ABOUT US

Change Hospitality - Specialist Recruitment for the Hospitality Sector

We focus specifically on recruiting for hospitality companies, placing talent in both permanent and temporary roles for a vast array of organisations that have specialised services in the food market.

We are not your conventional recruitment agency and we never planned to be!

Our mission has always been to challenge conformist recruitment methods by; being better, quicker and more effective while keeping people at our core.

Our focus is simply to build long lasting relationships with people based on honesty, integrity and ethics.

What we do

Our business is split into three divisions:

Back of House:
We recruit permanent and temporary Chefs, all of which have worked for some of the finest restaurants, gastropubs, bars, hotels, members clubs and events companies.

Front of House:
We cover all positions from Director level down to entry level on a permanent basis. We also recruit Front of House temporary staff if you are looking for some short term cover or to staff a particularly busy event or time of year.

Business & Commercial:
We cover permanent and temporary central and support roles and are able to recruit talent with industry specific experience in the following areas:

HOW WE WORK

Unlike most agencies, and all app-based platforms, we take great pride in the fact that we work face to face with our candidates and temp workers to ensure their career ambitions are met. This also enables us to provide our clients with staff that have relevant experience and will fit in to their company culture with ease.

We can provide temporary and permanent staff at all levels, for all areas of a hospitality business including:

Front of house | Back of house | HR Sales & Marketing | Event Management | Finance Administration

SUBMIT A VACANcY

MEET THE TEAM

Gareth Townsend

Sales Director
Gareth is a highly experienced recruiter having spent more than 20 years recruiting for hospitality businesses. Gareth joined Change Hospitality in 2015, becoming Director in 2019. Prior to recruitment Gareth was a Management Trainee at Shepherd Neame before various Operations Manager roles in boutique hotels and gastro pubs. Gareth’s area of expertise is finding permanent front of house talent for restaurants, bars and hotels.

Louisa McLaughlin

Head of Temporary Front of House Division (Interim)
Louisa spent most of the early part of her career working in the catering industry, quickly progressing to managing a number of different pubs. Since then, Louisa worked in various areas of the hospitality industry, before transitioning into hospitality recruitment. Over the past 9 years Louisa has predominantly worked with Central London five star hotels, where she has also been involved with a number of prestigious events, including London fashion week, Press Junkets and Bafta awards. Louisa believes in old school human interaction whilst prioritising building relationships and partnerships and is an expert in relationship management, ensuring she caters to her individual clients needs.

Nikki Edgar

Head of Temporary Front of House Division
Nikki has over 20 years events and hospitality experience having started her career as an event manager for a catering company running large corporate dinners and fundays. For the past 15 years her focus has been on the staffing side of events, and she has staffed large events including the Olympics 2012 and the Champions League Final at Wembley. Nikki thrives on building strong, long-term relationships with clients and working in partnership with clients to develop their teams to offer consistent levels of high quality service. She has experience providing teams to all areas of the industry including events, stadiums, contract catering, outdoor events and Royal events. Nikki is quite simply the go-to person in London for front of house staff, whether it be waiting or bar staff for a restaurant or teams of banqueting staff for events.

Cillian Waldron

Senior Consultant – Permanent Recruitment – Back of House
After completing his degree in International Hotel Management, Cillian joined the graduate program at the Dorchester, working his way up to Back of House Manager before joining Change Hospitality in 2019. Cillian’s specialism is finding chefs for all areas of the hospitality and catering industry.

Ross Brown

Consultant – Permanent Recruitment – Back of House
Ross has over 10 years UK and overseas professional chef experience. His experience ranges from boutique hotels, fine dining restaurants, luxury ski chalets and corporate catering giving him a well-rounded understanding of the hospitality industry. Joining Change Hospitality in 2023 Ross’ expertise is finding chefs for all areas of the hospitality industry.

Josh Beer

Head of Temporary Back of House Division
Head of Temporary Back of House Operations Josh has always been in and around hospitality, growing up in his family’s countryside pub and getting stuck in from a young age! Josh joined Change Hospitality in 2017 and now heads up the back of house temporary division, with his main focus being the casual back of house events desk, working with the very best events companies in London and managing a roster of talented chefs.

