Our executive team

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Ian Sarson

Group Managing Director UK & Ireland

Ian joined Compass Group in January 2004 as Managing Director of our Healthcare business and joined the UK Executive team in October 2006 when appointed Managing Director of Specialist Markets.  In this role Ian was responsible for the delivery of multiple services in our Health, Care, Education, Defence, Government and Offshore markets.

Ian has been instrumental in the ongoing evolution of our multi sector business and has been closely involved with the development of industry leading tools and systems, leveraging the collective strength of Compass Group.

Ian was appointed Group Managing Director for UK & Ireland in April 2010.

Ian has held a variety of senior positions in the Industry. Prior to joining Compass, Ian had a four year spell in Hong Kong and China as Managing Director of Sodexho. During this period, Ian was also responsible for the development of healthcare business in Asia Pacific, and worked in Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia.

He has worked in the Public Sector in the Defence, Local Government and Healthcare arenas for the past 20 years. Ian is a member of the Business Services Association Council and the CBI Healthcare Panel, and is a Visiting Fellow to the Faculty of Organisation and Management at Sheffield Hallam University.

Ian is a graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University, where he studied Hotel and Catering Management.

Aged 46, Ian is married to Lesley and has 2 children, Eleanor aged 17 and Roberta aged 14. He is an avid reader and enjoys squash and spending time with his family.

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John Pain

Marketing Director

John leads the Marketing team at Compass, responsible for supporting our business with client and consumer insights, development of new brands and offers, promotional programmes, developing the Corporate Responsibility strategy and managing in-house resource such as the Design Studio and external communications.

John joined Compass from Yum! Brands in April 2007, where his most recent role was Vice President, Marketing KFC & Taco Bell Asia and Pacific since 2001, responsible for $2 billion of system sales business with 2,500 restaurants in 11 countries. John was a member of the board of KFC Japan and worked closely with franchisees across Asia to develop new menus, improve branding and grow like for like sale consistently every year.

John has exceptional experience of new product and brand development including the Tower, 'Mighty Double' and Cheesy Bites pizza at Yum! Brands, the Munch Bunch yoghurt brand at Eden Vale, Salt 'n' Shake for Smiths crisps and the development of a new menu at Taco Bell that resulted in a major turnaround of the Taco Bell business.

John is also a trustee of the Institute of Grocery Distribution and Leader of the Marketing Society.

He has an MBA from the University of Leicester and BSc from University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

He is married with two sons, the eldest at University, studying what else but Marketing!

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Jason Leek

Managing Director, Eurest Services & Restaurant Associates

Jason Leek joined Restaurant Associates as managing director in December 2006. Over the past three years, he has developed a clear business strategy centred on four key pillars – innovation, service, lifestyle and simplicity. These, with the passion and creativity of the team, have energised the Restaurant Associates business with great food and service. From October 2009, Jason took on the additional role of managing director for Eurest Services.

Previous to this position, Jason joined the Compass Group PLC business in 2001 as corporate development director, before being promoted to head of corporate development in early 2004. In this role, he was responsible for the Group's mergers and acquisitions, including leading the successful sale of the SSP and Moto businesses to EQT and Macquarie.

As a keen sportsman and family man, Jason is married to Claire and has two young 'Leeks' – Natasha and Harry, who are avid supporters of his triathlon, cricketing and kickboxing endeavours. 

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Neil Smith

Finance Director

Neil joined us from the Virgin Media cable group where he was deputy chief financial officer and director of integration.  Previously Neil spent six years with Telewest, the last two of which were as its chief financial officer, where he made a significant contribution to its operational success and led the company into its merger with ntl.
 
Prior to working at Telewest, Neil had seven years' food retail experience with Somerfield plc, where he was deputy finance director and before that he qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse.

Neil's hands-on and open style, combined with his change management capability has ensured he has made a significant contribution to our success.
Neil is married to Wendy and has three children Laura, Ben and George

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Matthew Thompson

Managing Director, Sport, Leisure & Hospitality

Matthew joined Compass Group in June 2007 from Centrica, where he was Commercial Director.

His career at Centrica saw him in a variety of roles from head of strategy and acquisitions through to MD of the information services business unit. In recent years as Commercial Director, he had responsibility for procurement and the supply chain across the Group.  He was also Finance Director for the company wide IS activities.

Previous to Centrica, Matthew worked for Glaxo Wellcome in an international role, he has also run his own business, and initially was a strategy consultant for a number of years.

He has a degree in modern history and an MBA from London Business School.

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Gaétan de L'Hermite

Managing Director, Compass Group Ireland

Gaétan was appointed Managing Director of Compass Ireland in October 2008. Previously he looked after Compass remote site operations in Central Asia, Middle East and Africa.

Gaétan joined Compass Group from Deutsche Bank where he led a global outsourcing project of all facilities and support services delivering over £60m in savings to the Bank. Gaetan's background is finance and consulting with Deloitte.

Gaétan lives with his family in Dublin.

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Robin Mills

Human Resources Director

Robin joined us from Woolworths Group PLC in March 2008. Robin worked for Kingfisher PLC from 2000, moving to Woolworths when the two companies de-merged in 2002.  Robin has also worked for Diageo plc and started his career at Scottish & Newcastle plc.

Since joining Robin has developed a commercially accountable highly experienced HR team who have delivered some key initiatives that benefit all of our 52,000 employees. These include our award winning induction programme, new and innovative training solutions for our managers and much greater focus on externally recognised qualifications such as Apprenticeships and NVQ's.  The delivery of all these initiatives are measured through one of the UK's largest employee survey programmes which continues to drive all our teams people agenda.

Robin is married with four young children Arran, Ruby, Johnny and Olivia.

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Mike Walden

Executive Director, Purchasing & Supply Chain

Mike's team oversee our entire supply chain, from the growers & manufacturers right through to the product being delivered to our outlets. This incorporates the buying teams ensuring competitiveness and delivering market leading ranges, whilst our logistics team manage the most complex supply chain in the UK; servicing 7,200 units with food and non-food products and services across all business spectrums including primary schools, major sporting events and Michelin star fine dining restaurants.

Our award winning Purchasing & Supply Chain team ensure that all product sourced is safe, traceable, and where appropriate innovative and flexible, integrating local and bespoke requirements whilst also removing millions of food miles each year.

Mike has been in his current role since 2006 and with the Compass Group since 2000. He was previously European Food Purchasing Director, managing teams across eight different countries. Prior to that he was UK, Food & Retail Purchasing Director.

Before joining Compass, Mike worked within the Retail sector for ten years, holding food and non-food buying positions with Somerfield, Sainsbury's Group and Dewhurst.

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Andy Harris

Sales Director

Andy joined Compass in November 1995 from Sutcliffe Catering where he had been working in Operations and Sales since 1990.

His career within Compass has seen Andy enjoy a number of periods in both Sales and Operations roles, moving from a Sales Director role in the Midlands to becoming Managing Director for Eurest Central, Wales and North in 2004/05. Additional senior operations roles for Eurest England and Wales, and most recently for a £400m turnover, National Accounts business followed, before a move to his current role as Sales & Retention Director for Compass Group UK & Ireland.