📓 I work with a variety of creative and forward-thinking clients in the hospitality, food & drink, and events industries. 📓 My work encompasses a diverse set of project areas, including creative event development, production, partnerships, and content creation, as well as project development, management, and operations consultancy.

🪴A three floor space situated in a Brutalist estate in the City of London, Benk&Bo developed an accessible, creative and community orientated dimension to London living. Encompassing a range of projects from food to furniture, book clubs to talks, Benk&Bo facilitated the building of tangible community, skills and connections. Within the space was a café and bakery, open access workspace, Barbican art and design library, event spaces and a community garden. A snapshot of Benk&Bo’s cultural programming includes:🪴 Live jazz and natural wine in collaboration with Voices Radio. 🪴 Life drawing and craft workshops from Wilfrid Wood, Offset Warehouse, London Fields Design School and Made My Wardrobe. 🪴 Panel talks – hosted by Courier Media, Wild Farmed and CLO, featuring panellists from Paynter Jacket, Dark Arts Coffee, Top Cuvee, Silo and Rotaro. 🪴 Quarterly art shows in collaboration with partners such as Duelle Studio, MAH Gallery and Partnership Editions. 🪴 Christmas Craft Markets showcasing a range of makers from Bookbar, Mainly Breakfast, Black Lines, Duplikat Press, Grain&Knot, Sustainable Department Store.🪴 Benk&Bo also hosted a range of other businesses, brands and organisations such as The Modern House, Tillingham Wines, Google, Shillington, Channel 4, JW Anderson, Airbnb, Nike, Crosta&Mollica, The YBFs Awards, H&M.

🍎 End to end management of the volunteer process, corporate groups & corporate lead generation across 3-4 community projects per week. 🍎 Developed funding streams for various charity programmes - included pitching for funding from Southwark Council to teach cookery and nutrition classes within social housing. 🍎 Community Skills Development - Taught cookery classes for groups with additional learning needs. 🍎 Led community canteens on an ad hoc basis – which involved coordinating groups of volunteers to cook a meal for community guests from surplus supermarket food.

🍭 Optimised and streamlined rota / payroll systems, encompassing operational, production, and event staff.🍭 Efficiently recruited and coordinated production operations team members, and oversaw all fulfilment and logistics.🍭 Spearheaded profit margin analysis and management for all product lines, delivering reports to the broader team and management.🍭 Collaborated with packaging suppliers to innovate and design packaging solutions.🍭 Orchestrated the expansion of production capacity, to meet contractual obligations with major retail clients. As part of this project, I recruited an interim Factory Manager to oversee production within my team.

🍳 Confident & effective leadership as a hands-on General Manager during the launch of a new site opening. 🍳 Oversaw weekly sales forecasting, labour management, and P&L analysis.🍳 Lead the recruitment and induction process for the opening team, managing training, support, and development for a team of over 30 members.🍳 Ensured the maintenance of top-tier service and food quality standards while overseeing all health and safety and food hygiene protocols in the café.🍳 Implemented staff training and system enhancements to effectively manage COGs and stock levels. 🍳 Took an active role in optimising kitchen management for streamlined operations, seamless front-of-house and back-of-house integration, elevated food standards, and improved staff morale.

☕ Demonstrated effective management as a shift leader, overseeing a substantial team in a high volume three-concept restaurant and bar.☕ Played a pivotal role in the recruitment and training of a sizable team of external hires.☕ Efficiently controlled stock and managed COGs for both café bars.

🍝 Business & Operations Management: Comprehensive business management skill development through a combination of hands-on restaurant training and structured classroom sessions.🍝 Kitchen & Back of House Training: Demonstrated proficiency across all kitchen sections during high-pressure service periods, undergoing comprehensive assessments across the entire menu.🍝 Site Management: Worked as a manager across multiple sites of varying sizes and volumes - St Christopher's Place (central London), Marylebone (central London), Woking (Surrey).

👒 Assisting and supporting the buying team with the organisation and administration tasks involved in buying collections for retail. 👒 Calculating and analysing weekly sales figures for sales meetings.👒 Managing the critical path, raise purchase orders and tracking progress against key dates.👒 Communicating with suppliers and handling any queries or issues.👒 Researching competitors and up and coming fashion trends.

📷 Liaised with fashion PRs and designers to source clothes & accessories to fulfil different creative shoot briefs. Assisted stylists during photoshoots. Represented Shortlist at events, meeting PRs and viewing collections for future projects.