Tell us a little more about yourself and your career to date.
Majella:
I’ve been a photographer for nearly 15 years and 12 of those specialising in the food and beverage industry. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing hospitality companies and chefs from all around the world. When COVID hit and the hospitality industry basically closed, all those opportunities disappeared, so I had to improvise. I went back to further education, this time I headed to The IDM to achieve my Professional Diploma is Digital Marketing plus the Teachers Award. I adapted my skillset to specialise in social media support with the added bonus of image creation if required. The food photography industry is now completely saturated as so many people picked up a camera during the pandemic, so I’m very pleased that I challenged myself to achieve the Diploma. I thoroughly enjoy social media and I’m a self-confessed nerd when it comes to looking at statistics plus I still get to take photos of delicious food and drink for some of my clients also.
Sonja:
I’ve worked in design and marketing in one way or another for pretty much my whole working life. I started working for a small ad agency in the late 90s, back when layouts were done with a scalpel and spray glue and mockups took days rather than hours to approve!
I then moved to the world of gaming during the noughties, handling the marketing for a land based poker tournament, before eventually going on to work for an online gaming and poker website and TV channel in their graphic design team. During that time I married and had a child and when our son was about to start school, became a freelance designer. Fast forward a few years and one of my clients asked me if I’d like to apply for the role of Marketing and Comms exec! I decided to go for it, and the rest is history (the client in question was of course the IoH)!
What’s the best thing about working for the Institute of Hospitality?
Majella:
I’ve been in the Hospitality industry for 26 years. I started as a waitress in the then-famous JW Johnsons in Manchester and I have loved the industry ever since then. I feel that working for the IoH, with the use of social media, I can shout about, promote and support the great things that they do for the industry. I’m so proud of my role with such passionate and determined leaders of the industry.
The team are pretty amazing too. I occasionally have to deal with difficult mental health days and they are always so understanding and supportive.
Sonja:
Hands down it’s got to be our fabulous events. Not only do I get to visit some amazing venues, but even better, get to meet and talk to our members. Particularly our first live event post-lockdown last year, Above & Beyond at the Shard, which after a good year of working from home, was just fantastic. We’d been putting on a virtual weekly conversation during lockdown so had got to know many of our members on screen during that time so was lovely to finally meet them in person and in 3D!
Majella you’ve been handling our social media since May of last year. How have you found it?
Busy! And I’ve loved it. There have been so many amazing things happening. We won an award for our Diversity Shield, we launched the AIH Youth Council, we started the Future Forum, we launched a new bursary, we launched the #imin campaign, podcasts, competitions, Branch support.
We’ve done the lot and there’s always something new, exciting and most of the time, revolutionary around the corner. I’m looking forward to seeing what other ideas Robert has got up his sleeve.
Sonja you’ve been working at the Institute for a few years now. How have things changed in the time you’ve been here?
I started working on a freelance basis for the Institute for around a year or so, before joining permanently in early 2019. And in that relatively short amount of time, there’ve been lots of changes!
The pandemic changed the way we worked for the foreseeable. Shifting from the office to working from home was a challenge (especially paired with home learning!), but I’d done it before, so I could do it again!
Our CEO Robert Richardson FIH joined us last year and brought with him lots of enthusiasm, fab ideas, plans and new ways of doing things. My favourite so far being our IoH podcast. It was a true team effort, an idea born from one of our (newly introduced) staff strategy days (another one of my favourite new things our CEO has introduced), and made a reality by the team, including myself on branding and our own Leon Williams MIH who wrote, sung and produced the theme song! By the way, if you’ve not listened yet, where have you been? You can do so here!
Why do you think others should say #imin to the Institute of Hospitality?
Majella:
The IoH is more than just a membership. It’s a family. You become part of something bigger than just a group. The support and encouragement helps you to grow and develop in ways you didn’t know possible. Inspiration and ideas are all around you and it’s constantly moving forward. Every step improving the industry and making those lives within it better. To be part of something so special is great for not only your professional life but also your personal life too.
Sonja:
You should say #imin because we care. We care about your careers, we care about mentoring, we care about CPD and knowledge, we care about putting on amazing events, podcasts and webinars. We care about supporting our members. Our #hospitalityfamily is growing and I truly think there’s never been a better time to say #imin!
New for 2022, we’ve a new last question: Introducing Wonderful, Worst and Weird!
What’s the most wonderful, the worst and the downright weirdest thing to happen to you during your career?
Majella:
Wonderful has to be when I had just started photography, I attended a Michelin Star food event on the top of The Royal Festival Hall in South Bank. It was small event which meant that the chef was able to take the time to talk to the guests. We started talking about my photography and I mentioned that I would probably like to give food photography a go.
A week later, thanks to a kind invitation of the chef, I found myself at a two Michelin star restaurant in Cambridge in my absolute element, photographing some of the most beautiful food I had ever seen.
That’s where I got my bug for food photography. Years later, I’m still friends with that chef, so much so, he helped me with my entry to the Red Lion Sausage Roll competition. But that’s another story!
Worst was a few years ago. I was given an opportunity to travel to Austria to cover the GELINAZ food event. I felt absolutely privileged to photograph such chefs as Magnus Nilsson, Rene Redzepi, David Chang and more. The worst part about it though was the way I was treated by the female food writers. They were incredibly rude and unkind to me to my face and knocked my confidence so badly I spent both nights in my room in tears. Bullying is not cool!
Weird. This is a tough one. Can I make this weird and wonderful?
Many moons ago, I was on assignment for the Hospitality and Catering news, taking photos at the ‘The Fish Finger Sandwich’ awards hosted by Greg Wallace. The nibbles were of course fish finger focused, (which I don’t mind, I love a fish finger sandwich) and there was a sweet random old man dressed convincingly as Captain Birds Eye.
Like all well-known captains, Jack sparrow etc, this sweet man very much enjoyed the rum cocktails and by the end of the night, it was very surreal seeing such a familiar face and ‘pillar of the fishing community’ throwing shapes on the dance floor. Those memories will stay with me forever and fish fingers now always make me smile.
Sonja:
Wonderful… that’s is a hard one (there’ve been so many)… probably setting up as a freelancer. I went well and truly out of my comfort zone and learned so much. The added benefit of working for myself meant I was able to take more ‘me’ time (which usually meant spending it at the gym!).
Worst was redundancy. I’ve been made redundant a couple of times and the feeling of utter despair when you’re told is awful. That said, both times, it’s lead to better things, so I have learned that often it’s onwards and upwards rather than “what now?”
Weirdest was probably the time I spent in Dublin at a land based poker tournament in 2004. All the big names in poker were there, names that didn’t mean that much to me, but to the fans were like rock-stars. I walked into a room one day to find a small audience watching a poker player in a cowboy hat cut carrots by throwing playing cards at them from a distance. A party trick of his I found out later!
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