RESTAURANT MARKETER & INNOVATOR
EUROPEAN SUMMIT
21st & 22nd JANUARY 2020
ONE MOORGATE PLACE, LONDON
Restaurant Marketer & Innovator European Summit returning for its third year.
The European Summit will focus on marcomms strategies, proposition and concept development, the latest market insights, technology and digital developments, building strong links between marketing and operations, embedding a brand throughout a hospitality business and future trends.
It is designed for marketing, development and innovation teams, as well as senior executives and investors wanting to better understand the latest marketing, innovation and development opportunities to build market share and grow. The event will feature more than 40 speakers, with a unique blend of senior marketers, business leaders and entrepreneurs, from five countries.
Day 1 runs from 9:30 - 17:25 with a G&T reception from 17:30 - 18:30 and an after party at Puttshack.
Day 2 runs from 9:35 - 17:30.
Ticket prices:
- 2 day operator price £575 + VAT
- 1 day operator price £345 +VAT
- 2 day supplier price £795 +VAT
- 1 day supplier price £445 +VAT
PROGRAMME
DAY 1
A CHANGING WORLD
THINK Hospitality CEO & RMI Co-Founder, James Hacon rounds up the year that has just past, highlighting some of the key trends and happenings in the sector.
Speaker
James Hacon
Managing Director at THINK Hospitality & Co-Founder of Restaurant Marketer & Innovator
Bio
Managing Director at THINK Hospitality & Co-Founder of Restaurant Marketer & Innovator. James has worked with more than fifty hospitality brands in ten countries as a senior executive & consultant, including Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, IHG, Thai Leisure Group, Casual Dining Group, Radisson Hotels, Krispy Kreme, Greene King & Sodexo. He specialises in refining and defining brands, understanding the market, facilitating strategic development and maximising growth opportunities.

Suzanne Robinson, Managing Director at Happen UK shares her tips on where you should look for innovation and more importantly, how to do it.
Speaker
Suzanne Robinson
Managing Director at Happen UK
Bio
Suzanne is Managing Director of Happen UK. Part of Accenture, this global innovation consultancy helps clients create commercially successful innovation in crowded consumer markets. Over the past 10 years Happen have incremented over $5Bn in revenue for their clients.
With over 30 years of brand and innovation experience, as both a client and highly successful consultant, Suzanne challenges, inspires and guides Boards and commercial teams to achieve their brand and business goals. Suzanne's real passion & expertise lies in unlocking hidden insights to help crack tough innovation challenges at category, brand and technical levels for companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Pepsico, GSK, M&S, Diageo. In line with Happen’s vision, she places strong emphasis on working to deliver competitively differentiated in market success such as guiding M&S to secure a £30m increase in sales in less than a year by rejuvenating their whole Food on the Move proposition.

Johannes Kanter, CEO, Robolab “Yanu” discusses the rise of robotics in the restaurant industry, the opportunities this creates, moral questions it raises and introduces their solution.
Speaker
Johannes Kanter
CMO of Yanu
Bio
Johannes has 10 years experience across digital marketing space from PR, content writing to SEO, paid advertising and e-mail automation. He has helped dozens of local startups and international brands craft their value proposition and find the best ways to acquire more customers and scale their businesses. Right now Johannes is a CMO of Yanu - a fully autonomous robot bartender. In free time, Johannes enjoys writing about marketing for his blog GettingGrowth.

Peter Critchley, CEO of Beaver Trison examines the growing consumer expectation of seamless and valuable experiences in intelligent retail spaces and how these can be delivered through digital platforms - including speech and AI technologies.
Speaker
Peter Critchley
CEO of Beaver Trison
Bio
Peter is CEO of Beaver Trison; a digital agency, whose team has been innovating in, and developing, the digital signage industry since 1998. IKEA, SSP, Whitbread, Odeon, Center Parcs, Showcase and GSK among many others are using digital solutions which Beaver Trison’s project experts, engineers and creative teams have designed, installed and support. Using custom applications, analytics and reporting, success is continuously measured against KPI’s with each project the team delivers.
Beaver Truison has a global footprint through Spanish parent company, TRISON, who have people and offices across Asia, Europe and the Americas. Peter has both a technical and creative background which informs the strategy and consultancy expertise he provides clients. He is excited by helping people navigate the project process and make the right technology and content choices, and crucially, also ensuring that relevance, frictionless customer experiences and a demonstrable value exchange is at the heart of what is delivered by the digital solution.
With decades-long and first-hand experience in digital signage and broader digital technologies, Peter can design solutions which connect seemingly separate digital systems to create truly engaging experiences for customers which scale across broader roll-outs, and also return measurable value to the business, reducing risk and providing a platform to effect real, ongoing change.

