Not a CV. Not a list of clients. Just the moments that shaped how I think about hospitality, and the ones that took me somewhere I didn't expect. It adds up to a portfolio career I'd call squiggly, giving me a unique, in-depth view of hospitality's diversity around the world.
Pot washing at an age when most kids get pocket money, running the floor not long after. I caught the bug before I understood the job.
My family's restaurants came first, family friends' venues came next. Everyone said it wasn't the path to take. Twenty-five years later, I'm still here, still rebelling against that advice, and still loving an industry I now help shape rather than simply work in.
After a brief, unconvincing stint at university, I chose Gleneagles instead, determined to learn from the best. It gave me a proper education in operations and standards at one of the finest resort hotels in the world. Stints followed at Tresco Island, Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Cornwall, Von Essen Hotels, TUI and Rick Stein's group, with a stint working in Spain along the way, each turning instinct into a trade.
A move to New Zealand brought my first Resort Manager role, opening St Clair Beach Resort, an F&B-led boutique hotel with a celebrity chef that won Best New Hotel in New Zealand. It's where I cut my teeth in sales, marketing and openings. My entrepreneurial streak resurfaced next: living across New Zealand and Australia, I co-founded several businesses, including a hospitality marketing and content agency, my first step into consulting, alongside trust board positions and a seat on a local tourism board.
The route home ran through California, where I joined an advisory group working with Google on tourism product development. Back in the UK, I took up the role of Managing Director for Elliotts Agency, the UK's most respected marketing, insight and strategy agency for multi-site hospitality, working with some of Europe's best, from Michelin-starred venues to FTSE 100 companies.
I took a deep dive into multi-site operations, leading brand and strategy for Thai Leisure Group, one of the UK's quickest-growing restaurant groups, growing from 13 to 22 sites in just two years. The recognition followed: Best Marketing at the Eat Out Awards 2016, Best Street Food Concept at the Restaurant Bar & Design Awards 2016, 23rd in the Best Workplaces rankings 2017, and a place in the 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain 2017. It also meant regular trips to Thailand, chasing the flavours behind the brand.
Two short, sharp engagements followed: turning around Petersham Nurseries as Interim Managing Director, and advising The Jamie Oliver Group as Strategy Consultant and Interim Brand Director. Both were built to be short by design, a crash course in fixing what's broken quickly. Around the same time I hit my 30 before 30, capped off with a trip across the Arctic Circle on a husky sled — something one friend compared to an SAS challenge.
Mapal Group took me from consultant to technology executive, in hospitality technology rather than a step away from the sector. On the main board of this private-equity backed hospitality software firm, I worked directly with our PE investors, helping combine eight companies into one and drive 7x growth into a platform now running across tens of thousands of sites in 50-plus countries, while sizing up M&A targets and realising investor value at every turn.
Alongside the day job, I co-founded Restaurant Marketer & Innovator, an event series built around getting marketers and operators talking properly. It's recognised more than 250 young leaders, created a leading industry awards, and is now a firm date on the industry's annual calendar. I also joined the board of the Global Restaurant Investment Forum, connecting investors with the people shaping the sector. Along the way I built HospoLive, a Covid response that reached over a million views worldwide. It's kept me speaking at more than 100 events across dozens of countries, including facilitating UN Summit Dialogue Sessions.
Through Think Hospitality, the consultancy I co-founded, some of the biggest work has meant partnering directly with brands and investors on growth, from Hilton, Fairmont, Costa, Four Seasons, Tasha's and Tigermilk on strategy and expansion, to investors like EBRD, 57 Stars and Cercano Management on due diligence and deal sourcing. It's meant going beyond theory: strategic insight paired with real operational deliverability, creative concept development grounded in commercial rigour, and enough investment understanding to know what makes a brand worth backing.
Alongside that, the work broadened into destinations too — mega-projects and placemaking briefs for asset owners and developers where hospitality has to work at the scale of a whole neighbourhood, not a single site. Expo 2030 Riyadh, Eha Retreat, Wadi Safar, Aida Oman and Guinness Storehouse have each demanded that shift in thinking: hospitality as what shapes how a destination works, how people move through it and why they stay, not just an amenity dropped inside it.
Writing came early. I had my first article published at eighteen, and by twenty-one I was a regular contributor to Catering in Scotland magazine. It has run alongside everything since: I'm now a regular contributor to Propel, was previously a columnist for the New Zealand Herald, and have contributed to the Sydney Morning Herald, with articles published in National Geographic and a number of lifestyle magazines.
Somewhere along the way, travel stopped being a side effect of the work and became part of how I do it. Flying between New Zealand, Australia and California for a run of speaking and moderating slots, I realised the trips were giving me a stronger voice in shaping where this industry goes next. Every new stage was another chance to help set the agenda, not just attend it. Now my work takes me to more than 20 countries a year.
This didn't start as a policy, it started as a teenager, volunteering and peer mentoring long before I had a career to build it into. In my early twenties I volunteered in Tanzania, and through my twenties and thirties I've stayed involved with charities and trusts, helped set up recognition programmes under RMI, sat on advisory boards, spoken at forums and advocated to governments on the industry's behalf. I've done three overseas charity cycle rides, each over 400km, and pushed hard on encouraging more women into our industry. It adds up to more than 10% of my working time given back, not because a spreadsheet told me to, but because it's how I've always worked.