A Talented Bunch
It’s not just our food that is made up of all the best ingredients. Our team combines the perfect mix of highly experienced managers, creative professional chefs and dedicated foodies across the whole company.
Professionalism and a highly motivated team come from recruiting and training can do people with the right attitude. At Accent we give our teams the opportunity to flourish with development and training coupled to great support, meaning you always have inspired staff working for you. Our professional handling and friendly approach to TUPE helps us develop stable, loyal teams throughout our business and you will be handing your teams over to a great employer.
Once we have the right team in place, we always take the time to acknowledge and reward outstanding work whether they’ve delivered spectacular special day, outstanding function or warm and friendly customer service. We make sure everyone knows about it through our weekly “Friday Flyer” newsletter shared amongst the business and quarterly, our recognition and reward scheme called “Shining Stars” rewards the outstanding teams or individuals. For a 5 star food hygiene certificate from the EHO, they receive a certificate of excellence and a bottle of champagne (naturally for home consumption only).
Get to know some of our team a little bit better…
The Directors
Derek Warman
A Chartered Accountant, Derek has developed a clear, easy-to-follow accounting system and integrated it across all our sites, giving clients complete peace of mind that their service is always securely and effectively managed.
Ian Crabtree
From Business & Industry, Education, Fine Dining, Travel and even Healthcare, Ian has held a senior role in every contract catering sector he’s worked in, meaning there’s rarely a situation he hasn’t had experience in dealing with!
Paul Merry
An award-winning Chef with 28 years’ craft experience, he’s always bringing his considerable expertise to bear, whether he’s refining menus for individual clients, innovating mouth-watering new recipes or holding interactive educational workshops for our teams.
Noel Dawson
Morag Warn
Jayne Day
A dynamic and dedicated Operations Director, Jayne thrives in a team-oriented business. Alongside Denise, she oversees new contract launches, and attends key client meetings and reviews.
Pierre Hermenault
Operations
Angela Harris
Angie has a keenly-developed eye for what fantastic food should look like in her units – after all, she’s gathered experience across every managerial role in contract catering, as well as having prepared meals for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II!
Besnik Aliu
Besnik is adept at building the kind of close-knit, enduring relationships that form the bedrock of our business, and has flourished as an Operations Manager for both Blue-Chip B&I accounts and Education contracts.
Ian Harman
Ian has a sharp eye for detail and a holistic approach to catering. He believes great service can only be truly delivered by understanding to each client’s requirements, which makes him a perfect fit for Accent and our commitment to tailored catering solutions.
Mark Atkinson
Bob Tamblin
Bob has worked in retail and catering for the last 30 years, and has spent the last 10 years in school catering. He is a real people person and loves to work closely to build relationships with his team and his clients, to ensure that every customer receives a first class experience.
Luke Oliver
Luke spent the majority of his career in management and support roles within both hospitality and retail, Luke joined Accent in 2022. With bags of energy and motivation, he looks to build great relationships and drive excellence across the schools and teams he works with.
Kerrie Cole
Kerrie has worked in the catering industry for 30 years, and the school meal industry for the last 10. She has a huge passion for all things people related and knows that how you treat your team, your colleagues and your customers will have a big impact on the end result. She loves the world of food and approaches each day with positivity and bags of energy.
Adam Gill
Matt Vickers
Matt has worked in the food hospitality industry for over 15 years and started working with Accent in 2017, as a chef manager. Through training and personal development, he is now proudly part of the operations team. Matt enjoys supporting the many different teams within Accent, delivering training and assisting with the personal development of team members.
Caroline Wilding
Caroline has worked in catering for the last 33 years. In this time, she has worked across all sectors including; contract catering, schools, hotels, restaurants, public house (including licensee) and even ran her own catering business! With such broad knowledge covering many areas in her career, Caroline is able to adapt and overcome hurdles and relishes a challenge.
Sofia Georghiou
Sofia comes from a catering background and loves watching people enjoy food that has been cooked using fresh produce and made in house. For Sofia, looking after her managers and supporting them with day-to-day tasks is really important. She also has a passion for developing people and teaching from her own experience.
Michelle Greaves
Philip Hedges
Phil worked in restaurants for 6 years then moved to independent education for 9 years which included lots of private functions, before joining Accent in 2018 and being promoted from chef manager to ops support with Angie.