Katy Moses, Managing Director at KAM Media shares how hyperconnectivity and busy lifestyles are influencing buying decisions of global consumers and how hospitality brands are adapting, evolving and enhancing their proposition accordingly.
Speaker
Katy Moses
Managing Director of KAM Media
Bio
Katy has 20 years experience in business development, research and consultancy roles. She started off at The Daily Express where she sold ad space and got yelled at by Richard Desmond, moving on through recruitment and into research and consultancy 10 years ago. Katy is passionate about pubs and bars (and not just about being in them) and small format retail.
In retail, Katy has run research programmes for some of the biggest names in FMCG including Heineken, P&G, Diageo and Heinz. She has also worked consultatively with - and created and delivered research programmes to - most major retailers including The Co-operative, Waitrose and McColl's. She hasn’t had a complaint yet.
In the ontrade, Katy has worked with pub and bar companies as a consultant since what seems like the dawn of time, and run bespoke and syndicated research programmes for both pub companies and ontrade suppliers such as Punch, Enterprise, St Austell, Shepherd Neame, First Drinks, and Carlsberg. They all seemed to like what she did too.
In her spare time, Katy can be found exploring new pubs, bars and restaurants around London, dancing the night away at gigs and partying in fields at festivals. However, she starts every day with a gym session and once in a while she visits a museum to balance it all out.

Plant based diets are on the increase, but there are mixed messages about the environmental impact of meat production, our panel of experts discuss the changing consumer landscape, how operators are responding and what the future might look like.
Panel:
Loui Blake
Founder of Erpingham House
Bio
Founder of the UK’s largest vegan restaurant and central London vegan restaurant Kalifornia Kitchen. He is also a marketing & brand consultant, as well as a public speaker, and was recently named as the restaurant marketer & innovator future leader 2019.

Emmy van Beek
Head of Sustainability at Hawksmoor
Bio
Emmy van Beek is the Head of Sustainability for Hawksmoor. She has worked in hospitality for over 8 years in varied roles most recently in Menu Implementation Management. On Sustainability, Emmy has spoken publicly on topics such as food waste and the future of food and works to imbed ethics into the culture of restaurants.

James Coldrey-Mobbs
Head of Marketing at Ego Restaurants
Bio
James has been in the hospitality industry for the last 16 years, the first 8 of which were spent working in and out of restaurants, bars, pubs and nightclubs with the last 8 years spent working in a research, marketing and strategy capacity with some of the biggest and most well known hospitality brands including Sodexo, wagamama, Mitchells and Butlers, Pret a Manger, Carluccio's, IHG Group and many more.
James is currently Head of Marketing for Ego Restaurants, a group of Mediterranean inspired pubs and restaurants, overseeing the entire digital and in-store customer journey through from initial acquisition to understanding behaviour, conversion and retention. The role covers all elements of the marketing spectrum including email, digital, local, PR, mobile and social.
Outside of work James is a passionate traveler and at the age of 30 has been lucky enough to visit 35 countries, including working and living in New Zealand for two and a half years.

Harry Boglione
Founder of Haye Farm
Bio
Harry Boglione is the founder, owner and director of Haye Farm in Devon. As a child, he established the kitchen gardens at Petersham House and since then has developed his passion and knowledge for growing natural, fine produce.
Taking ownership of the farm in 2014, together with Emily and their young family, Harry grows, harvests and sells only organic produce to his customers and is an avid supporter of the Land Workers Alliance. The aspiration of Haye Farm is to create sustainable food systems which support high levels of productivity, whilst encouraging an increase in biodiversity and wildlife.
Haye Farm supplies Gloucester Old Spot pigs, chickens, rabbits, ducks and a whole host of delicious organic fruits and vegetables to both Petersham Nurseries Cafe and Teahouse in Richmond, as well as many other prestigious London restaurants. It will also supply the two new restaurants and the Delicatessen in Covent Garden.

