About This Site
Chefs, understandably so, rarely speak the same language as a CFO, an MBA, the bank manager or an investor, what we might call, the language of the Boardroom. In my experience, in this day and age, it is increasingly important you do so.
Talking a while back to one of this country's leading chefs and restaurateurs, I asked him about the impact of his organisation's growth on him as a person: 'I'm still just a cook,' he said modestly.
'No you're not,' I suggested, 'you're a CEO'. (Chief Executive Officer).
The chef's humility might be admirable, and play well to the press, but there's a real risk that if you own and run multiple restaurants, have a hundred staff, book deals, a TV show and maybe outside shareholders in your business also, if you don't think like a CEO, at best, you don't maximise the value of your investment, and at worst, you might suffer a catastrophic business failure.
Danny Meyer, the restaurateur behind such names as Union Square Cafe and Eleven Madison Park arrived at a similar conclusion, noting in his memoirs:
I gradually found myself with four, then five, and then six restaurants. And of course, when I was in one of them, I was not in any of the others. For the first time, it hit me - and although I had tried hard to deny it - that I was no longer purely a restaurateur. Rather, I had become the CEO of a growing restaurant company. That was a huge pill to swallow.
I would dare to go further, even if you run just a single restaurant, you are still very much a CEO in addition to all your other roles. And further still: we are all the CEO of our own lives!
Many chefs are already great leaders, possessed of a winning mindset. What I seek to do is to help you build upon your achievement of becoming a winning chef to help you become a winning CEO. Drawing upon the insight of business leaders, military commanders and sporting heroes, I ask, what can we learn and how can we apply that to your situation? After all, the recent success of the British Olympic team at Rio offers a very clear message to everyone in all walks of life: winning is never just an accident.
So who is this website for? I might say it's for everyone from commis chefs to celebrity chefs. But in fact, you don't have to be a chef of any variety, for this is about people, about organisations and about you. It's for anyone interested in winning, however you define it. Your journey.
Talking a while back to one of this country's leading chefs and restaurateurs, I asked him about the impact of his organisation's growth on him as a person: 'I'm still just a cook,' he said modestly.
'No you're not,' I suggested, 'you're a CEO'. (Chief Executive Officer).
The chef's humility might be admirable, and play well to the press, but there's a real risk that if you own and run multiple restaurants, have a hundred staff, book deals, a TV show and maybe outside shareholders in your business also, if you don't think like a CEO, at best, you don't maximise the value of your investment, and at worst, you might suffer a catastrophic business failure.
Danny Meyer, the restaurateur behind such names as Union Square Cafe and Eleven Madison Park arrived at a similar conclusion, noting in his memoirs:
I gradually found myself with four, then five, and then six restaurants. And of course, when I was in one of them, I was not in any of the others. For the first time, it hit me - and although I had tried hard to deny it - that I was no longer purely a restaurateur. Rather, I had become the CEO of a growing restaurant company. That was a huge pill to swallow.
I would dare to go further, even if you run just a single restaurant, you are still very much a CEO in addition to all your other roles. And further still: we are all the CEO of our own lives!
Many chefs are already great leaders, possessed of a winning mindset. What I seek to do is to help you build upon your achievement of becoming a winning chef to help you become a winning CEO. Drawing upon the insight of business leaders, military commanders and sporting heroes, I ask, what can we learn and how can we apply that to your situation? After all, the recent success of the British Olympic team at Rio offers a very clear message to everyone in all walks of life: winning is never just an accident.
So who is this website for? I might say it's for everyone from commis chefs to celebrity chefs. But in fact, you don't have to be a chef of any variety, for this is about people, about organisations and about you. It's for anyone interested in winning, however you define it. Your journey.
About the Author
Most of my working life was spent working at a Wall Street investment bank where winning was everything. My life was spent analysing companies to determine which would be stock market winners. So aside of my own personal progress through the organisation, I closely studied the success of others, getting to meet CEOs of FTSE 100 companies such as Sir John Bond, John Varley and banker in exile Fred Goodwin, and here it is worth noting that often you can learn more from someone's failure than you can from their success.
Then and now, I would also spend much time reading about other business legends such as Jack Welch, the famous CEO of GE, Roberto Goizeuta, CEO of Coca Cola for 17 years, and of course the world's most famous (and richest) investor, Warren Buffett.
When it comes to food and restaurants, I was one half of the food blog thecriticalcouple.com and over those years, I was lucky enough not only to eat at some of the country's best restaurants, but in the process, to become friends with many of the chefs. My experience of the chef community is that they are for the most part a truly inspirational bunch and I was delighted to help many of them with their business issues discussing strategy and finance. After years of doing this informally, I have decided to bring it all together in Kitchen2Boardroom. And of course, we never stop learning ourselves, so this project continues a journey for me also.
I hope you enjoy the website. Please get in touch with me via my contact page if you would like more information about what I can do for you, your staff or your organisation.
David
Then and now, I would also spend much time reading about other business legends such as Jack Welch, the famous CEO of GE, Roberto Goizeuta, CEO of Coca Cola for 17 years, and of course the world's most famous (and richest) investor, Warren Buffett.
When it comes to food and restaurants, I was one half of the food blog thecriticalcouple.com and over those years, I was lucky enough not only to eat at some of the country's best restaurants, but in the process, to become friends with many of the chefs. My experience of the chef community is that they are for the most part a truly inspirational bunch and I was delighted to help many of them with their business issues discussing strategy and finance. After years of doing this informally, I have decided to bring it all together in Kitchen2Boardroom. And of course, we never stop learning ourselves, so this project continues a journey for me also.
I hope you enjoy the website. Please get in touch with me via my contact page if you would like more information about what I can do for you, your staff or your organisation.
David