Chris Cooper

WORK HISTORY

SKILLS

ABOUT CHRIS COOPER

A genuine, technically capable leader. Commercially astute with the skills to influence those around me, I have a compelling and consistent track record of delivering measurable and sustainable improvements to business performance at senior management and leadership level with fast-paced B2B and B2C service businesses: Sodexo, Granada, Compass and Whitbread.A \'hands on\' operator with proven operations management, business development and commercial management experience where I\'ve learned best practice in structured, multi-site corporate environments and can evidence leading and implementing operational excellence across people, process and systems.As operations director for Premier Inn North, I was responsible for the profit of a £400m business with employees - shaping the ops strategy and delivering the purpose. I built an exceptional team that delivered impressive team, guest and profit results. I also led a \'synergy\' team for personal stretch development, that challenged the \'status quo\' and generated significant profit upside in very tight time windows. I also managed relationships with 3rd party restaurant operators. As a divisional MD for Compass\' fine-dining brand \'RA Hotels\' I led the growth from inception of a new market segment that of contracting out F&B services from owners and operators in the 4 and 5 star hotel market, including Michelin starred restaurants. This was an entrepreneurial role,\'selling and operating\', and with an awesome team, rapidly expanded the business to over £35m revenue in less than 4 years before joining Arora Group (a major client of Compass ) as MD of Excel Hospitality, where I led the successful development of a new operating model and the successful \'transferring in\' of the formerly contracted out services.