Elise Craft, Global Planning Partner at Ogilvy Health & Wellness tackles what brands need to know about the impact of complainers, campaigners and haters, as today's consumer is raising their voice on social platform and testing the limits of individual influence.
Elise Craft
Global Planning Partner at Ogilvy Health & Wellness
Bio
Elise leads strategy for the Ogilvy Health & Wellness practice, helping clients across all sectors to understand how they can leverage the $4.2 trillion wellness economy to improve their business while improving the lives of their customers. She recently authored the #Food_Hacktivist report, and regularly presents on emerging trends in health and wellness.
Her experience gives her a unique perspective on the challenges of communicating in the rapidly transforming health and wellness sector – from a background in public health and social development in North America and Europe, she jumped the fence into the brand and marketing world and has an award-winning portfolio of clients across non-profit, corporate, consumer, and public sectors. Depending on your point of view, that was either ridiculous or genius.
She is also a global spirits judge and former restauranteur and hosts of one of London’s most popular whisky tasting groups, Whisky Squad.

EVOLVING BRANDS
Rachael Whittle, PR Manager, Dishoom talks about creating a strong brand with purpose that delivers its promise within and out with your four walls.
Speaker
Rachael Whittle
PR Manager at Dishoom
Bio
Rachael Whittle joined Dishoom as PR Manager in 2019. Rachael started her hospitality career working in restaurant management and has spent the past five years in PR and marketing. She has a mix of in-house and agency experience, having worked on the launch of Homeslice’s first three pizzerias, before joining Tonic PR & Communications to work across a diverse range of restaurants, bars and events.

Elise Ash, Strategy & Brand Director at The Restaurant Groupdiscusses the tools and techniques being used to move the needle on the reinvigoration of the Frankie & Bennies business.
Elise Ash
Director of Strategy & Brand at The Restaurant Group
Bio
Elise is a passionate marketer & strategist having worked in a variety of marketing & commercial roles throughout her career. She gained valuable multi-industry experience at the likes of Sky TV, Virgin Airlines and Sainsbury’s, but her love of food brought her home to the hospitality industry. Having joined The Restaurant Group in 2018 as Director of Strategy & Brand, Elise is currently focusing on driving the turnaround of Frankie & Benny’s.

Mark Stretton, Managing Director of Fleet Street Communications leads a panel to discuss the way technology and digital is being leveraged to drive brand growth.
Panel:
- Libby Andrews, Marketing Director at Pho Restaurants
- Lisa Campbell, Operational Excellence Manager, Feed It Back
- Lesley McIlroy, Marketing Director at Bill's Restaurants
FOOD & PROPOSITION
James Hacon interviews Maya Orr, Senior Marketing Consultant at Lidl about why entering consumer awards can be a real win for your business, case studying the Lidl’s success with this strategy over recent years.
Speakers
James Hacon
Managing Director at THINK Hospitality & Co-Founder of Restaurant Marketer & Innovator
Bio
Managing Director at THINK Hospitality & Co-Founder of Restaurant Marketer & Innovator. James has worked with more than fifty hospitality brands in ten countries as a senior executive & consultant, including Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, IHG, Thai Leisure Group, Casual Dining Group, Radisson Hotels, Krispy Kreme, Greene King & Sodexo. He specialises in refining and defining brands, understanding the market, facilitating strategic development and maximising growth opportunities.

Maya Orr
Senior Marketing Manager at Lidl
Bio
I began my career in broadcast in 2010. I worked for a radio PR agency and quickly rose to head up all the food and drink promotions, this foray into the industry uncovered a true culinary passion inside of me. Since then I went onto work in more traditional PR agencies, where I learnt more about the farm to fork element of food, and sourcing became a big interest of mine - understanding where our food comes from is something that really interests me. I have a WSET accreditation and have worked with a number of international food and drink brands/authorities such as Jarlsberg Cheese, Concha Y Toro and the Red Tractor. In 2013 I first became a judge at the Great Taste Awards, and in 2017 I was appointed Head of Awards within Lidl's Marketing team. I initially joined Lidl's PR team after launching the supermarkets first ever PR campaign for its French wine offering in 2014, since then I have been promoted internally a number of times and now oversee all awards for the business, as well as a number of above the line campaigns including Big On Quality, Lidl on Price. I'm a huge foodie, I am fortunate to have been able to travel far and wide in pursuit of great food, and my travels have seen me venture to amazing places like Noma in Copenhagen and Tokyo's famous fish market.

