It was here that I developed an interest in training, so when I left college, my first job was as a training co-ordinator at an American catering organisation called Jefferson. In that role I was responsible for training bar staff and waiters at all of the company's three UK sites. At the same time I was involved in researching and writing the staff handbook.
I remained in the training co-ordinator role for about two years, but I gradually realised that in order to be a great trainer and go as high as I could go, I would have to move into an operations role for a period to get a fuller picture - and that's exactly what I did.
By this stage I had more or less decided that I wanted to have a career in human resources in the longer term. I never wanted to be an area manager or anything like that but I didn't imagine I would end up as an HR director.
Although I have worked in HR in other sectors I have always been passionate about hospitality so I think I will probably end up working at Elior for quite a while.
