Who We Are

A qualified accountant, Mark gained extensive experience of the financial services industry through managing Price Waterhouse’s (latterly PricewaterhouseCoopers’) financial services consulting business around the world. He has advised a large number of institutions on strategy and acquisitions, operations and back office, human resources and technology over many years and written and presented extensively on such topics.

In his management role, he had responsibility for a business of around $1.5 bn revenue and 7,500 partners and staff around the world. He was a member of PricewaterhouseCoopers global board, the firm’s most senior governance group, until the acquisition of the consulting business by IBM, which he had a major role in effecting. He joined IBM with the deal and had a senior role managing one of IBM’s major relationships until leaving in March 2005.

He is now a director of several major organisations, both commercial and charitable, and pursues a number of other interests.

Brought up in a Cotswold Hotel and trained at the Savoy, Lyndon also worked with Antonio Carluccio and Genaro Contaldo, Jamie Oliver’s mentor.

After running a restaurant and bakery chain in the US, he joined the change management team at Selfridges where he revolutionised the food offer and worked on plans for new stores.

An advisor to The All Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship, Lyndon has helped many restaurants - including the highly acclaimed Assaggi. 

Passionate about healthy eating and a member of the Guild of Health Writers, Lyndon is a regular contributor to the media, and a columnist for Health & Fitness magazine. At the forefront of the healthy eating revolution, Lyndon also set up the award-winning Eat:Fit Foundation and regularly gives lectures and public cookery demonstrations at food shows.

Grew up in a background of professional catering, Gil has been a professional writer and editor working for books, magazines, websites and newspapers for longer than the English have cared about cooking. Today, he runs his own company providing editorial content and consultancy services to a wide variety of businesses and organisations. A passionate foodie, he fears that he will expire long before he ever gets to even read all the cookery books he owns.

Jan Learmonth  -  PR advisor

Jan has worked in the hospitality industry since arriving in the UK from New Zealand 11 years ago. Jan was a journalist on Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine and Pub Business magazine before branching out to undertake freelance public relations on behalf of a number of restaurants, bars and chefs. Jan has worked on the Roux Scholarship with Albert and Michel Roux and set up Gordon Ramsay’s Scholarship for young chefs.

Javier was brought up in a family where eating together around the table was the most important event of the day. With a father in the wholesale fruit and vegetable market, a grandmother that keeps pigs and his mother canning their own tuna its not surprising that Javier is passionate about food. After gaining a degree in Biology in Santiago and a stint helping out in the family business Javier went on to study organic agriculture in the Netherlands and has worked on all aspects of the food chain.

Marion has been studying sports nutrition as part of a sports science degree for the last four years. She is a committed vegetarian and therefore insists on knowing the origin of ingredients in her food. She will complete her degree and her thesis in the German Sports University in Cologne later this year.