General Manager

28 days holiday including bank holidays, 24 weeks enhanced maternity leave, bespoke training and development opportunities, pension and life insurance, discounts via Perkbox (high street, holidays, cinema), wellbeing hub & employee assistance programme, free meals while at work, career development & HIT Apprenticeships for all levels.

We’re recruiting for a General Manager to lead the catering operation at Haberdashers' Girls' School - a prestigious private day school in Elstree, Hertfordshire. This is a full-time, 52-week role managing a high-quality, busy site. You’ll oversee the full food service, hospitality events, client relationships, and a strong team across both kitchen and front-of-house. It’s a fantastic opportunity for someone with energy, leadership, and a passion for delivering exceptional food and service in a standout independent school setting.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and develop a large team, ensuring high standards of service, safety, and hygiene across all areas.
• Coordinate closely with school administration to integrate catering services with school events, functions, and external hospitality needs.
• Maintain operational excellence in a challenging logistics environment, focusing on efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
• Implement and uphold food safety and quality standards (HACCP) across all catering operations.
• Oversee the hospitality and lettings segments, ensuring a seamless experience for external events and high-profile functions.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives, adapting operations to meet changing demands and enhance service delivery.

Qualifications Requirements:

• Ideally you will be a car driver with a current, valid driver's license.
• Proven experience as a General Manager or Deputy General Manager in a high-volume, quality-focused environment.
• You can demonstrate that managing, training, and supporting a team has been an important part of your career to date.
• Financially astute, you are very analytical and know how to create and maintain budgets and drive commercial performance.
• Excellent coaching, delegation and influencing skills.
• Ability to prioritise multiple projects in a fast-paced, multi-faceted, creative environment and able to thrive under pressure.
• Ability to multitask, prioritise responsibilities, and adapt to changing circumstances in a fast-paced environment.
• Meticulous organisational abilities and a high attention to detail.
• Empathetic, clear and highly effective verbal and written communication.
• Ability to adapt to challenges and opportunities with a solution-oriented perspective.
• Excellent strategic thinking and critical reasoning skills.

Additional Information:

Holroyd Howe is one of the UK’s leading contract caterers, providing fresh innovative food services solely to independent schools and colleges. We are a team of experienced professionals who tailor our catering service provision specifically to suit children of all ages in order to meet the bespoke requirements of each school. To provide our teams with the right skills to succeed in their jobs, we invest in their training and development. Our exceptional teams of seasoned specialists customise our catering services to fit children of all ages and satisfy the unique needs of our clients.

We pride ourselves on sustainability; always mindful of the ethics of our sourcing and how we prepare our meals. We take nutrition seriously and understand the impact a healthy diet has on the fundamental years of development. Meals are always freshly prepared from scratch and packed with nutritious ingredients. We offer a wide portfolio of training opportunities and experiences, which attracts chefs who are passionate about culinary excellence and menu innovation to our team. From tasting tables, theme days and food theatre, to chef demonstrations and supplier showcases, we create engaging and fun dining experiences for our students. We work together to make mealtimes exploratory, quirky, and fun for our pupils, helping them build strong and healthy relationships with food.

Holroyd Howe is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expect all employees to share this commitment. All roles within Holroyd Howe are regarded as regulated activity, it is an offence to apply for a role in regulated activity if you are barred from working with children, therefore we will require an Enhanced DBS which includes a Barred List check for all successful applicants. We will also require shortlisted applicants to provide appropriate information regarding any criminal offences and shortlisted applicants will be subject to an online search of public available information on suitability to work with children.

This appointment is offered on the return of satisfactory professional references.