Days
26Hours
22Minutes
20
Days
26Hours
22Minutes
20ceda Conference 2025 Speakers
Paul Goodale
Dinner Host
Paul Goodale is a Restaurateur and Designer with 30 years of sector-specific experience, exclusively within quality operations. Paul has operated everything from luxury hotels and Private Members Clubs to gastro pubs and self-service food courts, conceiving and opening over 70 one-off concepts for icons including Conran and Harrods.
He has extensive experience at every stage of hospitality life cycle, from acquisition through to sale.
Paul became the youngest FTSE CEO in 2008, before spending four years as Director of Restaurants and Kitchens at Harrods, where he oversaw the transformation of the hospitality offer, culminating in the CATEY-winning French Laundry at Harrods.
Paul is Founder and CEO of PizzaLuxe Group, which secured private equity funding in 2020 and operates across multiple sites in Leeds, Manchester, and London.
Paul owns Epicurean Holdings, a consultancy that he founded in 2009. Epicurean provides operational and design services for clients such as Harrods, Galeries Lafayette, and Qatar National Museums Authority, working extensively in the Middle East.
In 2021, Paul was retained as a consultant at Mama Roma Restaurant Group in Brussels. Paul was subsequently invited to join the Board of the Company, serving until December 2023.
Paul previously Co-Founded Fred’s Food Construction, which was Tesco’s first seed capital hospitality investment, which opened three stores during 2014.
Paul has judged Best Marketing Campaign at the CATEY Awards, as well as the Global Restaurant Awards.
Paul is married to Joycelyn Neve, Founder and CEO of multi-award-winning Seafood Pub Company, dividing his time between London and Lancashire.
Peter Martin
State of the Nation Address
Peter Martin is one of the most authoritative and influential communicators and community builders in the eating and drinking out sector, with 40 years’ experience as entrepreneur, media owner, columnist, editor, market analyst and board adviser.
He is co-founder of Peach 20/20, the international network for senior executives, entrepreneurs and influencers from the out-of-home food and drink market. The Peach programme of annual events includes the flagship Peach 20/20 conference and Hero & Icon awards in London, and Atlantic Club tours to North America and Europe.
Over the years, he has launched and run a raft of business magazines, newsletters and conferences and is probably best known - apart from Peach - as both co-founder and editor of the M&C Report newsletter, now renamed MCA. He remains a regular columnist and contributing editor.
He is co-creator of the Coffer Peach Business Tracker, the definitive hospitality industry sales barometer now owned and run by CGA, and the Retailers’ Retailer Awards, now part of William Reed.
He is a strategic advisor to a number of companies, including global data and insight provider CGA and Harri, the on-line people management platform based in New York and London.
More recently, with partner Christine Martin, he co-founded CM&Co, a specialist strategic consultancy for the events and hospitality sectors.
Peter is an inveterate networker and “allegedly” has the best contacts book in the UK market. He speaks and presents regularly at events in the UK, Europe and the US. He is a founder of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR), the trade organization for the UK pub, bar and casual dining sector, and now sits on the advisory council of UK Hospitality, the lead hospitality association formed by the amalgamation of ALMR and BHA.
He is a trustee of the Tim Bacon Foundation, the cancer charity created in memory of celebrated restaurant and bar entrepreneur Tim Bacon.
In 2016 he won the Special Achievement Award from Eat Out magazine, and in 2018 the Special Award at the Casual Dining Restaurant & Pub Awards.
Alasdair Murdoch
Fast and Furious
Alasdair Murdoch has been Chief Executive Officer of Burger King UK since 2018. Alasdair has over 25 years of experience in the casual dining sector as the former Chief Executive Officer of Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Chief Executive Officer of Pizza Express International, Pizza Hut UK and General Manager of Pizza Hut France. Prior to that he was the Operations Director of KFC UK and Ireland, and Pizza Hut.
Alasdair studied at the Cranfield School of Management.
Burger King UK’s CEO Alasdair Murdoch talks technology, automation, price, efficiency, sustainable supply chains... and growth. In conversation with Peter Martin.
Bex Wilkins
Why the Pub is Still a Good Bet
After a decade with Peach Pubs, Bex Wilkins left her role as Marketing Director to start her own pub company with wife Sarah. Makers of Hospitality opened their first gastropub in Bromsgrove, May 2024, and they plan to open their second this summer.
Bex completed a diploma in marketing through the CIM, and led the marketing, sales, room and reservation team as well as the food and drink functions during her time at Peach, and. Following the subsequent sale to Revolution Bars, she sat on the Executive Team. Prior to Peach, she spent time in agencies, and two years at Mitchells & Butlers.
Paula O’Neil
Creating a Sustainable Food Future
Paula is a dynamic culinary leader with over 30 years of experience delivering innovation, operational excellence, and high-performing teams across the food and hospitality industries.
Starting her career as a chef at 16, she developed her expertise with some of the world’s most respected brands, including Hilton, White Rabbit Projects, and Sodexo Live, before advancing into numerous senior Culinary Director roles, including Vacherin London.
She is highly regarded as an expert in hospitality from high-profile independent clients to super yachts, luxury hotels, independent restaurants, major corporate events and luxury event operations. Now as a Director of Culinary and part of the Executive Leadership team at Aramark UK & Global Offshore, She drives the company’s “Food and Planet” strategy, ensuring food, craft, sustainability, and innovation are at the heart of the business. She is passionate about women in leadership.
