When your walk-in cooler goes down at 6 p.m. on a Saturday, nobody in the dining room cares about your equity structure — they care about how fast a technician shows up. That gap between behind-the-scenes infrastructure and the guest experience is exactly where Smart Care Solutions lives, and the company just reinforced its leadership bench to keep operators running.
On July 23, 2026, the Chicago-based company — the nation's leading provider of comprehensive hot & cold side foodservice equipment, specialty coffee and beverage, standalone refrigeration, complex rack refrigeration, cold storage, and HVAC service — announced two senior appointments effective immediately. Veronica Lubatkin joins as President and Chief Financial Officer, and Jenna Susanke comes aboard as Chief People Officer. Both report to Chief Executive Officer James Mylett.
Who's Joining Smart Care's C-Suite
Lubatkin arrives with a deep track record scaling complex, multi-location service businesses — precisely the profile a national field-service company needs as it grows.
- Most recently CFO of RailWorks, the largest rail transportation, construction and maintenance services organization in North America, where she led finance, enterprise risk management and the I.T. organization, including an ERP implementation across a $1 billion revenue organization.
- Earlier financial leadership roles in life sciences, including CFO of Par Pharmaceuticals and senior finance positions at Schering-Plough.
- Began her career in public accounting at Arthur Andersen.
Susanke brings more than 30 years of human capital leadership across complex, global organizations.
- Most recently Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer at Veolia North America, a global leader in environmental services.
- Prior senior leadership and consulting roles at Philip Morris International, PepsiCo, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Aon — building high-performance cultures, developing talent pipelines, and leading organizations through significant transformation.
Building the Infrastructure for Growth
The appointments are pointedly aligned with a company in expansion mode, growing both organically and through acquisition.
"As Smart Care continues to grow both organically and through strategic acquisitions, having the right operational and people infrastructure in place is essential," said James Mylett, Smart Care Chief Executive Officer. "Veronica's experience scaling large, multi-service organizations and Jenna's experience in building high-performance cultures will be instrumental as we integrate new business, deepen our customer relationships and strengthen our position as the national leader in foodservice equipment and refrigeration services."
Smart Care operates in all 50 states and is OEM-agnostic, servicing more than 10,000 types of equipment for food retail, restaurants, convenience stores, warehouse operators and other institutions. The company is backed by Chicago-based private equity firm Wind Point Partners, founded in 1984, with approximately $9 billion in assets under management.
Why It Matters
Equipment uptime is not a back-office footnote — it's a P&L line. For restaurant owners, foodservice executives, convenience store operators and institutional buyers, the health of your service provider directly shapes your food safety compliance, labor efficiency and revenue on any given day.
A CFO with proven experience integrating $1 billion in multi-location operations and standing up enterprise ERP systems signals one thing for customers: Smart Care is investing in the systems and financial discipline that make national service consistent and scalable. That's meaningful when your locations span multiple states and you need predictable response times across all of them.
Equally telling is the elevation of a dedicated Chief People Officer. In field service, the differentiator is the technician workforce — and a talent-and-culture leader with three decades of experience suggests a serious push to recruit, retain and develop the skilled technicians operators depend on. As the sector consolidates through M&A, the vendors that build strong internal infrastructure are the ones most likely to deliver reliable service as they scale.
The takeaway for operators: as your service partners professionalize and consolidate, use vendor reviews as a moment to reassess preventative-maintenance coverage, response-time SLAs and multi-site contract terms. A financially strong, well-staffed partner is a hedge against the costly downtime that quietly erodes margins.
The Bottom Line
Leadership moves at the infrastructure layer of the industry rarely make headlines the way a celebrity chef collaboration does — but they shape the reliability every operator counts on. Smart Care's dual appointment points to a company positioning itself to integrate acquisitions and deepen customer relationships without dropping the ball on service.
Tracking who's moving where in food and beverage? See our latest coverage of hospitality leadership changes, including Woodbine Hospitality's strategic growth under new leadership and recent leadership changes at The Rebel Room and The Ava Hotel.
How much weight do you put on your equipment-service partner when it comes to protecting uptime and margins? Weigh in and share your take in the comments.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Top 40 Under 40” for founding American Wholesale Floral. Politz is also the founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
