I didn’t join Whitbread with a career plan. To be honest, I joined because my godmother worked at the Premier Inn and there were two jobs going next door at Brewers Fayre. I was a shy teenager who absolutely did not want to be front of house - so I chose to work in the kitchen over the front-of-house role.
That was more than 20 years ago. I’ve never worked anywhere else since.
Today, I’m a Senior Trading & Commercial Manager, accountable for around £570m of food and beverage sales across Premier Inn and our branded restaurants. The journey between those two points is the reason I’m still here – and why I genuinely believe Whitbread is a place where careers are built, not boxed in.
My first six months were spent in the kitchen, quietly getting on with the job. When a front-of-house role came up, I said no more than once. I was nervous. Customers felt intimidating and I liked my bubble. I still think back fondly to the laughs we had in that kitchen!
Eventually though, I said yes.
That pattern has repeated throughout my career: feeling uncomfortable, stepping forward anyway, then realising I’m capable of more than I thought. Waiting tables turned into running tills. Extra shifts turned into team leader responsibilities. Before long, I was an Assistant Manager, opening new sites and doing rotas, stock counts and running Christmas Day shifts.
Operations taught me how the business really works. It also helped me realise what I didn’t want to do long term. I loved hospitality, but I knew I didn’t want to become a General Manager. I wanted something different and Whitbread gave me room to find it.
“Every step felt like pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Looking back, that’s where all the growth came from.”
My move into the Support Centre wasn’t polished or particularly obvious. I’d never worked in an office. I barely used email. I took a role on a systems help desk, answering calls from sites about broken tills, printers and stock queries.
It was different… but familiar enough that my operations experience mattered. After all, I knew what it felt like to be on the other end of those calls!
From there, I moved into Products & Pricing, managing menu data, pricing downloads and system set-ups across a large restaurants estate. I stepped up to lead the team earlier than planned and although it was tough, it cemented something important for me: I could take responsibility, even when things weren’t comfortable or neat.
That role put me right at the intersection of food, systems and finance – which is where my career really took shape.
Where my experience finally clicked was when I moved into Finance as a Menu & Pricing Analyst, working on brands I’d once worked for out in sites. I didn’t have a finance qualification. I hadn’t been to university. Surrounded by qualified accountants, I felt the imposter syndrome hard.
What I did have was perspective.
I understood guests. I understood operations. I could see the knock-on effects of decisions beyond a spreadsheet. Over time, that became my strength. I wasn’t trying to be a traditional accountant; I was bringing a commercial, operational lens to financial decisions.
Whitbread leaned into that. As the business evolved, so did my role. I led teams analysing promotions, loyalty schemes, competitor performance and trading performance. I was seeing, day by day, the impact of our decisions on real results.
That visibility still motivates me now. You don’t wait months to see whether something worked here, you see it in the numbers, quickly.
In 2020, I moved into Commercial Marketing, joining a newly formed team with a clear ambition: embed commercial thinking directly into how we market and trade the business.
At first, it was just me.
Since then, the role has grown with the business. I’ve built and led teams, taken on Premier Inn’s Food & Beverage now as part of our growth programme and recently expanded my remit to include both trading and commercial strategy. Today, my team works across pricing, promotions, digital activation and menu strategy. We partner closely with Marketing, Finance, our Chefs and the Operations team.
If you eat or drink in one of our hotels or restaurants, my team has probably influenced what you’re paying and why.
“I love that you can see the impact of your work almost immediately. You know when you’ve made a difference.”
One of the most rewarding parts of my job now is developing others. I didn’t follow a traditional path, so I’m passionate about backing people with the right mindset, not just the right CV.
Some of my strongest team members didn’t come from finance or commercial backgrounds at all. They came from operations or guest-facing roles, bringing curiosity, drive and a willingness to learn. With the right support, they’ve thrived.
That belief is shaped by my own experience. Whitbread invested in me through leadership programmes, qualifications and specialist training – including a digital marketing qualification I asked for because the role was changing.
Development here isn’t about ticking boxes. It works best when you own it, ask for it and apply it.
Whitbread has changed – as it has to, the world’s changed a lot in the 20 years I’ve been here. We work in a tougher, more competitive market than ever before. Expectations are higher. Conversations are more direct. But the values that matter to me have stayed consistent.
I’ve stayed because I’m trusted, stretched and supported. I can grow without having to leave. Because I can build teams, influence big decisions and still feel connected to the guest experience I started with.
I joined as a teenager looking for a Saturday job. I stayed because this is a business that lets you evolve – even if you don’t know exactly where you’re heading when you start!
And that’s why I’m still proud to say I’ve built my entire career here.