Simon Stenning
Future Foodservice – The Next Five Years
With a 30+ year career founded in operational management, with Forte, Hilton and Pret A Manger, Simon moved to a development & strategic marketing role with Compass Group, following a Postgrad Diploma in Marketing.
Simon then developed Allegra Foodservice, 17 years ago, into the leading source of market intelligence, before selling to William Reed Business Media, where he created and led MCA, merging the data, insight, news and events businesses.
Acknowledged as the leading analyst of the market and expert in making sense of all the data and insight available, Simon stepped down from MCA to launch Future Foodservice, providing unique foresight into the future, for the whole spectrum of the hospitality/foodservice market.
Future Foodservice most recent report – The Next Five Years – delivers granular forecasts for 9 sectors and c.40 segments of the market, looking ahead to 2029.
Jayne Jones
Public Sector: An Opportunity to Deliver Food Systems Change
Jayne Jones is Chair of the Public Sector Catering Alliance, and her long term commitment is to continue to work in partnership with a range of stakeholders to make systems shifts and improvements in public sector food by taking a sustainable food systems approach.
Jayne is also Assistant Director for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde with responsibility for all Soft FM Services including catering, cleaning and portering.
Over the past ten years, she has participated in a number of Scottish Government steering groups, past Chair of ASSIST FM and is currently a member of the HCA. Jayne She was previously recognised as one of the UK Public Sector Catering's Most Influential People in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024, won the Public Sector Catey in 2023, is a 2021 Acumen Academy UK Fellow and holds an Honorary Fellowship with the University of Edinburgh Business School.
With changing demands and ever increasing constraints across the area of public sector food; in hospitals, schools, care homes, universities, colleges, prisons and armed forces, Jayne Jones will highlight the impact of these, and the opportunities this presents to deliver more sustainable food systems change by leveraging the power of public food.
Kate Nicholls
Political Reality
Kate Nicholls OBE has been CEO of UKHospitality, the powerful voice representing the broad hospitality sector, since its inception in 2018. Kate previously worked as CEO and Strategic Affairs Director of the Association of Licenced Multiple Retailers (ALMR).
Kate sits on the Government’s Tourism, Hospitality, and Food & Drink Sector Councils, where she represents the wider hospitality and tourism sector. As a passionate advocate for inclusivity in hospitality, she is also the Government’s first Disability Ambassador for hospitality.
Kate is the Chair of the Institute of Licensing, a board member of Best Bar None, and a trustee of Hospitality Action and Springboard. She has previously chaired the Tourism Alliance, London Night-time Commission, and London Tourism Recovery Board.
Kate will be discussing the legislative challenges facing the sector and what to expect from year two of a Labour Government at national and local level.
Alice Kilner
Serving Up Sustainability: Pathways to Net Zero
Andrew Seymour
Catering Insight Market Talk Live hosted by Andrew Seymour
Andrew Seymour is Editorial Director of Promedia Digital, a leading B2B publisher of digital media, print publications and events for the catering equipment and hospitality industry.
Andrew was the founding editor of Catering Insight and its sister title Foodservice Equipment Journal, which provide daily news, market trends and business intelligence for the catering equipment industry. The annual Catering Insight Awards and FEJ Awards, meanwhile, have become key fixtures in the industry calendar, honouring excellence among individuals and businesses. He is a recognised commentator on the UK foodservice equipment sector and regularly chairs interviews and discussions at industry events.
Sir James Benton Jones
Catering Insight Market Talk Live hosted by Andrew Seymour
Sir James Benton Jones is a respected Lincolnshire estate owner, entrepreneur, and community leader, with a deep commitment to public service, environmental stewardship, and rural life.
Known to friends and the wider community as Jamie, he is widely admired for his warmth, charm, and natural ability to bring people together. He plays a central role in maintaining and enhancing community cohesion in Irnham and the surrounding area. With over two decades of business leadership experience and a growing presence as a digital communicator, Jamie bridges tradition and modernity — using social media to engage wide audiences with rural heritage, sustainability, and estate life. His ethos of hospitality, connection, and environmental responsibility makes him a highly credible and capable candidate for the role of a Deputy Lieutenant.
Kirstin Hatherley-Bramwell
Catering Insight Market Talk Live hosted by Andrew Seymour
Kirstin took up her first post in the family business in 2005 and has quickly become an industry advocate.
She now manages many aspects of Hatherley Commercial Services Limited - service and maintenance department — organising a busy service office and a team of engineers is never easy! HCS is a regional company with contracts mostly within the public sector - a large part of which is schools catering.
The company became a member of CEDA in 2007 and meets the high standards expected by the association and this is due, to a large extent, to Kirstin’s thoroughness. Kirstin has impressed her fellow industry colleagues so much that she was appointed as CEDA’s first female chair and she strives to make a difference.
She is proud of her involvement in the creation of the apprenticeship standard for catering equipment technician, a first for the industry in the UK.
The company has been awarded catering insight service company of the year and ceda design projects winner.
In 2022 she was presented with an order of merit by the FEA for her contribution of work voluntarily within the foodservice industry.
Bonita Jones
Mountains of the Mind
Bonita Norris is the youngest person to reach both “tops of the world”: the summit of Mount Everest and the North Pole.
She has been on eight expeditions and is now an award winning motivational speaker and bestselling author of The Girl Who Climbed Everest. Her next expedition will take place in Tibet in 2026.