{"id":2122,"date":"2018-11-08T17:12:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T17:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2019-03-18T16:36:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T16:36:57","slug":"alumni-interview-robin-rowland-obe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/2018\/11\/08\/alumni-interview-robin-rowland-obe\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni interview: Robin Rowland OBE"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After a degree at Kent University in American Studies (1980 \u2013 1984), Robin joined Whitbread PLC as a pub area manager, going on to develop and lead multiple pub & restaurant brands including Diageo, Scottish & Newcastle and The Restaurant Group. In 1999 he joined YO! Sushi as CEO, building the iconic fast-casual popular restaurant chain from 3 to 100+ company restaurants both in the UK & USA, including 16 franchise restaurants in international airports and the Gulf. From Jan 2018 Robin joined the Trispan Rising Stars team as an Operating Partner and retains NED roles with Eathos, YO! Sushi, Marston\u2019s & Caffe Nero, as well as sitting on the sectors UK Hospitality Board. He received an OBE in 2016 for his service to the UK hospitality industry.<\/em><\/p>\n

What motivates and inspires you?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m motivated by great food and service. I\u2019m inspired by people who are driven, consistent, and possess extraordinary vision. I am a strong believer in \u2018happy teams and happy guests\u2019 and can\u2019t stand lazy operators. I believe \u2018people work with people\u2019, and my management philosophy is simple as I look for \u2018continual improvement\u2019 on the \u20185 Ps\u2019: People, Product, Property, Promotion and Profit.<\/p>\n

Name one more career ambition you\u2019d like to realise before you retire<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d like to add value to a few more businesses. It\u2019s very challenging to survive and thrive in the restaurant business: there are a handful of us who have managed it with the same business for 15 years or more. I truly believe It\u2019s all about employing great people and understanding the importance of good managers, who value their teams.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most interesting thing about you that we wouldn\u2019t learn from your CV or Wikipedia page?<\/strong>
\nMy Father sadly died when I was six. He was a very promising labour MP and a contemporary of Roy Hattersley and Shirley Williams. It\u2019s strange to think he could even have ended up becoming Prime Minister in the 70s.<\/p>\n

Also \u2013 my wife and I used to drive a London taxi \u2013 it was quite a thing among the Surrey set, seeing us driving the kids to school in a London cab!<\/p>\n

What has been your most embarrassing moment? <\/strong>
\nAt one point we\u2019d been having a problem with rogue chefs who had been rumoured to be putting mussels on the YO! belt. I was sitting at one point with an investor and assuring him this was no longer happening. As we talked I glanced up just in time to watch a dish of mussels going past me on the conveyor belt!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most trivial hill you\u2019re willing to die on? (i.e. the one thing you believe you\u2019ll never concede on, no matter how much people argue with you)<\/strong>
\nI strongly believe that the O has to be the same size as the Y in the YO! Sushi logo.<\/p>\n

Also the base quality of the food you serve is crucial \u2013 the quality of the food comes right down to the core ingredients which must never be compromised.<\/p>\n

What is your favourite spot on campus? <\/strong>
\nOn campus I\u2019d say sitting infront of the library on a sunny day \u2013 that view down to the cathedral. Off campus it would probably be a pub we used to frequent called the \u2018Bat and Ball.\u2019<\/p>\n

During my second year in Kent we actually lived in an amazing house called The Edge at St Margarets Bay looking out across the channel which was pretty special – but a little far from campus!<\/p>\n

When were you last back on campus? <\/strong>
\nI actually came back in Summer 2017 with my son Chris to look at the university, as he is thinking of studying Business. It was interesting to go back to Rutherford, my former college – the campus has changed so much!<\/p>\n

What is your favourite memory of Kent?<\/strong>
\nWe booked U2 for just \u00a3150 to play in the Rutherford Bar! Quite a coup. I was part of the social committee \u2013 we also had a great time seeing bands like the Cure, UB 40 & Ramones at the Odeon.<\/p>\n

What do you wish you knew while at Kent that you know now?<\/strong>
\nI wish I had got more involved in outdoor pursuits and sports, I didn\u2019t do enough of that sort of thing. I was probably a little too \u2018cool for school\u2019 \u2013 I grew up in Blackheath and arrived at University having taken a year off already and foolishly felt quite worldly.<\/p>\n

I also wish I\u2019d spent more time thinking about careers, though I was very lucky to get three job offers straight out of uni through the milkround!<\/p>\n

Why do you think specifically conveyor belt sushi restaurants have such appeal?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s partly novelty, but it also goes beyond that. It\u2019s fast, fun and fresh. You can be in and out very quickly, you\u2019re fully in control of your own meal, and you don\u2019t need to order and wait for the food to be prepared. I like to think of it as \u2018elegant fast food\u2019. It\u2019s a great place to do speed dating and also perfect as transit food e.g in airports (YO! Sushi\u2019s record-holding branch is Terminal 2 at Heathrow which whilst small once did well over 100k in one week!) A distinct advantage of YO! is also that it can work out of a floor plate as small as 1000 square feet which gives a basic kitchen plus a conveyor belt, and really it offers three different types of experience \u2013 it can be a transactional experience at airports, a default offer in a shopping mall, or can be a total restaurant experience. It\u2019s really rather niche.<\/p>\n

And finally: you\u2019ve been given a campus rabbit, you can\u2019t give it away or sell it. What do you do with it?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019m sorry to say but I\u2019d have to cook and eat it \u2013 probably fricasseed!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a degree at Kent University in American Studies (1980 \u2013 1984), Robin joined Whitbread PLC as a pub area manager, going on to develop … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34788,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2122"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2167,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions\/2167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}