Keynote Speakers, Special Events & Workshops 

Ellen Smith is a market planning and GIS professional with more than a decade of experience applying spatial analysis to solve complex business and community challenges across both the public and private sectors. She currently serves as the Manager of Market Planning and Real Estate Analytics for Five Guys Enterprises where she leads location strategy, market planning, and spatial analytics initiatives. Throughout her career, Ellen has leveraged GIS to support data driven decision making in site selection, demographic analysis, customer behavior, market optimization, sales performance analysis, and strategic growth. Her work demonstrates how spatial thinking can transform data into actionable insights, whether serving local governments or national restaurant brands. Ellen earned her Bachelor of Science in Geography with a specialization in Geographic Information Systems from Bowling Green State University and is a certified Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP). She is passionate about advancing the role of GIS as a strategic decision-making tool and enjoys sharing how geographic thinking can help organizations better understand the people and communities they serve.