Foodservice Cateys 2022: Extra Mile Award – Gregory De La Peña-Hall

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The 2022 Extra Mile Award winner was a passionate advocate for equality, diversity and inclusivity within the catering industry throughout his career, always ready to stand up and support access to opportunity for all.

Gregory De La Peña-Hall knew he wanted to join the catering industry from a young age, and left college during his A-levels to join West Ham Football Club’s catering trainee scheme.

As he carved out a successful future he strove to ensure that others would be able to follow in his footsteps. Early in his career he helped create a Straight Allies programme with the LGBT Foundation, which he launched across wealth management firm Merrill Lynch and law firm Linklaters, and which saw Merrill Lynch’s chief executive award him the company’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Award.

At caterer BM he continued his efforts and, even when receiving treatment for cancer, De La Peña-Hall strove to ensure that a rewarding career in the industry was open and accessible for all by proposing and implementing an equality, diversity and inclusivity (ED&I) strategy.

His achievements in this area speak for themselves. They include an increase in the number of women and non-UK employees in managerial roles, achieving 83% completion of ED&I training across the business, 90% completion of LGBT awareness training and 95% completion of disability training. De La Peña-Hall’s work also drove cultural change, both within BM and wider industry bodies, with the team’s 20 ED&I blogs read more than 5,000 times. He achieved this by ensuring that BM’s strategy was truly representative of his colleagues, and that everyone had an opportunity to invest in driving it forward.

He launched the caterer’s first anonymous team survey on ED&I to inform the plan, and created and chaired a steering committee of volunteers who met monthly to drive actions and review their progress. He also ensured that ED&I reporting was a permanent fixture on the agenda of the business’ monthly board meetings.

What is particularly laudable is that our winner did all of this on top of his role as business services manager and while struggling with his own health difficulties. He once said: “I encourage everyone to be an ambassador for D&I and to treat each other with respect. This means that we should take time to understand something different and someone else’s challenges.”

Sadly, our winner passed away earlier this year. Days before his death he wrote and published a blog entry, having won the Springboard ED&I Award. Within it he set out his future plans and a desire for equity to be considered within ED&I, in recognition that some groups are disadvantaged in accessing opportunities and are, therefore, marginalised.

He also expressed his hopes that the achievements of BM would inspire other companies to ensure their own practices allow all to enter the industry and flourish within it.

In its tribute to De La Peña-Hall, BM said: “Gregory was incredibly positive and committed. He was never afraid to stand up for his beliefs and he has left a lasting legacy at BM and in the wider hospitality industry. He will be greatly missed by all of us.”

Past winners

2021 Andy Jones, AJ Associates

2019 Vacherin

2018 Simon Boyle, Beyond Food Foundation and Brigade

2017 Alison Gilbeart, CH&Co Group

2016 Neil Porter, BAM Facilities Management

2015 Neel Radia, National Association of Care Catering

2014 Gerard Jacob, Vacherin

2013 Vera Mirescu, Host Management