Claire Scullion, Account Director at MVAD shares how menu design tricks can change the way your customers order and encourage up-sells.
Speaker
Claire Scullion
Account Director at MVad
Bio
Account Director at MVad, Claire has a varied history of working in the marketing industry. Skilled in marketing strategy, integrated marketing and Inbound lead generation. Prior to her role at MVad she was Director of Marketing at Elliotts Agency working on national pub and restaurant brands and Team Manager at BBH overseeing the Whitbread Restaurant account for the agency.

Meg Ellis, Commercial Director at Honest Burger reveals how the brand works to take a local approach to roll out beyond London, with initiatives that cross the whole customer experience.
Speaker
Meg Ellis
Commercial Director at Honest Burger
Bio
Meg Ellis is the Commercial Director for Honest Burgers who pride themselves onhomemade burger & chips with an uncompromising focus on quality & simplicity and an old school hospitality style for competitive advantage in a busy market. With 36 restaurants across London, Cambridge, Reading, Brighton, Manchester, Liverpool & Cardiff and c.650 employees, Honest Burgers is acknowledged as a Sunday Times Fast Track 100 company in 2015 / 2016 / 2017. They were nominated for best concept at MCA Retailers’ Retail Awards 2018 and were winners of Best overall restaurant operator 20+ sites 2018/19 at the R200 Awards.
Prior to Honest Burgers, Meg’s had a wide sector experience in commercial leadership and strategic marketing most recently in the hospitality and food to go sector and prior to this across a reputable collection of consumer brands in retail, leisure & lifestyle. She describes herself as addicted to building brand equity to drive excitement, commercial return and create memorable experiences.

Dan Burns, Managing Director of Natural Selection Design shares his experience of helping brand & personalities document and share their amazing stories through video, including projects with Michelin starred chef Michael O’Hare’s Shread & Butter ski retreat & filming Gary Usher for ‘The Rebel Chef Channel 4 documentary.
Speaker
Dan Burns
Founder & Managing Director of Natural Selection Design
Bio
Dan Burns is Natural Selection Design’s founder and managing director. Dan formed the agency after many years working as a designer, photographer and food stylist for industry press. Dan may be the head honcho, but you’ll just as likely see him setting up props and making tea, as you will directing filming and leading creative strategy.

Daniel Bennett, Consulting Director, Behavioural Science Practice at Ogilvy Consulting shares the science behind making your food more craveable within your promotions, based on their work with some of the world's largest food brands.
Speaker
Daniel Bennett
Consulting Director at Ogilvy Consulting, Behavioural Science Practice
Bio
Dan co-leads the behavioural science practice within Ogilvy Consulting London looking after clients from the public and private sectors. He is a Practitioner, Speaker and Writer on the creative application of behavioural science to the world's stickiest challenges. Joining the practice at its commencement in 2012, he has worked on over 80 of the world’s major brands & organisations.
He has a diverse experience working across the design of products and services, consulting for organisational change and communications across all channels, across many markets. Whether that's designing first generation tech in Silicon Valley, reducing obesity in Mexico, changing cleaning habits in Beijing, call centres in India or shaping the retail environment in South Africa.
Dan co-leads the global hub in London and helped to roll out the practice across the Ogilvy network.
He has led pioneering projects with Spotify, Facebook, Unilever, Nestle, Public Health England, Gatwick Airport, ITV, the Times, British Airways, Mr Muscle, Diageo, Adobe, the EU Parliament, Comic Relief and many more. And winning a range of awards from the Creative Circle, Cannes Lion to the Nudge awards.
He’s been lucky enough to be invited to speak to audiences in over 20 countries about the unseen opportunities behavioural science brings. Some highlights have been Harvard University, National Security summits, Marketing and Social Media conferences, Super Yacht congresses, financial conferences. He has also helped curate the world's largest festival of Behavioural Science, Nudgestock, since it began seven years ago.
Before Ogilvy, Dan was part of a research group at the University of York Psychology department looking at the real world impacts of our mobile phone usage.

