Rachel Chatterton

As Director of Product at Holland & Barrett, Rachel leads product innovation and the growth of the Holland & Barrett own-brand range. She shapes product strategy using customer insight and emerging wellness trends, ensuring the business delivers innovative products that meet evolving customer needs and support the business’s transformation strategy. Since joining in 2022, she has helped transform the Holland & Barrett supplement & food and sports proposition through customer-led innovation, launching and revamping over 1000 lines since 2023.
Known for bringing trend-led, commercially successful products to market, Rachel has held product innovation leadership roles at M&S, Starbucks, Pret a Manger and Sainsburys.

Mary Allen

Mary is the Founder and President of Natural Brand Works LLC and serves as the North American Brand Agent for Brand Organic Ltd. in the UK. She helps natural food, beverage, health, and wellness CPG brands grow globally. Mary supports brands exhibiting at the London and Malmö Natural & Organic Products Trade Shows in her role as an exhibitor sales agent. Her previous roles include Vice President of Merchandising for a major U.S. department store and brand owner.
By attending major international trade events, she provides real-time trend insights and market intelligence to help brands stay ahead of the curve and succeed globally.

Tom James

Tom has been working in hospitality for over thirty years since his first job collecting glasses in his local pub. He went on to be a senior manager for Henry J Beans, Revolution and two independent restaurants in Jersey and Bristol.

For the last 15 years he’s been a senior director of a wide variety of businesses including Jamie’s Italian, Coppa Club and Harbour Hotels.

He joined Bill’s in October 2021 as Group Operations Director, and had been Managing Director of the well loved all day casual dining concept for the past two years. With his management team, Bill’s has gone on to deliver record sales, Double Ebitda from 2022 to 2024 and made a return to the expansion trail with has seen the estate grow to 50 sites with the opening of Heathrow Terminal 2 in summer 2026.

Claudia Boyer

Claudia Boyer is the co-founder of JENKI, the London born matcha brand known for bringing high quality, first harvest matcha to the UK. She founded the company with her husband Otto in 2020, at a time when much of the matcha available in London was low grade and poorly prepared. Their aim was simple: introduce ceremonial grade matcha, prepare it properly, and create a fresh, modern experience around the ingredient.

Starting as a market stall and pop-up concept, JENKI opened its first permanent matcha bar in Spitalfields in 2021 before securing a landmark partnership with Selfridges in 2022. The Selfridges opening became one of the department store’s most successful food and beverage launches in recent years, helping establish matcha as a fast growing category amongst UK consumers.

Since then, JENKI has expanded across London with locations in Borough Market, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf and Battersea Power Station, becoming one of Europe’s leading dedicated matcha hospitality brands.

JENKI received a Double Gold at the Great Taste Awards in 2023 and was named Matcha Brand of the Year at the European Coffee and Hospitality Awards in 2025, the first year the category was introduced.

Claudia is a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, where she studied food, nutrition and wellness. Her background informs JENKI’s focus on clean, antioxidant-rich matcha drinks and more balanced alternatives to coffee.

Before launching the company, she founded and ran Studio Social, a digital marketing agency working with direct-to-consumer brands in emerging markets. With over a decade of experience in consumer brands, she brings deep expertise in brand positioning, storytelling and product development.

In April 2026, Claudia published Matcha at Home with Quadrille, a recipe book that draws on her experience building JENKI and working closely with matcha. The book explores sourcing and preparation, alongside recipes that show how matcha can be enjoyed in everyday cooking and drinking.

Nick Ayerst

Nick Ayerst is Managing Director of GAIL’s, where he has taken on the role of continuing scaling the brand from its roots as a much-loved London bakery into one of the UK’s most respected food businesses. Known for combining operational rigour with a strong people-first culture, Nick has helped GAIL’s grow while remaining uncompromising on quality, craft, and hospitality. His success is rooted in building empowered teams, protecting brand values at scale, and taking a long-term approach to growth—proving that commercial performance and purpose can go hand in hand. Nick is widely regarded as a thoughtful leader with a deep understanding of how to build enduring consumer brands.
Prior to GAIL’s Nick spent time as CEO of Comptoir Group and MD of LEON and TRG Concessions, part of The Restaurant Group.

Hani Taleb

Hani Taleb is a seasoned Operations and Commercial Executive with 20+ years of experience driving profitability, market entry, and turnarounds in the hospitality and F&B sectors across the UK and GCC. As UK Director for Elan Café, he leads 450+ professionals across 15+ locations. A trilingual strategist, Hani specializes in scaling multi-unit operations, architecting resilient supply chains, and building high-performance teams in high-volume environments.