Chief Executive of Baxter Storey
BaxterStorey

William Baxter and Alastair S

00:02 William Baxter: My name’s William Baxter I’m deputy chief executive of Baxter Storey.

00:06 Alastair S: And I’m Alastair S the chief executive of Baxter Storey.

00:10 William: Well we used to work in the same company quite a long time ago about 25 years ago now. And our careers were pretty similar for about 5 years then I left that particular company and formed my own business and Alastair stayed on to grow and develop his career with that organisation. We remained friends during that period of time and got our businesses together in 2000.

00:35 Alastair: People told me school’s best days of your life, every day since I have left school has been a better day.

00:42 William: I’d go with that. I couldn’t wait to leave school in some respects yeah cos, I always felt a little bit of a failure compared to my brothers and sisters if I’m totally honest. Because I never achieved the, the grades and the academic accolades that they did I mean they were, they went on to become lawyers and doctors and were very confident about their academic ability but I wasn’t. I was always easily distracted, and could always think of a thousand other things to do than putting my head into a book and studying for an exam.

01:09 William: My father well he was at Cambridge university, there, in civil engineering, and became chairman of the largest firm of civil engineers, consultant civil engineers in the UK. So an academic but a very practical man at the same token.

01:22 William: Well I think he was glad that I got a job to be quite frank you know, he was very supportive all the way along.

01:28 Alastair: There’s some people have got a magnificent ability to study and I applaud that because we need it, but I think I’m one of life’s tell me what roughly I need to do and I might just go out and try and do it.

01:40 William: I was very relieved when I went to work that two things, firstly I thoroughly enjoyed it, and secondly I became very good at it.

01:49 Alastair: To be absolutely honest I really wanted to go to art school, but I think I concluded that A, I probably wasn’t talented enough, and B, it probably wasn’t going to be a great way of making a lot of money.

02:01 William: My first job was an assistant catering manager at Blue Circle Industries in, in Victoria. I was only there for 11 months before I was given an area role looking after about 12 locations with about 200 staff to run and I was only 23 years of age then, so and I found that fantastic in one respect and terrifying in another. Because there are, you know I had quite a lot of people working for me, majority of them were older than me, more experienced and to some extent you know they, they wondered who this young upstart was coming in to tell them what to do and how to do it.

02:33 Alastair: When I left I, I graduated I joined the company as William said, Sutcliffe catering and I stayed with them for 25 years, I joined them as a trainee and ended up as chief exec, and then ultimately at the turn of the millennium which seemed like a good idea to changes things, I decided I ought to set up on my own an use the skills I’d gained in, in at somebody else’s expense.

02:56 William: You get fantastic food in staff restaurants these days, the hospitality side of business, looking after senior executives off the very large companies, the quality of cuisine and the quality of cooking and the quality of care that goes into the service is exemplary.

03:10 Alastair: If you set aside the glamour bit of it because I think hotels and restaurants are the, have a feeling of glamour and are glamorous for the customer, but less glam, glamorous perhaps for the people who, who are working in it. The contract catering I think is a far more exciting industry for the person who’s working in it.

03:27 Williams: Employees have a far better deal, they’ve got a better life work balance, the career paths are fantastic within our sector.

03:35 Alastair: I didn’t really sort of get into this industry 100% knowing this is really what I want to do.

03:43 William: We tend to look for people who are doers, who are enthusiastic and enjoy the hospitality sector, and they can do very well.

03:51 END