.
Melissa Doolin-Koehne
Advisor
Melissa Doolin-Koehne was born and raised in the restaurant industry and has dedicated her career to improving the companies and the employees that make up the largest industry outside the US Government. She uses her passion for the restaurant industry to elevate leaders and organizations through purpose and profits.
Prior to joining Axial Shift, Melissa spent 20 years leading business development at Black Box Intelligence, the restaurant’s leading resource for financial, workforce and consumer benchmarks and insights. Melissa has also worked for the National Restaurant Association and Conscious Capitalism in development. She now is an executive board member of the Texas Restaurant Association and Treasurer for the Education Foundation and an advisory council for Dallas College.
Raechel Barnes
HEAD OF OPERATIONS & SALES
Raechel is a seasoned business leader with over 25 years of experience in fostering scalability and growth. Her journey in the hospitality industry began at the age of 19, where she discovered her passion while serving guests at a full-service restaurant. Since then, Raechel has remained committed to the belief that hospitality should be at the core of every business.
For the past 13 years, Raechel has dedicated her expertise to several startup ventures in hospitality technology. Focused on enhancing both guest and team member experiences, she has witnessed firsthand how this approach drives crucial business outcomes.
Raechel specializes in identifying untapped opportunities, developing processes, and building and nurturing teams. Her dedication to service and innovative technology continues to fuel her enthusiasm and drive for success in the industry.