PROGRAMME
DAY 2
CAMPAIGNS & CREATIVE
Supersonic, Mark McCulloch returns with an update on the change marketers need to be making in 2020 to be successful.
Speaker
Mark McCulloch
Founder Supersonic Inc
Bio
Mark McCulloch is one of the leading Food, Drink and Hospitality brand and marketing minds in world. Mark has over 20 years Brand, Marketing, Digital and Social Media experience holding senior positions at lastminute.com, Barclaycard, YO! Sushi and Pret A Manger. Mark co-founded Brand and Marketing agency WE ARE Spectacular Ltd in 2012 and now runs Premium Brand and Marketing Strategy consultancy Supersonic Inc. based in London and Brighton helping C-Suite level Marketers and Executives amplify their business across multiple sectors. In 2018, Mark began podcasting and his Mark McC Supersonic Food Marketing Podcast has reached number 20 in the iTunes business charts and is a regular Top 100 podcast.

Content is often described as the centrepin of a successful digital strategy, with spend on social & digital continuing to rise each year our panel discuss how they are developing strategies that build audiences, engages their community and deliver for their brands.
Panel:
Rosie Prior
Brand & Digital Manager at Petersham Nurseries
Bio
Rosie is a creative marketer with experience and knowledge of integrated marketing communications, marketing strategy and project management. Most recently of Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, where she revolutionised content production across the restaurant group, adding a sense of agility within the team, rallying the business behind a joint vision on their own channels and building a solid network of engaged champions.

Emine Mehmet
Group Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Inception Group
Bio
Emine Mehmet is the Group Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Inception Group, managing and implementing the digital marketing strategy of 12 venues, across six unique brands. Emine has a strong passion for digital marketing and, in particular, multi-channel digital launch strategies. In the last year alone, she has successfully launched four new venues with award-winning campaigns that have gone viral. She was previously a Local Marketing Manager for 22 Domino's Pizza sites across London and now manages a fast-growing digital team at Inception Group.

Mimi Moreton
Co-Founder of Moreton Reynolds
Bio
Mimi has over 10 years experience within the marketing industry, and co-founded Moreton Reynolds just over 4 years ago, aged 24. A full-service creative consultancy, Moreton Reynolds supports the NHS, City Councils & Town BIDs across the UK, as well as restaurant groups and international hotel chains. Originally completing a degree in Archaeology, Mimi soon realised her passion for the marketing world when working part-time at Global Radio (Heart & Capital FM) to fund her university course.

Steph Howson
Head of Content at CH&CO
Bio
Steph Howson is Head of Content at CH&CO - building and implementing the company’s content strategy across social media, internal comms, digital and PR. In her previous role at The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, she developed the brand style and tone of voice for seven restaurant brands, as well as managing content and marketing plans for the group.

Marketing fine dining experiences can be a very different challenge, needing a distinct playbook, this panel will bring together leaders experienced in high-end environments to share their tips to success.
Panel:
Emily Chambers
Consultant at THINK Hospitality
Bio
Emily has ten year’s sales and marketing experience within the hospitality industry working for Michelin-starred chefs Jason Atherton and Tom Aikens.
Emily is now a marketing consultant specialising in local marketing, business development and sales tactics. Emily’s current clients include Jason Atherton, 2 Michelin Star Moor Hall, software and deli brand Vita Mojo and more.

Virginia Anne Newton
Director of Media Relations & Special Events at Restaurant Geranium, Copenhagen
Bio
Originally from the United States of America, Virginia is currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark. While her University degree is in Political Science, her career has included working in both the film and television industries. She lived in Nashville, Tennessee as well as Los Angeles, California before moving to Germany where she left the entertainment world behind and entered the financial sector. For 10 years she worked as the Finance & Contracts Manager for an aeronautical engineering firm based at the German Space Operations Center, just outside of Munich. In the fall of 2015, Virginia followed her passion for food to Copenhagen where she works as Director of Media Relations & Special Events for 3 Michelin-starred Restaurant Geranium.

