Full Name
Jim Melvin
Company Name
Intelligent Transactions
Job Title
CEO
Speaker Bio
Beginning with the sale of his first commercial games at the age of 15, Jim Melvin has devoted almost 35 years to the software business. The founder of point-of-sale leader Compris, Melvin is a recognized authority and a sought-after consultant on information technologies for the food service and greater retail industries. His products have been installed at more than 125,000 sites worldwide for such corporate customers as McDonald’s, Yum! Brands, Burger King, Wendy’s, Disney, Darden Restaurants, K-Mart, Costco, FedEx, Walmart, Footlocker and many others. His consulting client list includes many of these same companies, as well as major consumer and retail technology providers. Currently, Melvin is founder and CEO of Intelligent Transactions, a technology consulting firm focused on aligning client's strategic business goals with IT and emerging technologies. Previously, he was CEO of SIVA Corporation, the developer of the first enterprise-enabled, SOA-based point-of-sale application for the food-service market. Today, the iSIVA POS is utilized chain-wide by Darden Restaurants (the largest operator of casual restaurants in the world with such concepts as Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steak, Bahama Breeze, Season's 52 and Capital Grill), Luby's Cafeteria, Fuddruckers, Legal Seafood, CoCo's, Carrows, Miller's Alehouse and many others. SIVA was acquired Iby Par Technology Corporation (NYSE: PTC) in late 2006; Melvin aided in the acquisition transition by serving as PAR’s Chief Strategy Officer during the two companies’ integration period.
Prior to SIVA, Melvin was Founder, CEO and CTO of Apigent Solutions, an early application service provider that developed the first Cloud-based and SaaS-based offerings for real-time data integration and business intelligence targeted to the food service and greater retail industries. During Melvin’s tenure, YUM! Brands (A&W, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silver, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell), FedEx and Costco adopted Apigent’s middleware as a key infrastructure component for their 30,000+ corporate and franchise sites. In 2002 Melvin engineered the sale of Apigent Solutions to a joint venture backed by McDonald’s Corporation and KKR (one of the world's largest private equity firms). Melvin first focused on the information technology needs of the restaurant industry at the age of 20 when he joined with the founder of B&S Foods, the largest Wendy's franchisor at the time, to develop software that pioneered the use of PC technology for in-store and corporate level back office systems. That technology was subsequently adopted by Wendy's corporate and several other large brands. B&S went public in 1984 and was purchased by Wendy’s International 18 months later. Melvin next founded Daedalus Systems, developer of the first graphical touch screen-based point-of-sale system; the company was sold to New Jersey-based Comtrex Systems in 1986. From 1986 to 1989, Melvin served as co-founder and CTO for retail point-of-sale company Techwerks, landing accounts such as J.C. Penney's drug store group (Treasury Drugs), Rite Aid Drug, Champs Sports, Hibbett Sports and Woolworth’s specialty retail stores (Footlocker, Lady Foot-locker, After Thoughts and over 20 others). Techwerks was sold to a joint venture backed by Unisys in 1989. At the urging of IBM and Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, Melvin founded Compris Technology in late 1989. Acting as CEO and CTO, Melvin joined forces with IBM, who also provided venture funding for Compris, to create both the first commercial IBM touch screen POS units and the first IBM handheld POS units. An entire generation of open platform touch POS hardware offerings from dozens of major hardware vendors followed - the majority of POS hardware sold into the world-wide food service sector during the 1990s and early 2000s was sold running Compris. Compris was sold to NCR in 1997 and remains one of the most widely installed POS systems for large food service enterprise clients throughout the world.
In addition to his work with Intelligent Transactions, Melvin currently works with several large food service brands exploring emerging payment alternatives and has founded the Food Service Educational Alliance (www.fseducationalliance) to explore affordable educational opportunities for the 13 million low wage workers in the food service industry.
Melvin has also served as an expert witness and adviser on retail business technology issues to:
a U.S. congressional subcommittee
the Food and Drug Administration
a U.S. District Court in a large retail petroleum class action
several large Wall street investment groups
several large consumer technology companies (such as Google, Amazon and Paypal)
Prior to SIVA, Melvin was Founder, CEO and CTO of Apigent Solutions, an early application service provider that developed the first Cloud-based and SaaS-based offerings for real-time data integration and business intelligence targeted to the food service and greater retail industries. During Melvin’s tenure, YUM! Brands (A&W, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silver, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell), FedEx and Costco adopted Apigent’s middleware as a key infrastructure component for their 30,000+ corporate and franchise sites. In 2002 Melvin engineered the sale of Apigent Solutions to a joint venture backed by McDonald’s Corporation and KKR (one of the world's largest private equity firms). Melvin first focused on the information technology needs of the restaurant industry at the age of 20 when he joined with the founder of B&S Foods, the largest Wendy's franchisor at the time, to develop software that pioneered the use of PC technology for in-store and corporate level back office systems. That technology was subsequently adopted by Wendy's corporate and several other large brands. B&S went public in 1984 and was purchased by Wendy’s International 18 months later. Melvin next founded Daedalus Systems, developer of the first graphical touch screen-based point-of-sale system; the company was sold to New Jersey-based Comtrex Systems in 1986. From 1986 to 1989, Melvin served as co-founder and CTO for retail point-of-sale company Techwerks, landing accounts such as J.C. Penney's drug store group (Treasury Drugs), Rite Aid Drug, Champs Sports, Hibbett Sports and Woolworth’s specialty retail stores (Footlocker, Lady Foot-locker, After Thoughts and over 20 others). Techwerks was sold to a joint venture backed by Unisys in 1989. At the urging of IBM and Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, Melvin founded Compris Technology in late 1989. Acting as CEO and CTO, Melvin joined forces with IBM, who also provided venture funding for Compris, to create both the first commercial IBM touch screen POS units and the first IBM handheld POS units. An entire generation of open platform touch POS hardware offerings from dozens of major hardware vendors followed - the majority of POS hardware sold into the world-wide food service sector during the 1990s and early 2000s was sold running Compris. Compris was sold to NCR in 1997 and remains one of the most widely installed POS systems for large food service enterprise clients throughout the world.
In addition to his work with Intelligent Transactions, Melvin currently works with several large food service brands exploring emerging payment alternatives and has founded the Food Service Educational Alliance (www.fseducationalliance) to explore affordable educational opportunities for the 13 million low wage workers in the food service industry.
Melvin has also served as an expert witness and adviser on retail business technology issues to:
a U.S. congressional subcommittee
the Food and Drug Administration
a U.S. District Court in a large retail petroleum class action
several large Wall street investment groups
several large consumer technology companies (such as Google, Amazon and Paypal)
