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A winning team
We have built an exceptional team to support our operations, with backgrounds in some of London's finest hotels, restaurants and catering companies. Scroll through the team photos above to find out what each of the team can do for you, and more importantly who is our Rafa Nadal lookalike, and who gets their kicks from Kylie!
The Team
Mark Philpott - Owner | Managing Director
Mark started his life in the catering industry as a pastry chef in five star West End hotels. Having moved into contract catering he worked his way up the management hierarchy to eventually become Managing Director of the London arm of one of the country's largest caterers. He earns utmost respect from all Vacherin's staff because he has been there and done it all!
Mark's passion is food quality and provenance and the intelligent use of prime ingredients to create food offers to meet individual client tastes.
What Mark loves about Vacherin: I love the fact that we are achieving our dream of creating a company full of fantastic people, delivering exceptional food and service to a portfolio of truly lovely clients.
What makes Mark tick?
Mark is an accomplished equestrian, competing in dressage and eventing. He is also a respected judge of showhorses. An expert skier, he can be seen most years carving perfect turns on the slopes of Val d'Isere
- Favourite champagne - Pol Roger (Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill, of course!)
- Separated at birth - Aston Kutcher (so he would like to think)
Clive Hetherington - Owner | Finance Director
Clive's passion for food led him into the catering industry over 20 years ago. He held Finance Director roles in two large independent London caterers prior to establishing Vacherin.
Clive believes in straight forward and simple but robust accounting solutions and has an acute appreciation of operational needs. His systems are designed to help our teams manage efficiently and effectively without taking the focus away from their primary focus - that of delivering great food and service.
What Clive loves about Vacherin: "I believe we have achieved our aim of concentrating on and delivering our clients' requirements and thereby driving our commercial success rather than allowing commercial considerations to determine the style and level of service we offer as so many of our competitors do".
What makes Clive tick?
Classical music is the most dominant interest in Clive's life. He sings tenor for the Wimbledon choral society, one of the foremost large amateur choirs in the South East of England. He gains great satisfaction from encouraging his childrens' musical development and, inspired by their progress, he recently picked up his trumpet again after a gap of 30 years!
He is also keen on skiing, running and squash although active participation has been hampered since the surprise arrival in 2007 of triplets to add to the two young children he already had.
- Guilty pleasure: Pretending to be deaf/asleep when the triplets are kicking off.
- Separated at birth: Joe Bugner - does anyone out there remember him?
Phil Roker - Owner | Commercial Director
Phil's developed a passion for excellent service and a keen eye for detail as an operator in first class hotels. He gained invaluable experience in commercial contract catering when working in sales for the world's two largest contract caterers, prior to joining Vacherin.
Phil is committed to creating bespoke solutions for any new business opportunity and stays close to all our contracts to ensure that we are delivering the best commercial results for us and our clients.
He is passionate about sustainability and working with suppliers and clients to minimise the impact of our services on the environment.
What does Phil love about Vacherin? I love the fact that we are so close to our clients - we are able to carry through the promises we make at tender time because we are all in the operations regularly, making sure it happens.
What makes Phil tick?
Sport, sport and more sport. Phil represents Great Britain at Triathlon and competes year round in triathlon, duathlon, cross country running, cycling road races and time trials. He is also a decent footballer - a right back of the "old school" variety - and supports Brentford. He is a keen but not technically gifted skier, golfer, tennis and squash player.
- Guilty pleasure: singing late night karaoke in a dodgy East End pub
- Separated at birth: Lee Evans
Zoe Moulson - Director | Operations
Zoe has been with Vacherin almost since the very start and so can truly be considered part of the fabric of the company. Her relentless attention to detail combined with a love of food and customer service has been instrumental in setting the standards across our contracts as the company has grown.
Zoe is an inspirational leader of teams and motivates her colleagues to provide the very best personal service.
What does Zoe love about Vacherin? It's people, their passion and commitment and the fact everyone has the opportunity to make a real difference.
What makes Zoe tick?
Zoe is an outdoors kind of girl - never happier than when yomping up a fell with a rucksack on her back. She is a Duke of Edinburgh's Award instructor and assessor. She is also another of Vacherin's legion of West Ham supporters.
- Favourite style of food: Tapas, that way I get to try a little bit of everything
- Separated at birth: Olive Oyl
Debbie Loxley - Director | Operations
Debbie joined Vacherin from running some of London’s largest and most demanding contracts for one of our largest competitors. Commercially very astute, Debbie balances the client’s commercial needs with the customers’ to maximise sales and minimise subsidies.
Debbie has exceptional experience within London contracts for the World’s two largest caterers, so she is relishing the intimate environment of Vacherin where she can ensure that best practice developed in one site can quickly be transferred across all relevant operations.
What does Debbie love about Vacherin? Having come from a big company where everything is standardised it is so refreshing to be able to really put the client and customer first, with unique solutions for each one.
What makes Debbie tick?
Successfully juggling home and work well and having fun at the same time.
- Favourite restaurant: Chapter One - so close to home that there are no arguments about who has to drive!
- Guilty pleasure: Relaxing with a really trashy novel by a pool with a glass of wine/champagne!
Lloyd Mann - Director | Food
Lloyd provides inspiration, guidance and support to our exceptionally strong team of chefs. He leads by example, promoting innovation, seasonality, craft skills and excellence in preparation and presentation.
Lloyd describes his own cooking style as focusing on using the best seasonal produce to create great tasting imaginative dishes. He intuitively knows what style is right for each client and is always pushing the boundaries to create an exceptional dining experience.
