The Caterer interview


now – I crushed three vertebrae in my back through a terrible whiplash injury. I was in rehab for four or five months and I’m still hav- ing treatment now, 15 years later. I could no longer physically do those hours on the floor, but I really wanted to stay in the industry. So I examined my life and realised that all the bits I had adored about my general management focus had been the people, the training, the learning and development, the pastoral care, and helping other people to grow and develop their careers. So I came back to the UK and decided to do another degree: a masters in human resource management.


Does it disappoint you that governments past and present haven’t done more to recognise tourism and the impact it makes on the GDP? To date, countries like Australia and the USA recognise the value hospitality brings to the economy and gives it the free rein to stretch its feet. We still have this awful British attitude that hospitality is something people go into when they can’t go into anything else, and yet, when I look at our organisation alone, we have some of the brightest minds working there. I think the border and immigration agen-


cy’s restriction on recruiting from around the world is utterly short-sighted. We are not investing enough in UK colleges in terms of high-quality catering and hospitality qualifica- tions because we don’t see it as a valuable industry, and yet we can’t recruit the special- ism we need from overseas. There isn’t another industry in the world that offers the diversity of career opportunities that hospitality does, and the amount of labour is dwindling constantly as more and more high-quality businesses open up. The talent pool is so much smaller than it ever has been, and if we’re not investing at the bottom and we’re not opening up the international recruit- ment avenues at the top, how will the problem ever get fixed?


On your return to the UK, did you immediately join Corbin & King? I saw an advert for a personnel assistant with Corbin & King while studying for my masters. I went to an interview at the Wolseley and I remember walking into that incredible space. I had been out of London when the Ivy became successful, along with Le Caprice and J Sheekey’s, so I had no real idea who Chris Corbin and Jeremy King were or how influen- tial they were in the industry.


I remember in the interview this very tall gentleman glided over to the table and started asking me questions about my CV. I realised he was the owner and was so impressed that he had read my CV and was interviewing me for a personnel assistant role. I had inter- viewed at other high-profile restaurant com- panies and hadn’t even come close to meeting the people who actually ran them. Ninoska Leppard, who was then the head of personnel and is again today, thought I was overqualified for the role, but she then decided to change the structure of the department so


26 | The Caterer | 20 March 2015 Corbin & King – the portfolio


The Wolseley Capacity 140 in the restaurants, with a private dining room seating 14 Opened November 2003 Address 160 Piccadilly, London W1J 9EB thewolseley.com


The Delaunay Capacity 150 in the restaurant and two private dining rooms seating eight and 14 Opened December 2011 Address 55 Aldwych, London WC2B 4BB thedelaunay.com


Brasserie Zédel Capacity 240 Opened June 2012 Address 20 Sherwood Street, London W1F 7ED brasseriezedel.com


Colbert Capacity 118 in the restaurant with exterior seating for 22 Opened October 2012 Address 50-52 Sloane Square, London SW1W 8AX colbertchelsea.com


Fischer’s Capacity 100 Opened May 2014 Address 50 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 5HN fischers.co.uk


The Beaumont Rooms 73 Opened September 2014 Address Brown Hart Gardens, London W1K 6TF thebeaumont.com


The Colony Capacity 100 Opened September 2014 Address Brown Hart Gardens, London W1K 6TF www.colonygrillroom.com


The Wolseley


The Beaumont


she could work part-time and be with her young children. She approached me with a view to me running the department. The Wolseley opened in October 2003 and I joined in February 2004.


How did your career progress? Rapidly and unexpectedly. Within two months of my joining the company, Nin went down to working two days a week and then, within about a year, I’d been made head of personnel. Two years after that I was asked to join the board as their first ever HR director. Just over three years ago, when the company was expanding, Chris and Jeremy felt the need to bring in a chief operating officer to help them run the business. They approached me early on – I think in their eyes, my ops back- ground, my involvement in many aspects of the business beyond the HR remit and my deep understanding of their philosophy made me a suitable candidate.


In the first instance, I rejected them. They brought in someone on a short-term basis and when the role became available again they


approached me a second time. I still had some concerns: as an HR director I had a great rela- tionship with them and I had complete auton- omy. I was worried that working much more closely with them and within a remit in which they were very much the experts I would be out of my depth and end up being micro-managed and possibly failing. They assured me that was not the case and it has proven to be so.


How does Corbin & King compare as an employer to anything that you had experienced before? I had been bullied by a male general manager at a previous company and so I had always thought men in powerful positions in hospi- tality were there to be feared and respected in equal measure. I just couldn’t understand why the owners of this company kept coming into my department every morning to ask my advice on what we should do for our staff. For the first time ever I was involved at a col- laborative level with senior male managers for whom I had such respect. When I first started, I used to watch them walk the restaurant floors


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