Colin Wills
An enthusiastic and attentive Operations Manager, he has significant experience in the Education sector and his ability to develop his teams across Primary and Secondary Schools makes him a valuable part of the Accent family.
Enes Seferi
Enes joined Accent as a Relief Chef Manager in January 2023. He thrives in our fast-paced environment and enjoys doing site visits to provide invaluable support across the business
Lee Pennell
Lee started at Accent in 2013 after previous experience working in restaurants and hotels around Kent. He then joined the relief chef team in 2021 where he enjoys meeting other team members and making positive and successful changes at each site.
Food Development Team
Richard Nicholson
Paul’s right-hand man, Richard is an endlessly-creative Chef who loves working with great food and great people, delivering new recipes, concepts, training and organising and implementing new kitchen launches.
Jo
With over 30 years’ experience in hospitality fine dining and food development, Jo works closely alongside Paul creating hospitality innovation for the business including creating special foodie ideas, bespoke menus and recipes for events, training and tailored concepts.
Dave Jennings
A versatile and highly-imaginative Chef, Dave spends much of his time working on the recipe development and the creation of new food offers, including running a major project, featuring an extensive range of sweet and savoury hand held snacks.
John Polston
John joined us in 2020, bringing over 35 years of experience he has cooked for the President of the United States, the Queen and Prince Philip! He has a love for good food and enjoys fishing in his spare time.
Harry Richardson
Harry has 20 years experience as a chef mainly with a background in private member clubs and retail. He loves to keep on top of current food trends and incorporating them and bespoke theme days into our secondary sector.
Graham Ogden
Graham is tasked with promoting sustainable food projects across the business. Working with our school partners and supply chain, Graham creates exciting, interactive events across the country.
Fabio Jesus
Fabio join Accent in 2023 and he has vast experience in Contract Catering and Hospitality Fine Dining. He is a real people person, enthusiastic and loves to work closely with the teams and help implement new innovative ideas and help deliver great food and service to our clients.
Miroslav Hristov
Miroslav is a highly experienced chef with 30+ years of experience within various establishments, he loves cooking and helping others achieve their goals.
Neil Clem
30 Years of chef experience of which half in the contract catering sector, Neil is a dynamic, enthusiastic and energized chef with a passion for service, food and people. Neil is constantly looking to push the boundaries of normality, his creativity and passion have won him numerous awards throughout his years. Formally trained, a true professional in his field and a true asset to the Accent team.
Nutritionist
Georgie Ridgeway
Georgia joined Accent in 2023 after graduating with a Masters degree in Applied Sport Nutrition with various volunteering experiences with sports teams. She is dedicated to promoting a food first approach to improving health and performance by educating clients on making healthier food choices. Georgia will be supporting Pippa in creation and delivery of nutrition workshops, recipe development and social media content.
Relief Chef Team
David Brooks
Philip Hillman
Phil joined Accent in September 2020 with over 35 years catering experience from Hotels, to B & I, but primarily in the education sector. He enjoys working on the relief team, supporting colleagues to maintain Accents high standards.
Carrie Anne Shanks
Matthew Staras
A dynamic chef with over 30 years’ experience in the catering industry, over 20 of those running kitchens from restaurants, B&I, directors’ kitchens, private hospitals and the education sector. Matthew has also worked as a regional trainer for a training company, teaching new chefs and managers how to succeed in their chosen professions.
Richard Cook
Richard has been a chef for over 25 years and have experienced lots of different sectors within the catering industry from 5 star hotels , Michelin rated restaurants to heading the Catering division for a charity. He enjoys a challenge and exceeding the clients expectations.
Maxine Mattison
Nicoleta Pasca
Nicola been working as a chef since she was 18 years old, she is very enthusiastic bubbly person. She likes to challenge her skills and improve as a chef.
Richard Williams
Richard has been in the business for over 30 years with a wealth of experience from opening new restaurants to bespoke client dinner's and large corporate event lunches and dinners.
Marketing & Sales
Lily Wilkinson
Our Creative & Design guru, Lily is always developing imaginative and eye-catching marketing, branding and promotions across our business, and she works with each client to produce tailored design suites that are uniquely theirs!
Emma Ferris
Emma joined Accent in 2019 after graduating from University for the Creative Arts, her creative eye brings spaces to life with fresh branding and marketing, and also plays a key role in developing our new marketing suites for our Education business.
