Caterer and Hotelkeeper 100: Kevin Todd, Mitchells & Butlers
Overall ranking: 50 (NEW ENTRY)
Pub ranking: 4 (NEW ENTRY)
Kevin Todd - Snapshot
Kevin Todd is managing director of the City and Country Restaurants division of Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), the UK's biggest managed pub company.
He is a member of the M&B Executive and responsible for 10 of the group's key brands and formats including All Bar One, Browns, Vintage Inns, Premium Country Dining Group, Village Pub and Kitchen, Nicholson's, O'Neill's, Metro Professionals and Innkeepers Lodge. Todd also leads the company's European business, Alex Restaurants in Germany.
Todd's career has included two stints with M&B and its predecessor, Bass. Along with an initial 13 years with the business in various senior operational roles, he has worked in senior positions for Allied Breweries, Greene King, Gala Clubs and Volvo
He rejoined the company in 2002 as director & general manager for the restaurants businesses, and has been instrumental in the development and expansion of M&B's acclaimed Premium Country Dining gastropub format.
Todd has an International MBA from Nottingham Business School and is an Alumnus of Harvard Business School Advanced Management programme. In June, he was appointed as a visiting Professor by Birmingham City University and has joined the Princes Trust as a Retail Leadership Group member.
Kevin Todd - What we think
There is no denying that much of the credit for M&B's highly successful and influential Premium Country Dining format belongs to gastropub entrepreneur Paul Salisbury. In 1994, at the Boot Inn at Lapworth, Warwickshire, Salisbury created a blueprint for a destination food pub which caught the attention of M&B.
Alongside the development of their own Lovely Pubs business, Salisbury and co-director Paul Hales have acted as consultants for M&B's own premium format.
However, every successful restaurant format relies on operational excellence to make it work. With M&B having opened 80 Premium Country Dining Group sites over the past eight years, along with another 50 sites in Village Pub & Kitchen gastropub format, Kevin Todd has changed the way a sizeable chunk of the UK population thinks about pubs.
The transformation of M&B's business was underscored in May when the company reported to the City that food sales had overtaken drinks for the first time. M&B has reinvented itself in the face of a decline in the old-fashioned 'boozer' model, transforming its sites into places to eat, drink and be merry.
As well as overseeing the conversion of many of M&B's existing sites, Todd has taken a lead in the integration of acquisitions, bringing them over to M&B's formats. These have included many of the 239 pub restaurants acquired from Whitbread in 2006, as well as the Ha! Ha! Bar & Grill business bought by M&B last year.
Just where Todd also finds the time for his other activities, which as of this year include a Visiting Professorship and work with the Prince's Trust, is anyone's guess. However, his high profile in the European hospitality sector, and respect among his industry peers for his contribution to the development of the casual dining sector, are undeniable.
Food sales outstrip drink for first time says pub giant Mitchells & Butlers >>
M&B MD joins university as visiting professor >>
Mitchells & Butlers to roll out more All Bar One sites after Ha Ha acquisition >>
