Founded the global food advertising company, Gourmet Ads in June 2008. Since then we’ve grown to be one of the largest food specific vertical ad networks in the world reaching millions of household grocery buyers each month. Gourmet Ads partners with advertising agencies, brand advertisers and programmatic buyers through real time bidding (RTB) creating innovating food advertising solutions to exceed our client’s goals. 2000+ websites make up the Gourmet Ads network and comprises of food, grocery, coupon and recipe sites. The Gourmet Ads audience is typically 70% female and comprises of both the primary and secondary grocery buyers from a household. We position food advertising online directly to the target audience for endemic clients such as supermarkets and grocery chains, food manufacturers and kitchenware brands. Launched the Gourmet Ads Marketplace which is the world’s first dedicated food advertising exchange, allowing agency trading desks, DSPs, and brand advertisers to access our food inventory on a programmatic basis using RTB. We offer programmatic buyers Private Exchange or Deal ID through Appnexus and Casale Exchanges. Acquired and redeveloped the recipe search engine, RecipeBridge.com which to date has indexed millions of recipes across the internet. Created RecipeBridge’s contextual advertising solutions allowing food advertising targeted at the ingredient, recipes or cuisine. Benjamin authored a series of white papers specifically written for food manufacturers, supermarkets and gourmet food companies interested in brand advertising online. Each title provides a comprehensive “how to guide” to the best practices of food advertising, campaign development and content marketing of recipes online.

My own consulting venture, leveraging my experience as Executive Chef, I provided varied services and activities to clients such as; • Recipe Development for various clients• Food Writing for Food Service News (Australia) and Chef Magazine (USA)• Export Marketing for Austrade and Australian Food Companies • Food Tourism Marekting for Port Lincoln and McLaren Vale Regional Tourism Bodies• Guest Chef on Cruise lines for Celebrity Cruises, Holland American and Regent Seven Seas • Guest Chef at Hotels for Hyatt, Hilton, Shangrila Hotels, Radisson, • Restaurant Consulting for BlackStump RestaurantsCareer HighlightsGuest Chef at Australia Week in Moscow Russia. 2nd Place for “Best Chowder” at the World Famous Newport Rhode Island Clam Chowder Cookoff

During my tenure, I worked on hundreds of web projects taking an innovative and strategic approach in the “sales”, “concept” and “post build” phases of development. I was fortunate to be involved in a number of high profile projects including Yahoo Australian Election Portal, Network Ten, eWay, Camera House, City of Sydney, Dimmi, Radio Rentals, Getup!, Globus Travel, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Big Brown Box, Gadget Guy and Choice to name just a few. Many of the projects were major web portals, commercial websites, ecommerce sites or brand pages. Apart from client specific projects, I created from a strategic direction the companies search, advertising, social and email marketing offerings. I reported directly to Managing Director, Robert Beerworth

Responsible for web development, content creation, display advertising and monetization of all of de Groots Media marque web properties including Best Restaurants of Australia, Perfect Gift Certificates and Best Hotels of Australia. Developed integrated Restaurant Advertising Solutions (online restaurant listings, display advertising and print) Project Lead on Perfect Gift Certificates which included product development, web development and launch gift suppliers and content. Managed day to day relations with outsourced companies and freelancers. Developed and managed key client accounts including American Express, Citibank, CitySearch and NSW Tourism. Regular Contributor to Dining Around Sydney MagazineReported directly to Managing Director, Maureen de Groot

Dining Downunder TV Cooking Show has now broadcast into 48 countries as well as now available on Joost. We filmed 13 episodes. I also wrote and published the Dining Downunder Cookbook with Vic Cherikoff.

Executive Sous Chef of the Banyan Tree Bintan and Angsana Bintan

Opened the Gusti RestaurantFormerly Parkroyal Perth

Great Keppel Island Resort, located on the Great Barrier Reef and 15km off the Capricorn Coast of Central Queensland, Australia. I was responsible for entire catering operations on the island which included twice weekly ordering of food as well the following food and beverage outlets; • Admiral Keppel Restaurant (Buffet & Alacarte)• Anchorage Grill• Keppel Café• Signals Ice-Creamery & Coffee Shop• Staff Dining Room• Function & Conference facilities 350 delegatesGreat Keppel was part of Australian Resorts (owned by QANTAS) as such, liaised with Qantas Flight Catering from time to time.

Trained under Executive Chef, Kenneth Leung