Josh Craddock
Director of Marketing at The Doyle Collection
Bio
Josh Craddock is one of the UK’s leading luxury hotel restaurant and bar marketers, having won the Acorn Award from The Caterer and is also an RMI 30 under 30. Currently working at The Doyle Collection, a family owned luxury hotel group which operates in Ireland, UK and USA; as Restaurants & Bars Marketing Director Josh oversees half of the group’s luxury restaurants, bars and event spaces, including the world’s most followed hotel restaurant on Instagram – his current portfolio spans hotels in London and Washington DC.

Rachel Persoon
Owner of Typhoon Agency
Bio
Rachel Persoon is the owner of marketing & PR agency Typhoon Hospitality and branding studio Brandchef, both specialised in the hospitality industry. With clients all over Europe, she advises how they can increase their brand awareness, visibility and revenue. The clients vary from Michelin star restaurants and 5-star hotels to fast-casual restaurants and start-ups. Together with her international team, she travels the world to help her clients; from concept development and brand building till ongoing marketing, PR & social media management.

Sophie Evans, Marketing Director at Puttshack talks about taking on a new challenge in the experiential leisure sector, sharing how she gains buy-in from across the organisation and delivers a strategy that drives real commercial results.
Sophie Evans
UK Marketing Director at Puttshack
Bio
Sophie has been in her current role as UK Marketing Director of Puttshack since May 2019. Puttshack is the UK’s leading indoor mini-golf brand and one of the fastest growing competitive socialising concepts in the UK. Her role includes overseeing the marketing team, as well as working with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that all activity is in line with the organisation’s brand values. Prior to joining Puttshack, Sophie held senior marketing roles at a number of high-profile hospitality businesses include Be At One – leading the marketing team to win an award at the 2019 RMI awards. Sophie has also spent time in marketing roles at Novus Leisure, working on brands including Tiger Tiger, and with The Restaurant Group and TGI Fridays.

ENTREPENEURSHIP
Mark Stretton, MD of Fleet Street Communications interviews Rhys Oldfield, Co-Founder of Be At One about his story of being a bartender to building and exiting the 32 bar group.
Speaker
Mark Stretton
Managing Director of Fleet Street
Bio
A Fleet Street-trained journalist, Mark spent three years at The Sunday Times. After that, he became managing editor of The Publican, then editor of M&C Report. Mark has a complete understanding of the leisure sector, a Grade A contacts book and an intimate knowledge of how the relationship between companies and the media should work. In his spare time, Mark is kept active by his two young sons and by playing regular 7 a side football. Mark is also a big Pompey fan, through thick and thin, though it is thinner and thinner these days.

Callan Price, Founder, Olive & Key leads a panel of early stage hospitality entrepreneurs to discuss their concepts & share their entrepreneurial journey.
Panel:
Callan Price
Founder of Olive and Key
Bio
Founder of Olive and Key, a blog and online resource dedicated to bar and restaurant marketing. She is an industry professional with over 13 years’ experience in hospitality, and began her career working all facets of front of house in her native city of Vancouver. She then moved to London, project managing for a well-known restaurant consultant and finally landed in Dublin where she worked for many years as a marketing manager for a large bar and restaurant group.

Hayley Simpson
Founder & Managing Director of Lucky Pineapple
Bio
Previously Head of Marketing at The Breakfast Club cafes and cocktail bars, Lucky Pineapple is Hayley's first solo venture - an event and cocktail bar agency with super style and bags of soul at its core. Launched in May 2019 Lucky Pineapple brings show stopping mobile bars and experiential cocktail experiences to corporate events, festivals, brand activations and weddings. Her second cocktail bar brand, Disco Baby, is set to launch in September 2020, alongside the companies third mobile bar structure, a giant disco ball with built in rooftop DJ booth.

Joshua Jarvis
Founder of Wingshack
Bio
Joshua Jarvis is the founder of Wing shack co and has a strong passion for ‘Soul food’ and digital marketing. Joshua isn’t your typical ‘restaurateur’ as throughout his career he has been involved in sports and fashion, but now believes he has found his hidden talent and is looking forward to continuing his new journey within hospitality, growing and expanding wing shack co and developing new food concepts.

