Our Ambassadors

CEO, HOSPA

Jane Pendlebury is CEO of HOSPA | The Hospitality Professionals Association. Her relationship with HOSPA was first as a sponsor and member, then - after volunteering her time assisting with the annual conference HOSPACE - she was taken on to run the Membership and Events office before being promoted to CEO in early 2016. 

Kickstarting her career with a degree in hotel management, Jane worked with both chain and independent hotels. Thereafter, she spent many years assisting hotels and restaurants with their technology decisions around Property Management, Point of Sale and Revenue Management. This culminated into a role as VP and General Manager covering Europe for a global hospitality software house.

Jane is an enthusiastic supporter of hospitality and always remains a positive advocate for the industry!

Sustainability (ESG) consultant and Author 

Through training and consultancy, she helps businesses understand the commercial and moral benefits of sustainable and ethical business practice.

She advises on how to make sustainability a genuine part of your business culture and day-to-day practice, not just a tick-box exercise (or race to be the ‘least bad’).

She started life in luxury hotels in London, before moving to Asia to work on various dining/country club and spa projects. She set up her own consultancy Sleeping Lion (now a certified B Corp) in 2005.

Professional conference & events host

He is also an ambassador for James Hallam (insurance), for Hospitality Action and for The Gold Service Scholarship. Peter was Chief Executive at Pride of Britain Hotels from 2000-2021. Prior to that he was Group Publishing Director at Johansens and a hotel general manager in his early career, starting as a waiter in the late 1970s.

Peter is an honorary Master Innholder and St Julian Scholar, a fellow of HOSPA, a fellow of the Institute of Hospitality and is currently Chair of the Quality Advisory Board for VisitEngland & The AA.

CEO, CUSTARD

Petra Clayton is Creator and CEO of hospitality marketing consultancy CUSTARD, which she launched in 2007 to deliver creative, strategic, and measurable marketing and communications solutions to the hotel, venue and hospitality supplier industry.

The current chair of the Hotel Marketing Association, a board member of the Hoteliers’ Charter and trustee of The Victory Services Club, Petra has her finger on the pulse of the industry’s challenges and commercial pressures, as well as innovative marketing strategies and the emergence of the new generation of both business and leisure consumers. Petra has also relished the opportunity to share her teaching and marketing expertise with the industry and is a trainer for the Master Innholders Aspiring Leaders Diploma.

CEO, PoB Hotels

Kalindi Juneja is CEO at PoB Hotels, the UK marketing consortium for British independent luxury hotels. Since taking on the reigns at PoB Hotels, Kalindi has strategically repositioned the brand with a new visual and verbal expression, including a new website, online magazine, gift range and annual coffee table book. This new direction builds on PoB Hotels' growing appeal to a wider, affluent audience strategically targeted by the brand, whilst underpinning its core values and equity of 40 years.

A passionate hotelier with over 20 years in the industry, Kalindi has worked with some of the most renowned privately owned hotels globally including instrumental roles at Relais & Chateaux where she was International Director, overseeing Regional Directors in Europe, South & Central America and South Pacific with an emphasis on her home market of UK & Ireland. She understands the luxury independent hotel sector and has a strong commercial focus, having worked on property, within an agency and also for luxury consortiums, she brings a unique blend of expertise to the role.

Founder, ESP Business Development

Su is a foremost provider of business and media communications in the international hospitality sector. She founded her company, ESP Business Development, 25 years ago specialising in working with architects, designers, developers and others seeking to make a measurable difference in the world of hotels and resorts.

Since then, Su has assisted her clients in becoming spokespeople in their sector and their practices in becoming award-winning, sought-after firms delivering one-of-a-kind hotels and resorts in the UK and internationally. In the course of this work, Su has regularly written for leading publications about such issues as the changing attitude to luxury in hospitality, ethical travel and the power of design to affect experience, as well as the growing demand for hospitality thinking in adjacent spaces.

CEO, Institute of Hospitality

Robert Richardson FIH MI is the Chief Executive Officer of the award-winning Institute of Hospitality (IoH), the world’s largest professional body of almost 16,000 hospitality professionals worldwide, and a registered charity. IoH is dedicated to driving the recognition of the hospitality profession and uplifting its membership through lifelong learning, mentorship, and network-building.

