I didn’t join Whitbread with a career plan.
I joined because I needed a job. I was a chef, working in hotels and large-scale banqueting and I saw an advert in a newspaper for a Grill Chef role at my local Brewers Fayre.
Once service started on my first day, I was hooked. The place was full, fast and intense – and just as importantly, fun. Front of house and back of house worked as one team, which I wasn’t used to at all.
What really became clear early on was that Whitbread didn’t just expect me to cook. It expected me to understand the business. Margins, stock, rotas, performance – you weren’t just doing a job, you were running part of a business.
Within six months, I became a Kitchen Manager. Not long after that, I was an Area Chef Coach, supporting multiple sites. Less than two years in, my career had already shifted direction – not because I’d planned it, but because opportunity was there and I took it.
My move into Learning & Development didn’t come from a single application. I asked questions. I said what I was interested in. I got involved in menu trials, food shows and development kitchens – sometimes in my own time – because I wanted to understand how the wider business worked.
Whitbread didn’t block that curiosity. It encouraged it. The extra effort I put in wasn’t for immediate reward – it was about creating options for what came next.
When I took responsibility for L&D in Restaurants, something was missing. There was no clear progression programme that blended technical skill, leadership capability and proper assessment. So, we built one.
Progressing Into focused on selecting the right people, investing heavily in them, and holding them to a clear standard. It wasn’t about ticking boxes or pushing numbers through. It was about making sure people were genuinely ready for the next step.
Graduation days mattered. People felt proud. But that wasn’t the measure of success. The real proof came later. People who went through Progressing Into delivered stronger WIN card results a year after appointment, stayed longer in role, and performed better than both external hires and internal promotions who hadn’t been through the programme.
“I know the programmes I’ve built work – I can see the results a year later on the WIN card. That’s really satisfying.”
I’ve now been at Whitbread for over 20 years, but I’ve never stood still. I guess I’ve never had the same job for very long. As the business has grown, my role has grown with it – across Restaurants, Premier Inn, skills training and learning at scale.
What’s kept me here isn’t just progression. It’s the people. Challenging, supportive and genuinely invested in doing the right thing.
With the business continuing to grow – including internationally – there’s more to build, not less. That’s why I’m still here, and why I’m excited about what comes next.