What does Lloyd love about Vacherin? Being able to use exceptional suppliers, without restriction, at great prices makes a huge difference to our chefs, working with a company who flourish on creativity and actively strive to set new trends allowing input from all levels.
What makes Lloyd tick?
Lloyd takes his passion for cooking home with him which stems from being commis chef to his grandmother from a young age; loves riding his motorbike; a keen fisherman and West Ham supporter.
- Favourite film Raging Bull.
- Separated at birth: Rafael Nadal.... if he takes his wig off!
Stuart Williams - Manager | Operations
Stuart. is the latest addition to the Vacherin head office team, though he is not new to the company, having previously managed one of our largest group accounts. He has invaluable experience in the contract catering industry, having worked for several companies at the upper end of the market.
Stuart brings a real passion to the industry using his food knowledge and bubbly personality to inspire and develop teams to reach their goals and provide the best possible service to clients.
What does Stuart love about Vacherin? The passion for food and people that is shown throughout the company. Everyone is made to feel welcome and involved. The difference between Vacherin and big companies is Vacherin value their people and want the best for everyone.
What makes Stuart tick?
Out of work Stuart has a passion for sport and since retiring from playing football now just enjoys watching it with Man United being his favourite team and Fulham a local favourite (someone has to).
To relax Stuart enjoys spending time in the gym, watching movies and listening to music.
Proudest moment Winning Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals at Hotelympia.
Favourite music artist - Beyonce (mainly for her looks).
Anna Morris - Support Manager | Operations
Anna is our support manager and coffee aficionado. She supports our operations team in all activities but several years' experience running high street branded coffee houses and restaurants means she brings valued expertise in specific areas of marketing, merchandising and coffee service.
Anna has a unique flair and style which she uses to ensure that all our cafés and restaurants present a professional, contemporary image to enhance the customer experience and boost sales.
What does Anna love about Vacherin? The level of creativity and innovation gives a huge buzz - everyone is always on the lookout for new trends and products so that they can be the first to feature them, before we share the idea across other Vacherin operations.
What makes Anna tick?
Anna is a qualified reflexologist with a keen interest in everything holistic. She loves to travel and continues to reduce her carbon footprint by cycling into work come rain or shine! She's also very green-fingered and can be found in her garden all year round.
- Favourite word: "Lush".
- Guilty pleasure: Kylie Minogue.
Dale Thompson - Director | HR
Dale is our longest serving employee, having been General Manager of our very first contract, so he knows the company and its employees inside out! Dale has a passion for training and motivating staff, so having undertaken the CIPD personnel qualification while still running his operation it was a natural step for him to join us as our first dedicated HR resource.
Dale now spends his time ensuring that we recruit and retain the best staff in the business and that we get the best out of them.
What does Dale love about Vacherin? The people! We say we want to employ interesting people who are interested in what they do and it’s true from the top of the company all the way down. There’s a great family spirit which shows itself every time the staff come out to party!
What makes Dale tick?
Dale loves spending time doing up his home and garden. When not doing this Dale loves travelling and looks forward to planning the year's holidays. Weekend breaks in the country are just as important as that couple of weeks on a sunny beach. Spending time with his family is also very important to him.
- Favourite cuisine: Thai street food
- Guilty pleasure: Slurping White Rioja whilst watching Glee
Premier Crew
Premier Crew is our ever-expanding team of support staff, including chefs, porters, front of house staff, hospitality hosts, managers, administrators and receptionists. The Crew are employed directly by Vacherin and trained to our exacting standards so that whenever they are required to cover for absence or to serve large events our clients are guaranteed a seamless level of service.
We are always on the lookout for good staff and will recruit into Premier Crew if there are no specific unit job vacancies so that we have a ready pool of talent when vacancies do arise.
Gary Baverstock – Head Chef, Premier Crew
Gary covers any head chef absences across our operations as well as assisting with large functions and events. Gary is also a qualified Nutritional Therapist and when not working within Vacherin works as a nutrition consultant and in a private clinic holding one on one clinical consultations. He also works within the Life Long Learning sector as a nutrition and cookery teacher to a variety of different adult learner groups.
He is a keen cyclist, a Portsmouth fan and has a great love for South America where he spent 18 months living, teaching and travelling.
Keeley Haworth - Manager | Business Development and Marketing
Keeley grew up in restaurants, so she has food and service in her blood! Having moved down to London from Lancashire she worked in food buying for Fortnum & Mason’s, then for one of the country’s biggest food producers and more recently promoting fine foods from local artisan producers.
Keeley is responsible for spreading the good word about Vacherin through traditional and new media as well as assisting the ops team in maximising sales through effective marketing of our staff restaurants and cafes.
What does Keeley love about Vacherin? I wanted to join a team with a real passion. Everyone I have met in Vacherin is incredibly proud of what they do and of the company, so I know I’ve found what I was looking for.
What makes Keeley tick?
Keeley loves dining out, visiting food markets and incorporating cuisine into every where she goes. With a keen interest to develop her wine knowledge & also cooking being a strong passion she fits in perfectly at Vacherin. Keeley also runs ‘Supper at Beach’ a Supper Club in a gallery off Brick Lane.
Keeley enjoys running regularly, along with other sports such as skiing & swimming, and enjoys using her Shoreditch gym pass to relax in the sauna after a hard week.
- Guilty Pleasure: The Sopranos
- Favourite drink: Hendricks Gin & Tonic
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