The Sustainable Restaurant Association
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Our team

WHO WE ARE

We share knowledge, inspire change, learn from others and empower people to make better food choices

Our global team comes to sustainability from a variety of perspectives, drawing from backgrounds including hospitality, education, project management, communications, journalism, policy and supply chain. We are united by a belief in the powerful role that eating out can play in shaping a better food system.

Our team

  • Juliane Caillouette Noble

    MANAGING DIRECTOR

    Juliane is focused on growing the impact of Food Made Good around the world. With a background in nutrition and a love of good food, her career has been deeply engaged in global food policy issues ranging from sustainable farming, urban growing, food education and school food systems. Juliane has designed food education tools and resources for teachers, has developed local and global campaigns, and served as a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for School Food in the UK.

  • Giles Gibbons

    Chairman

    Inspired by his mother (Restauranteur, teacher, chef), food has played a fundamental part of Giles’ life. This culminated in opening The Good Cook, in 1998, the first ‘social’ restaurant in the UK. This continued alongside his consulting business, Good Business, that worked for some of the world’s largest food businesses in helping them on their sustainability journey. These experiences inspired the thought that we could help all restaurants on their sustainability journey and so the idea of The SRA was born.

  • Simon Heppner

    NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

    After an early career managing restaurants in London, Simon became involved in offshore and remote location facilities management, deploying accommodation vessels to East Timor for the UN in 1999 and to West Africa for Total and Agip. Simon took responsibility for the increasingly demanding sustainability requirements under these contracts before joining Good Business, Europe’s leading corporate responsibility consultancy, in 2006 to pursue this aspect full time and co-founding The Sustainable Restaurant Association in 2010. Simon is a resident judge for the Mercury awards and lives in Stroud with an unruly menagerie of children and animals.

  • Mark Sainsbury

    NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

    Hospitality industry veteran, Mark Sainsbury has worked in restaurants and hotels in London for 25 years. He opened the multi-award winning Moro restaurant, alongside Sam and Sam Clark in 1997. In 2004 Mark opened his first hotel, the 59-room Zetter Hotel with his partner Michael Benyan. The Group then went on to open Bistrot Bruno Loubet, The Zetter Townhouse Clerkenwell, Grain Store restaurant and in 2015 The Zetter Townhouse Marylebone. Mark co-founded The Sustainable Restaurant Association and serves as a trustee on his own charitable trust the Mark Leonard Trust, the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy and the Linbury Trusts.

  • Jackie Freeman

    Finance Director

    Jackie is a Chartered Accountant with several years' experience working in the hospitality industry, previously the Finance Director of PizzaExpress for over 10 years. She is a commercial thinker and brings together her experiences of finance and other core functions to drive business performance. Jackie supports our team in identifying ways to improve effectiveness and growth.

  • Martina Dell

    Head of Projects & Consultancy

    Martina leads on shared value propositions, delivering impactful projects with bespoke objectives. She has spent time working within policy at the European Commission and WHO as well as with industry in-house at a large global restaurant brand and consulting externally. With a BSc in Global Public Health, Nutrition & Food Policy further strengthened by a MSc in Integrated Food Studies, she champions applying a systems thinking approach to problem solving. Her belief is that the challenges we face are complex so the solutions must also be considered holistically. 

  • Karen Finnerty

    Communications Director APAC

    Karen heads up the SRA's communications function in APAC covering the following territories: Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. With 13 years experience in PR and communications, Karen has worked in Ireland, the UK and Hong Kong in agency and in-house roles with a variety of consumer and hospitality brands. Specialising in strategy development and implementation, brand positioning and advocacy, Karen most recently ran a regional hospitality and luxury lifestyle PR agency in Hong Kong.

  • Julia Holiday

    Global Certification Lead

    Julia manages the Food Made Good Standard, the SRA’s signature tool to measure and drive sustainability in the hospitality sector. Julia has built her career in food and sustainability, first selling chocolate in London’s Borough Market, before moving on to UK food waste charity FareShare and then onto B Corp certified chocolate manufacturer Valrhona, where she worked for 8 years as Sustainability Project Manager.

    • Julia Holiday on LinkedIn
  • Emmy van Beek

    Growth & Development Lead

    Emmy is responsible for building relationships with chef’s, restaurants and organisations, working to grow the SRA network nationally. With a career in restaurants spanning over 10 years in varied roles from Waitress through to Menu Development and Head of Sustainability, Emmy’s operational insight means she’s in the perfect position to help businesses see the benefits of integrating sustainability across all operations.