Natalie Varley
The hub of our Design & Branding team, Natalie’s creative spark sees her turn her hand to a huge range of different tasks, from designing tailored logos for our clients to making our sales documents much more pleasing on the eye!
Gary Irwin
A dedicated cog in our sales team, Gary can call upon a Diploma in Hotel & Catering services, as well as a rich and varied experience in chef roles. He’s since discovered, however, his skills are even better suited to selling, rather than serving!
Carolyn Hatfield
Our in-house teleseller, Carolyn’s wealth of experience in both the sales and catering industry mean she’s perfectly positioned to understand how we stand out in the market, and more importantly, how to articulate that to potential new clients!
Kathryn Pell-Walpole
Experienced sales and partnership director having worked within operations, client relations and business development. Kathryn is a passionate foodie, with an eye for detail, a high degree of integrity and an ability to quickly build rapport and trust with colleagues and clients.
Sufia Ferdos
Sufia Joined Accent in 2023, she graduated from London College of Fashion in Journalism. She worked as a freelance journalist and graphic designer. She assists the team within all areas of marketing and sales, she works closely with Gary and Kathryn.
HR & Payroll
Claire Fitzgereld
Claire is in charge of the Human Resources department, and she's been in HR for the past 15 years. She holds a CIPD certification and has prior experience working in a variety of fields, including tourism, housing, manufacturing, and biotechnology. She joined the Accent Team in the summer of 2022, bringing with her a passion for employee engagement and sustainability in the workplace.
Leila Zoghbi
Having completed her psychology degree and after dabbling a little bit in psychology work, Leila decided that HR would be a better option and started her career at Unilever. She subsequently joined Accent in 2013 and has been a mainstay in our HR team ever since.
Shannon Watson
An enthusiastic HR Professional, Shannon has completed both Level 3 and 5 HR CIPD Qualification and has a keen passion for people. She has over 5 years experience working in HR for Transport, Facilities Management, Property Management and now is on a new journey with Hospitality, helping to drive the HR agenda.
Abby Welsted
Abby joined the Accent team in 2022 after completing her Human Resource Management degree. She helps to support the HR team by overseeing the employee life cycle and assisting with employee engagement initiatives.
Natalie Ford
David Clarke
David has extensive experience in payroll, having worked for companies such as B.A and VSO for over 25 years. This makes him perfectly equipped to handle any pay enquiries from our 600+ members of staff.
Phuong Le
With over 8 years’ payroll experience in the hospitality industry, having worked for restaurants such as GBK, Carluccio’s, Ed’s Easy Diner, Giraffes, combined with having a passion for food, makes Phuong the perfect addition to the Accent Catering team!
Finance
Andrew Rushmere
Andy provides front-line support for both our IT and Accounts departments, so there’s rarely a moment where his phone isn’t ringing! He’s also AAT qualified , a globally-recognised finance accreditation.
Vidhya Prabagaran
Having originally joined as an Assistant Management Accountant, Vidhya’s expertise in both Budgets & Trading, as well as coding, has seen her take on dual accounting and IT-assistance roles at Accent, making her an indispensable support to Andy.
Virginia Wells
With an encyclopaedic knowledge of every invoice in the company, Ginny ensures every penny is accounted for at Accent. Having previously worked in Cyprus, Ginny traded sun for sums when she moved back to the U.K!
Lesley Johnson
Despite having gained a Chef’s qualification, Lesley has long-since swapped pasta sheets for spreadsheets as she uses her gift for numbers to supports our sites with their monthly finance audits.
Veerle Mansell
Born in Belgium, Vee initially moved to England to work as an au pair in 1996 but soon decided to settle in the UK. Her eye for detail and flair for numbers eventually saw her moving into an accounting role. Vee started in the returns team and is now involved with various tasks within the finance department.
Marrisa Rushmere
A busy mum of 3 who loves to bake. I made a career change in October 2022 moving from the education sector to Purchase Ledger.
Fahad Samar
An Accounts Assistant going through the unit returns and eventually assisting with the final Unit Trading Accounts. Accounts and Finance Graduate with Outstanding Achievement Award, loves to work with numbers and develop new skills in the field. Also has a keen interest in Philosophy, international history and learning cultures to broaden the horizon.
