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Ceri Gott, Chief Growth & Culture Officer, Hawksmoor has helped grow the company from 150 people working in three restaurants in London, to an international brand employing 1,250 people across 13 restaurants. It's also a top 100 Best Company to work for and a 3 star Sustainable Restaurant in each of the last 13 years, the Best Steak Restaurant in the world, and the first UK restaurant to become a BCorp.
‘I didn’t start out in HR’
Gott started her career working in Government. As an economist, she advised on various aspects of economic and social policy and strategic planning. “I worked in the Home Office and Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit on projects based around migration, multi-culturalism as well as crime. I also worked in the Office for Disability Equality and in the Treasury as Head of the Economics of Productivity.”
At the same time, Gott was balancing the demands of bringing up a family - looking back she realises how advanced the provisions were for working parents where she worked. “The Government were very intentional about keeping women at work – I did a job share to allow me to work at a senior level whilst balancing out work with my family commitments,” she says.
Despite the forward-thinking culture she was still one of few lone-female soldiers holding down senior posts. She felt supported yet there was also a point when she wanted everything to be more aligned around her homelife and family. “It was like I was walking down the street, turned a corner and walked straight into a wall – my son became really ill with what they thought at the time was Leukaemia but thankfully wasn’t and, it was one of those moments when you just sit and re-evaluate everything and make a bold choice about what you are doing,” she says.
‘A life moment meant a change of direction and it came in the form of Hawksmoor’
Out of trauma, Gott realised she had one life - she wanted to work for a business that cared about its people and in turn work alongside people she cared for. It was an incredible turn of fate that Gott’s brother, Huw, called her and asked her if she would consider working alongside him and co-founder of Hawksmoor, Will Beckett – leading the people function. Over the 13 years Gott was at Hawksmoor, she helped grow the company from 150 people working in three restaurants in London, to an international brand employing 1,250 people across 13 restaurants, whilst being named a top 100 Best Company to work for and a 3 star Sustainable Restaurant in each of the last 13 years, the Best Steak Restaurant in the world, and the first UK restaurant to become a BCorp. Even as the business has grown, 98% of employees still say they share Hawksmoor’s values, and 97% believe the company truly welcomes everyone.
At the start of 2021 the hospitality industry was locked down and we furloughed a lot of our staff. I really thought we’re going to break our streak – we can’t possibly scoop the Best Companies to work for this year, but we did!
It’s a big job to head up people and culture, yet Gott isn’t just a one trick pony either, as well as leading the HR team she also runs business and purpose planning.
As to what enticed her in the first place, “I love their entrepreneurial spirit – they wanted me to help them to grow their business but keep all the things they care about at the heart of that while doing so,” she says.