A long-time member of IoH, Richardson built his career in the hospitality industry. Working his way up through the ranks from hotel floor staff to hotel General Manager, and now as CEO of IoH, he has a deep belief in making the hospitality industry open, inclusive, and accessible to all who seek to join it. In 2021, Robert led the Institute to win the Chartered Governance Institute UK&I “Diversity & Inclusion Strategy of the Year” award in recognition of these efforts.

Executive Vice President of Europe, Preferred Hotels & Resorts

Brenda Collin serves as Executive Vice President of Europe for Preferred Hotels & Resorts, overseeing the company’s growth and evolution in the region, as well as ensuring the retention and success of nearly 200 member properties across 25 countries in the region.  

Since joining Preferred in April 2013, Brenda has been instrumental in generating significant awareness of the Preferred brand among trade and industry audiences. In addition to strengthening engagement among existing member hotels, she succeeded in tripling the size of the company’s footprint in the region during a seven-year timeframe by spearheading representation of acclaimed hotel companies such as Nordic Hotels & Resorts and signing more than 50 new member hotels such as The Beaumont (London, England); Old Course Hotel (St. Andrews, Scotland); Pulitzer Amsterdam (The Netherlands); and Hayfield Manor (Cork, Ireland).

A Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality and Chair of the organization’s London branch, Collin holds a B.A. in Hotel & Catering Management from Galway & Mayo Institute of Technology, as well as a Certificate in Hotel Real Estate Investments and Asset Management from Cornel University’s School of Hotel Administration. 

Managing Director, AA Media

Simon has spent his entire career in the hospitality industry, from managing hotels and restaurants through to the last twenty-five years with AA Media. As Managing Director, he is responsible for both AA Hotel and Hospitality services and VisitEngland Assessment services. This includes the various AA and VisitEngland classification and award schemes which in total numbers over 8,000 hospitality businesses.

Wider industry involvement includes Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality, Fellow of HOSPA, Chair South West Board of Hospitality Action and Ambassador, Room to Reward Ambassador and regular judge for various national hospitality awards. Simon is passionate about mentoring, having been a mentor for Oxford Brookes University hospitality management students, having studied hospitality there himself during his formative years.

Head of Industry Development, VisitEngland

Janet has over 30 years’ experience in tourism both at national and local level, having led teams at the front line in attractions, shaping and changing the visitor offer to aid growth in footfall and secondary spend. She has delivered marketing and PR campaigns for Imperial War Museums at IWM North, RHS at Hyde Hall in Essex, Vardon Attractions SeaLife (now Merlin Entertainments) and the Aspro Ocio owned Blue Planet Aquarium in the North West. She has also led quality assessment teams and been integral to the modernisation of VisitEngland’s quality schemes for accommodation businesses. Janet continues to champion the importance of not only knowing your customer, but ensuring their expectations are met at all touchpoints and raising the quality of that experience pre, during and post visit.

As Head of Industry Development at VisitEngland, Janet now leads the teams that deliver business support in the areas of accessibility, regenerative tourism (sustainability), training, quality assessment, the Business Advice Hub and the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence.

Executive Secretary, Master Innholders

Wallace has spent his entire working life in the hospitality industry. Having joined the British Army as an apprentice chef in 1971, he was selected to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1977 and was subsequently commissioned into the then Army Catering Corps (ACC) where he held a number of appointments in the UK and overseas in catering operational, training and staff (administrative management) roles.  The ACC merged into what is now The Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) in 1993 and, having achieved the rank of Major, he retired from the Army in 1994.  The following 20 years saw him working for some of the world’s leading support service providers in Defence, Education and Healthcare in business development, operational and consultancy roles, once again in the UK and overseas.  Towards the latter part of his career he enjoyed the opportunity of being appointed as a London Club Secretary and, since 2017, has been the Executive Secretary of the Master Innholders.

Wallace is a Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality and committee member of their South East Region; a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Cooks and member of their Assistance of Cookery Committee and is a Past President of the Réunion des Gastronomes.