People

Great food. Great events.

Our teams

ExCeL London Hospitality boasts a highly trained team of managers, chefs and waiting staff, who ensure our customers receive the best possible service. We truly care about our employees, encouraging balanced lifestyles through our Wellbeing Ambassador and consistently bring our team fantastic development opportunities so we can deliver the best food and drink experience.

Leadership team

Our leadership team is supported by a wide network of colleagues who each play a pivotal role in the day-to-day running of ExCeL London Hospitality. Their dedication to our shared goals as a company is what enables us to deliver world class service to clients and visitors. 

  • Richard Lechley

    Director of Catering
    The Man in Front

    20 years working in the conference and events industry and I’m still in love with seeing our guest enjoy all the events world has to offer, especially the food. With food at the heart of my young family I’m constantly seeking out new food experiences and tastes and it’s why I love working with conference organisers from all over the world and sharing some good home food recipes.

  • Briony Twidle

    Commercial Director
    Into the Detail

    I fell in love with food at a young age and enjoyed working in some of London’s great restaurants perfecting customer engagement and working with some of London’s greatest chefs. After enjoying all that fine dining, I decided to join ELH and bring all that detail over to the conference and exhibition world. I heads up an amazing young team who will help plan and organise your event.

  • Adam Wicks

    Executive Chef
    All about the Food

    With over 20 years working within the food industry, I still get goose bumps as I potter around the garden picking fresh herbs and veg and thinking what delight I will make for dinner. I believe food has the power to connect us, open our minds and most important bring us together with that warm glow in our belly after a great meal. From traditional seated lunches to crazy pop-up street food concepts, if it’s plant forward, you will find me tucking in.

  • Michal Wojtala

    Operations Director
    The Nuts and Bolts

    I started my food career in some of London’s top hotels working in some of London’s famous ball rooms. I quickly figured out it takes team work to deliver and perfect events which food is always at the heart of. I have a young family at home and an even bigger one at ELH.

  • Fred Wilson

    Director of Retail
    King of the Retail Space

    Passionate about food and customer experience, retail still excites me even after 20 years working at world class venues. I cut my teeth in retail at Wembley Arena and have overseen the opening of the new Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club, I’m really looking forward to continuing my journey in retail with ELH. Fingers crossed I may even get to see my second love West Ham play a game or two.

  • Victoria Higgins

    Head of Events
    Head of Fun & Engagement

    My role is Head of Events and my favourite thing about it is working with such a wonderful team. It is amazing to see all departments be so united and for everyone to be willing to help one another, no matter what the circumstances. This is truly a breath of fresh air in comparison to other companies.

  • Tracey Thompson

    Head of Operations
    Makes it Happen

    After many years of touring the UK hospitality circuit and overseeing the operational execution of some of sports biggest events, I have finally found a place to grow my team here at ELH. I just love working with organisers to achieve an amazing food experience for their guests, no matter how big or how small the event.

  • David Colgan

    Head of People Operations
    It’s all about the People

    I have been at the heart of ELH people for over 7 years, working alongside all our great departments before taking the role of Head of People Operations. I love spending time with our team and making sure our people are at the heart of our food and drink. I’m also always on the lookout for that next up and coming star to come and join our team.

A diverse and inclusive workplace environment

ExCeL London Hospitality is committed to creating an equal opportunity, fair treatment environment. Sustainability in the workplace is important to us, so we have various climate conscious initiatives that we encourage, like using public transport for commuting, and travelling for business in the UK by train.

We know happy employees make the best employees, so we do everything we can to make sure our teams live a healthy lifestyle with sensible hours of work, and plenty of opportunities for development and growth.

Connecting a flexible, motivated workforce

Constellation is a variable staffing programme that delivers an in-house workforce of highly trained and motivated people from across the UK and Ireland. From chefs and managers to porters, cleaners and customer service assistants, Constellation provides an entirely cross-sector workforce that can get to work quickly and reliably, wherever there’s a demand.

Constellation’s Aims:

  • Our objective is to provide greater consistency for our business and our clients in the people they see.

  • We recognise that we have, and will in the future, utilise our casual workforce, which will always have a place. However, effective pooling regionally will allow us to create more guaranteed hours and roles thus providing more permanent roles for our people.

  • We want our people to feel that there is an element of ownership and they are not just there to make up the numbers.

  • As full Constellation employees, they’ll have the same protections and benefits as our own ExCeL London Hospitality full-time employees. They will also:

    • Have a structured training and development plan.

    • Be part of a dedicated team with a clear leader as well as someone they can turn to if they have any concerns.

    • Have a work / life balance — they can choose as and when they work to best fit their lifestyles.

    • Have long term opportunities — they will have the ability to apply for permanent jobs and develop a career within Constellation.

 1.3m

Constellation have provided 1.3million hours since April 1st

6000

Constellation have employed 6000 variable workers.

598

Constellation have supplied staff to 598 sites / venues.

Career progression

We know the importance of retaining great staff so we offer clear career progression with development opportunities. We also value new talent, and we will have thirty apprentices in our business by the end of 2022. In addition, we support Women in Food initiatives and we will increase female chefs in our business by 10% year on year.

Training is a vital part of the employment process at ExCeL London Hospitality. Our staff use Flow Hospitality Training, an intuitive and interactive learning and engagement platform, which has the most up-to-date catering guidelines. Designed for mobile and accessible learning, the system is used to cover all required mandatory training as well as developing essential skills and knowledge for our variable workforce.

There are many benefits to using Flow:

  • In Flow, the user can create bespoke modules which can be fully customised and branded to meet the training requirement of an individual event (for example, product and supplier information and operational standards).

  • In addition to being a training platform, the system enables the onsite team to communicate and engage with the workforce. This functionality is widely used across the business and is instrumental in supporting colleagues’ engagement prior to and during our events.

  • The Flow Platform is able to customise our training and engagement delivery to suit the needs of the business, individual and unique events such as Formula E.

  • Through the reporting functionality, compliance and training completion can be easily assessed and reviewed.

  • As well as delivering training, the Flow platform enables our HR and L&D team to send out event specific video content, news items and event updates. 

Contact us

We can cater to all your hospitality needs and our dedicated expert team will take care of every detail. For more information about all our services and to discuss your event requirements, just complete the form below and a member of our team will be in touch shortly.