Accelerated Talent Development Programme
“I always wanted to cook – nothing else,” says John Campbell, and as a multi Michelin star-winning chef he’s certainly succeeded in this objective. But he’s also moved far beyond this in career terms, having recently taken on the new role of Director of Cuisine and Food and Beverage at the Dorchester Collection’s exclusive new country house estate, Coworth Park.
John first started to cook with his mother and grandmother – neither of them especially talented, he says – and despite leaving school in Liverpool at the tender age of 14 with no academic qualifications, soon managed to build the foundations of an impressive career in the industry he loves.
His first significant professional role – a three-year scholarship with Forte Hotels in the early 1990s – provided him with a variety of challenges across Europe. “They didn’t really teach cooking – or indeed management, but I did learn a great deal about people – the nature and anthropology of the industry,” he says. His time with Forte also included a six-month stint as an accountant, which served to emphasise the key importance of establishing the right business platform.
It was at the Lords of the Manor in the Cotswolds that John says he really started to understand his own food style. A Michelin star resulted – the first of many top accolades – and bigger roles started to come his way. He also found time to study for a degree in international culinary arts, publish his own books (now widely used by chefs entering the industry) and take on a visiting professorship at a local university. It was all part of his wider vision to try to change the way the industry works for the better.
Shortly before he took on the challenge of Coworth Park, John went on Cranfield School of Management’s Accelerated Talent Development Programme (ATDP). He had a double motivation for attending: on a personal level, he felt confident that greater career challenges lay ahead, and wanted to extend his own leadership contribution; and he also aimed to use any learnings as part of his mission to help others in the industry make the most of their careers.
“I found it enjoyable, challenging, fun, all of those things,” he says. “There was a great mix of people – pilots, people in sales, events management, IT, security and so on – but one of the key things to emerge was that we all share the same kinds of difficulties, opportunities and thought processes, and that the available box of management tools remains pretty generic across industry.
“The course delivered pretty much everything I wanted, and a lot more besides. But the toughest part is always the re-entry into the world of work, and I was keen to avoid defaulting back to where I was before. Luckily, the gap between my previous job and the Coworth Park challenge gave me the chance to do this – in fact it was only during the months that followed that I really began to realise how much I’d got out of the course”.
There were certain challenges on the programme that did make me wonder ‘Why are we doing this?’ at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight I can see that they were all needed. We learnt about behavioural techniques, business models, marketing, smart management, and more. There were also a good few sessions on leadership, peppered throughout the week in different guises. Everything came together in the end, with everything where it should be. Some of the tutors were outstanding, too, and the post-programme support is excellent, including regular get-togethers for the group.
Thanks to his broad training and career path to date, John’s distinctive blend of expertise takes in both the hotel and fine dining sectors. “This means there are only a limited amount of jobs available for people like me,” he says, “but also only a limited supply of people capable of doing them.” The Coworth Park role is a case in point.
“The Dorchester Collection had been courting me for over fourteen months, which was very flattering,” he says. “While I went on the Cranfield programme, I took stock of the Coworth Park job and thought ‘I can’t do this – nobody can!’ Then I came to the realisation that I could succeed simply by doing what I’d already been doing, but on a bigger scale – working through other people. Touch less but do more, in other words. I know I’ll still coach more than I’ll manage, but I also know that I wouldn’t have been able to do the job without doing the course first. It’s new territory.”
John stresses that the catering and hospitality industry is already one of the biggest contributors to UK GDP, and this level of contribution will only increase. “The most important thing for people in our industry is how they face the challenges going forward,” he says. “Once upon a time, chefs were simply there to cook and instruct their team. Now, they have to have to be all-round culinary artists – excellent cooks, of course, but also media-savvy, business-aware and good with people. They need to be effective coaches and understand the business dynamics of how to be innovative and make money.
“This can be tough for a largely Gen Y workforce typically lacking a strong education. Chefs today can earn fantastic money – footballers’ money, if you like, with similar levels of media exposure – and for them to cope with all this and get things right, they need a great skill set. From the academic perspective, there’s a vacuum to be filled. That’s where the Cranfield course can really help, even if it’s nothing to do with food! For our industry to continue to be successful, we all need to work smarter.”
John Campbell, Director of Cuisine and Food and Beverage, at Coworth Park