Andy Young
Black Milk
Bio
Andy is part of the team behind Black Milk. In the last four years, Black Milk has become "the dessert king of Manchester" serving extravagant treats to people in their home town along with their cafe within in Fiorucci's flagship store in Soho. Most recently Black Milk has fulfilled their goal of introducing a range of retail goods to be sold directly to consumers across Europe through social commerce.

Ragnar Eiríksson
Vínstúkan Tíu Sopar Wine Bar
Bio
Born in 1979 in Reykjavik, Ragnar grew up partly in the city as on his aunts dairy farm on Iceland´s south coast developing a strong connection with nature, the local produce and the culinary culture of the country. After failing high school, Ragnar worked in various restaurants, cafés and bars around downtown Reykjavik, until starting a culinary internship at the Saga Hotel in 2002, graduating in 2006 from the Icelandic hospitality and culinary college. After working for a year and a half at Grillid, Icelands premium fine dining restaurant since the early ’60s, Ragnar moved to Copenhagen where he lived for the next 7 years. While in Denmark Ragnar explored the city's ever-expanding restaurant scene and worked for a short while at places like Noma and Premissé (now AOC). Eventually, he found his place with an English born chef Paul Cunningham, for whom he worked for almost 6 years, both at his Michelin starred restaurant The Paul, in Copenhagen´s Tivoli gardens and at Henne Kirkeby Kro, an idyllic inn on Denmark's west coast. In 2014 Ragnar moved back to Iceland and started working at Dill for chef Gunnar Gislason, whom he replaced as a head chef of Dill in late 2015 when Gislason moved to New York City. Ragnar followed Gislason´s vision of Dill, emphasising local ingredients and the obscure eccentric flavours of the north. Now Ragnar is no longer directly involved with Dill and owns and operates a small wine bar in downtown Reykjavik. Also he is developing a new restaurant concept to open soon in Reykjavik.

Grace Regan, Founder of Spice Box reveals why she left the high-paced world of tech start-ups in SIlicon Valley to start a restaurant concept in London.
Speaker
Grace Regan
Founder of Spice Box
Bio
Grace is a serial entrepreneur who cut her teeth in the tech world, with her first start-up Clippet News. After being named one of the UK’s best young entrepreneurs in 2015, she won a place on a top Silicon Valley accelerator and moved to California, where she became vegan. Disillusioned by the tech world and keen to make her dream of opening a curry house a reality, Grace moved back to London and started SpiceBox from her home kitchen. She quickly fell into the world of street food, trading with Kerb at markets and festivals across the UK and was named a Young British Foodie Street Food Finalist. Grace opened the first SpiceBox curry house in Walthamstow in Jan 2019.

EMERGING FORMATS
Heleri Rande, Partner at THINK Hospitality leads a panel of leading food hall and market leaders to discuss the continued evolution of this format.
Panel:
Heleri Rande
F&B Strategist at THINK Hospitality
Bio
Originally from Estonia, Heleri has lived in seven countries and holds a Bachelor’s Degree from New York University in Economics and Business, as well as an executive MBA in Hospitality Administration from École Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) in Switzerland. After leading Puccini Group’s growth in EMEA for two years, she has partnered with Think Hospitality to deliver on F&B strategy projects helping brands and owners assess the market, find the right concept positioning and/or operator & chef for the properties. Her portfolio includes the likes of Accor, Hilton, Kempinski, EC4 Hotels, SuperCity Group and Marriott.

Matthew Farrell
Co-founder of Graffiti Spirits Group
Bio
Matt has worked in food and drink industry for 20 years with a strong FOH restaurant background. A Tourism and Masters post graduate and now also a published travel writer, co-founder Matt Farrell manages the culinary and business aspects of Graffiti Spirits Group. Keen to elevate Liverpool as one of the UK’s leading hubs for gastronomic excitement and excellence, Matt is passionate about new trends, local produce, and offering locals and visitors the perfect balance between quality and cool. GSG is in its testimonial year and has operated in Liverpool, Birmingham and London in recent years, with a range of eclectic brands. Graffiti Spirits Group has marked its tenth year in business with multiple new venues. 2019 has saw the award-winning group open Duke Street Market – Liverpool’s new culinary hub, Slim’s the new New York diner-style restaurant on Bold Street and gourmet chicken takeaway, combined with a speakeasy style retro arcade, 16 Bit Chicken on Seel Street.