Tom Dukinfield

Manager – Temporary Back of House Division
Tom has been working in and around the hospitality industry for over fifteen years in a variety of positions both front and back of house. A stalwart on the Change Hospitality back of house temporary team since 2015, if you’re looking for a casual job in a restaurant, pub or bar, or are looking for chefs for your venue, Tom’s your man!

Aleksandra Dabrowska

Consultant – Temporary Back of House Operations, KPs and Cleaners
Aleks started her career in hospitality working for Spirits Pub Company as Deputy Manager. She then became a General Manager for Greene King before running the Meantime Brewery Company’s flagship pub the Greenwich Union. She finally worked in pub management for Stonegate Pub Company before joining Change Hospitality. Aleks manages teams of casual chefs, kitchen porters and cleaning staff.

Beth Downey

Consultant – Temporary Back of House Division
Beth worked in luxury hospitality in London for 15 years as a bartender, waitress, chef, bar manager and events manager for a wide range of pubs, restaurants, and night clubs before joining Change Hospitality. She manages teams of casual chefs working in events.

Charley Taylor-Smith

Sales Director
Charley comes from an event catering and venue background, starting her career in events operations in some of London’s top event caterers, including Moving Venue and Eventist Group and went on to head up sales and marking teams at The National Theatre and The Gherkin with Searcy’s. Joining Change Hospitality in 2018, Charley specialises in recruiting a variety of positions including sales, events planning and operations, marketing, admin, HR and finance roles across venues, events catering, stadiums, members clubs, hotels, restaurants and bars.

Nikki Philpot

Consultant – Events and Executive Search
Nikki comes from an events and entertainment background, starting her career over in Spain, working for some of the most sought-after event companies in Marbella and working on their lavish destination weddings and social events. She later moved into entertainment management where she ran the entertainment and events department for one of Marbella’s iconic restaurant groups, La Sala. Simultaneously, she has been working as Europe’s Leading Adele Tribute with her show Someone Like Adele for more than 10 years. Nikki joined Change Hospitality in 2023 and specialises in recruiting permanent roles for event venues, event caterers, stadiums, members clubs, hotels, restaurants, bars and serviced offices.

Louie Knight

Payroll Manager
Louie started his career working in pubs in Surrey. After moving to London, he began working in Private Members clubs and Restaurants across the city and became a Bar Manager for Soho House. He specialises in managing all compliance documentation for our candidates and assists with the payroll for our temp teams.

Samantha Kiss

Marketing Assistant
Sammie, a Media and Communications graduate, after stints working in hospitality, started her marketing career in the Charity and Non-For-Profit sectors. After moving to London from Australia, Sammie joined a PR firm assisting with press campaigns and writing press releases. Sammie now handles Change’s social content, using media marketing to support our consultants.

WORK FOR US

  • Founded in 2004, we are highly experienced in recruiting for the hospitality industry
  • Back of House, Front of House and Business Support recruitment
  • Permanent, temporary, interim and contract recruitment solutions
  • All consultants are hand-picked from within the hospitality industry
  • Our staff are at the core of our success and as such we create the best workplace to develop as people and recruiters
  • 24 days annual leave, 8 Bank Holidays, 6 ‘Change Bank Holidays’ (a Company Bank Holiday in every month of the year that doesn’t have an official Bank Holiday) plus your birthday off, totals an impressive 39 days!
  • Flexible working hours and work from home available
  • Annual company weekend away
  • Company events and restaurant experiences
  • Private Health Care
  • Gym membership
  • Pension
  • Cycle to Work Scheme

In addition to the above, Change offer our consultants one of the best sales commission schemes in the UK and a host of other benefits including a chance to win some amazing prizes and incentives. In the past, holidays, sky diving, theatre trips, spa days, AirBnb staycations, Selfridges and Virgin Experience vouchers as well as wine and champagne are among the great prizes won by our consultants and back office teams.

It is our ambition to hire the best talent; we look for courageous and driven people who want to challenge the status quo and find new ways to grow our company and themselves, while having fun in the process. You work in an almost autonomous way, growing your own “business within a business”. If this sounds like the type of place that you’d like to work, please drop us an email with a copy of your CV which we will treat in confidence.