Job Description

Company Description

Head of Self-Serve Solutions

Vending | Smart Retail | Coffee | Unattended Retail

Reading / London

Highly Competitive Salary and Benefits

Customers increasingly expect great food and drink to be available when they want it, not just when a traditional restaurant or café is open.

That is creating a significant opportunity for WSH.

We already have a substantial vending and self-serve business across our operating companies, covering everything from coffee and traditional vending to smart fridges, payment technology and equipment solutions. We now want to bring that expertise together, raise our ambition and create a self-serve offer built for the future.

We are looking for a Head of Self-Serve Solutions to lead it.

WSH is the parent company for leading brands operating in the catering and hospitality sectors. Our brands operate in diverse sectors, including:

• Public spaces – such as the Science Museum, St Pancras Champagne bar and Dublin Zoo
• Workspaces – from power stations to investment banks
• Education – primary schools, secondary schools, colleges and universities

A central support office provides financial, HR, IT, Supply Chain and other administrative services to the group companies each of whom retains its own personality and who operate across a number of catering and hospitality markets.

Recent acquisitions provide the group with new opportunities and include prestigious locations such as Musee Du Louvre in Paris and partnerships with established chefs such as Claus Meyers in Denmark.

Job Description

The opportunity

This is not a traditional vending management role.

As the Head of Self-Serve Solutions you will be responsible for taking what we do today and making it easier to use, better managed and more commercially successful, while developing the new solutions that will help us grow.

The Head of Self-Serve Solutions will work across WSH with our operating businesses, sales teams, clients and suppliers to identify opportunities, develop the right solutions and make sure they work brilliantly once installed. That could mean improving the performance of an existing vending estate, creating a new coffee solution, introducing smart fridges or micro-markets, or exploring the next generation of unattended retail technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Grow the business, identifying new opportunities with our businesses and clients.
• Own our self-serve offer, covering vending, coffee, smart fridges, micro-markets and emerging technologies.
• Improve what we already have, using sales and machine data to improve availability, range, reliability and profitability.
• Turn ideas into working solutions, from initial proposal and commercial case through to installation and mobilisation.
• Support bids and client conversations, helping our teams create compelling self-serve solutions.
• Lead innovation, keeping us close to changes in technology, consumer behaviour and the wider market.
• Manage our key partners, including equipment, vending, coffee, payment, technology and service providers.
• Bring greater control, particularly around equipment, leasing, service performance, costs and supplier management.
• Build the capability, creating a simple and effective way for our businesses to access self-serve expertise and support.

Qualifications

Skills & Experience

You'll combine commercial thinking with a real understanding of operations. You'll be comfortable discussing technology and innovation one minute and getting into the detail of a poorly performing machine, supplier issue or mobilisation the next.

You'll need:

• Experience in vending, smart retail, foodservice, convenience retail or another multi-site consumer business.
• A strong commercial mindset and a track record of improving sales and performance.
• Experience of leading people and influencing across different teams.
• Good knowledge of suppliers, contracts, pricing and negotiation.
• Confidence with data, budgets and performance information.
• An understanding of equipment, payment technology and the operational realities of self-serve environments.
• The ability to turn customer needs into practical, commercially sensible solutions.
• The confidence to work with clients, suppliers, site teams and senior leaders.
• Most importantly, you'll be curious, practical and entrepreneurial. You'll enjoy solving problems, spotting opportunities and getting things done.

Additional Information

Why this role?

Because there is a genuine opportunity to build something.

Self-serve is becoming an increasingly important part of foodservice, offering customers greater choice and availability while helping operators respond to changing labour requirements and trading patterns.

At WSH, the foundations already exist. What we need now is someone with the energy, commercial judgement and operational understanding to bring them together and take them further.

Come and help us build the future of self-serve at WSH.