Jonathan Downey
Co-Founder of London Union
Bio
Since leaving his career as a corporate lawyer in 1999, Downey has become a highly influential voice in hospitality - opening over 20 bars, clubs, restaurants and a hotel in London, Ibiza, Chamonix and Melbourne. In 2015 he was named by Debrett’s/Sunday Times as one of the 20 most influential Brits in food and drink and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Spirited Awards in New Orleans.
In 2012 Downey brought his drinks expertise to Street Feast, a street food night market founded in east London. Downey has since organised several events and street food arenas under the Street Feast brand (including Model Market, Dinerama, Hawker House, Giant Robot and Public) all over London; taking derelict and disused spaces and filling them with food, booze, music and vibes.

Amy Heather, head of strategic accounts at Just Eat hosts a panel discussing the diverse formats and opportunities being fuelled by the growth of delivery and take out.
Panel:
Andre Johnston
Marketing Director at Wagamamma
Bio
Andre has worked in a number of marketing roles in the hospitality industry and as UK Marketing Director at wagamama he has been helping to champion the customer across the business including the successful launch of the vegan menu, the launch of the wagamama test kitchen called Noodle Lab in soho, and the launch of the ‘walk-out payment’ app wagamamago™. Prior to that Andre headed up Digital + Loyalty for the business where he worked to put digital into a number of key customer touchpoints.

Robin Himmels
COO at eatclever
Bio
Robin Himmels is Co-Founder & COO of the healthy food delivery company eatclever. Robin loves being in situations where he can explore the underlying mechanics of things, whether they are machines, processes, or products. Analysing and understanding how a certain ingredient in a recipe influences the taste does not just allow you to tweak the product, but also to develop new products. This insight holds value through all his interests in food, processes & technology. This curiosity led him to found his first company, an affiliate business comprised of multiple couponing platforms. Understanding how consumers and employees behave and how they can be motivated was the reason he studied business psychology and e-business. After selling his first company he decided to combine his passion for food with his desire to build and develop products & businesses. As COO he leads & develops eatclevers teams in the areas of Partner Management, Product Development, Customer Support, and Logistics. He always looks for ways to further improve the way eatclever does things together with the individual team leads.

Priten Mistry
Head of Dine Out & Marketing Activation at Pizza Hut Restaurants
Bio
Priten Mistry is Head of Dine Out & Marketing Activation at Pizza Hut Restaurants. He is responsible for the Pizza Hut’s off-premise business managing their presence on delivery aggregators such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats as well as their direct takeaway service. He has experience across the hospitality, retail and leisure industries.

FUTURE
Emma Causer, Group Sales & Marketing Director at Zonal talks to senior leaders about how they create a culture that embraces and encourages innovation.
Panel:
- Richard Morris, Managing Director, Tortilla
- Christopher Jones, CEO, Sushi Shop
- Brandie Deignan, Managing Director, Marco Pierre White Restaurants
Laura Vana, Head of Research & Development at Siigur Restaurants, explains why it is so important to let kids enjoy their food in ever creatively messy way possible – and how restaurants can support in developing children’s relationship with food.
Speaker
Laura Vana
Head of Research and Development at Siigur Restaurants
Bio
Laura Vana holds a MSc in Food Innovation and Health from Copenhagen University where she found her passion in gastrophysics and sensory science. Her topic of research has been about developing methods to educate children about the taste of food.
At the moment she is working on establishing the sensory education method in kindergartens and elementary schools at the national level in Estonia. In addition, she is leading the research and development in the best restaurant group in the Baltics- Siigur Restaurants.

Our think tank is back with a new mission for 2020: to determine the biggest challenges that will face our industry for the next 20 years and suggestions as to how we will overcome them as a sector.
Panel:
- Adam Handling, CEO, Adam Handling Restaurants
- Roaya Saleh, Founder & CEO, Villa Mama
- Arpita Antey, Marketing Director, Bistrot Pierre
- Elton Mouna, Managing Director, Remarkable Pubs
- Michael Ingemann, Chairman, THINK Hospitality
- Paul Webster, Vice President, Livit & 1889 Fast Fine Pizza