    • Emmy van Beek on LinkedIn
  • Agatha Georgiou

    HEAD OF FINANCE & OPERATIONS

    Agatha has a BSc in Marine Geography and MSc in Marine Ecology & Environmental Management. She is also a qualified BSAC Diving Instructor and after her studies did a lot of postgraduate research in Scotland and abroad in Egypt and Greece focusing on marine sustainability. When returning home to her London roots, she began working in an Accountancy Firm for a number of years, which naturally led her to working at the Sustainable Restaurant Association within Finance and Operations, blending both worlds.  

  • Jocelyn Doyle

    Communications Lead

    Jocelyn leads our UK Comms team and is responsible for managing our content strategy, growing our audience and building our global reputation. Jocelyn holds a BSc in Hospitality Management and an MSc in Food Culture & Communications, and is a member of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild. Her background includes on-the-ground F&B experience; a decade of food writing, editing and publishing; content creation for some of Ireland’s biggest food brands; and developing the content marketing strategy for a suite of menu management and carbon tracking software.

  • Isabel Martin

    Senior Project Manager

    Isabel works across a range of international projects and partnerships, helping to grow the SRA’s network globally. Isabel has a background in sustainability consulting and has been at the SRA for 7 years where she works with clients such as The World’s 50 Best, San Pellegrino and Pernod Ricard, as well as with our global partners to help bring the Food Made Good Standard to restaurants internationally. 

  • Molly McDonald

    Project Manager: North America

    Molly is The SRA's arm in North America, working to increase the visibility of the Food Made Good Standard across Canada, the US, and Mexico. She brings an extensive background in hospitality, including as an independent restaurant partner and as well as several years as part of a global hotel brand.

    • Molly McDonald on LinkedIn
  • Laurence Hamdan

    Sustainability Consultant

    Laurence supports businesses to complete their Food Made Good Standard and works with them on bespoke projects designed around strategy and company targets. Laurence has expanded his knowledge base in a several sectors (chemistry, sales, logistics) but has worked in food since a young age and still loves being in the kitchen. He ties this all in to deliver the community events that The SRA holds throughout the year.

  • Sophie Guilbert

    Partnerships Manager Asia

    Sophie works on building relationships with Chefs and Restaurants across Asia as part of The SRA strategic partnership with HSBC. She started her career in Malaysia in 2016 where she worked at the Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur within the Project team. She then moved to Hong Kong and began her relationship with Food Made Good as a member when she worked for the sustainable water brand Nordaq as a Business Development Manager. Continuing her journey in Asia, she recently moved to Vietnam.

  • Kim Machipisa

    COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

    Kim manages The SRA’s global communications and brand, ensuring that our story is effectively told across the globe. He has multidisciplinary experience in international marketing, NGO communications, hospitality sales & comms, and holds an MSc in International Development. Kim is committed to furthering progressive action toward sustainable food systems through the Food Made Good Standard.

    • Kim Machipisa on LinkedIn
  • Lindsay Conway

    Sustainability Auditor

    Lindsay processes and audits the Food Made Good ratings and manages the online Food Made Good Community. Lindsay recently graduated from Heriot-Watt with an MSc in International Business Management with a concentration in sustainability. Lindsay has a background in private insurance and started her career in sustainability working as a sustainability consultant for a London firm.

Advisory board

  • President

    Raymond Blanc OBE

    Raymond Blanc OBE has been President of the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) since 2012. Chef patron of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, A Belmond Hotel and founder of Brasserie Blanc restaurants, he has always been a passionate champion and campaigner for sustainability and food ethics. While his restaurant has retained two exalted Michelin stars for 38 years, over 30 of his protégés have gone to achieve Michelin stars themselves. During his term as President, Raymond has helped oversee a significant expansion in the SRA’s membership, and wider increase in interest in sustainability both in the UK and globally, including the whole Belmond hotel group.

  • Vice President

    Dame Prue Leith

    Prue Leith began her career in catering with Leith’s Good Food. Her Michelin Starred Leith’s Restaurant shortly followed, as well as Leith’s School of Food and Wine. She has been deeply involved in food education, founding and chairing the charity Focus on Food, which promotes cooking in the curriculum, and the Hoxton Apprentice, a not-for-profit restaurant training disadvantaged long-term unemployed young people.

  • VICE PRESIDENT

    Iqbal Wahhab

    Iqbal Wahhab OBE has built a reputation for delivering world-class excellence through his highly successful restaurant businesses, Roast and The Cinnamon Club. He has exited both restaurants and is planning new ventures. Iqbal has won a number of major awards and accolades during his career. He was voted one of the Top 10 Restaurateurs in Britain in an Independent on Sunday survey and listed in the Caterer Power 100, GQ 100 Most Connected and The Sunday Times Maserati Top 100 business start-up mentors. He works a lot with ex-offenders and has just been appointed to chair a review on the treatment of black and/or Muslim people in the criminal justice system.

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