Graham Munton is the new restaurant and bar manager at Conrad London's Aquasia bar and terrace. He worked previously as restaurant manager at Ransome's Dock restaurant in London, and has also worked at the city's Oxo Tower Brasserie where, after five years, he became deputy manager. Munton has trained and worked as a butler and qualified as a sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers.
Simon Tanner has been named executive head chef at the five-star Le M‚ridien Piccadilly hotel in London. He joins the hotel after four years as executive chef with Orient-Express Trains, based in London. Before that, he worked as chef de cuisine of the Queen's Grill aboard the QE2.
Conference company Sundial Group has appointed Anthony Cox centre manager of the Bailbrook House Conference Centre in Bath. He joins from Marston Hotels, for which he was deputy general manager at Hellidon Lakes Golf and Country Club, near Daventry, Northamptonshire.
Melanie Cash has joined the 200-bedroom Renaissance Manchester hotel as director of sales and marketing. She will help to relaunch the hotel's conference and banqueting facilities, which have recently undergone a £500,000 refurbishment. Cash was previously training manager for Hilton Hotels UK and Ireland, and before this was director of sales and marketing at the Marriott Forest of Arden Hotel and Country Club, Warwickshire.
Darren Purchese has joined Andrew Turner as head pastry chef at the Bentley hotel in London, which will open at the end of this month. He was previously restaurant head pastry chef at Brown's hotel, London.
London hotel One Aldwych has named Niall Cowan manager of its Lobby Bar. South African-born Cowan was previously bar manager at the city's Berkeley hotel, and has also worked as bar manager at both Claridge's and Conran Restaurants' Bluebird, both also in London.
Contract caterer Charlton House has promoted two of its operations team. Paul Hurren, who only joined the company in April this year as a senior operations manager, has become divisional director. And operations manager Paul Jackson moves up into Hurren's vacated role as senior operations manager, in charge of 10 of Charlton House's contracts.
Elite Hotels has appointed David Petitt marketing manager, covering for Debbie Whitehead, who is on maternity leave. The hotel group has three country house properties - the Grand hotel, Tylney Hall hotel and Ashdown Park hotel, all in the South-east of England. Petitt has joined from software provider Glasser Whitley in Buckinghamshire, where he was also marketing manager.
Brendan Eschle has been promoted to general manager of Jim Thompson's Thai restaurant on the King's Road, London, which was the brand's first UK restaurant when it was launched in 1994. He was previously assistant manager at the site, and has taken up his new position following a stint as general manager of the company's Bristol outlet.
Oakley Hall hotel in Basingstoke, Hampshire, has chosen Leigh Kimsey as executive chef for its new Austen's restaurant. The restaurant is named after Jane Austen, author of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, who often visited the hotel. The restaurant offers a mix of Italian, French, Spanish and traditional British dishes, using fresh produce from local suppliers. Kimsey was previously head chef at the Ponsbourne Park hotel in Hertford.
Westminster restaurant Quirinale has a new restaurant manager in John Iglesias, previously food and beverage manager at the Royal Horse Guards hotel, also in London. Iglesias, a trained sommelier, said he hoped to do justice to head chef Stefano Savo's Italian cooking. Iglesias has also worked as assistant restaurant manager at La Terrazza, one of the restaurants in the capital's Le M‚ridien Grosvenor House hotel.
The Millennium hotel in London's Mayfair has promoted Virginia Masser to the position of general manager. She has been operating the hotel as deputy general manager since March and as resident manager since June. Masser is a graduate of the Savoy Group's management training scheme and studied at both the Birmingham College of Food and London's Westminster Kingsway College.
Ilkin Ilyaszade has left the Banyan Tree Phuket hotel in Thailand, where he was director of rooms, to become hotel manager of the Deer Park hotel in Sri Lanka, a new addition to the Banyan Tree portfolio, managed under its Colours of Angsana brand.
Kempinski Hotels & Resorts has appointed Pamela Miller director of leisure sales for northern Europe, based in the company's London international sales office. Miller has been with the company since 1998, when she joined the Kempinski Hotel Beijing Lufthansa Centre as assistant director of sales and marketing. In 1999 she became director of the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus in Budapest.
Contact caterer Catering Alliance has appointed Chantelle O'Carroll as an area manager in the east Midlands region. She was previously an account manager at contract caterer Sodexho, and has also worked at Banks's brewery. In her new role, she will look after 10 contracts in the Nottingham area.
The London Marriott Hotel West India Quay and the West India Quay Marriott Executive Apartments, due to open next spring in London's Canary Wharf, have made two senior appointments. Paul Downing has been named general manager, having worked for the company for more than 20 years, most recently in the same role at the Lisbon Marriott hotel. Before this, he was Marriott International's regional director of operations for south and central Asia. And David Bartlett has moved from the Renaissance Manchester hotel, where he was director of sales and marketing, to take up the position of director of marketing.
St Andrews Bay Golf Resort and Spa in Fife has appointed Tamara Kobiolke head of event planning. She was previously responsible for strategy, planning and event management at Maximillion Events, based in Edinburgh. The £58m resort claims to have the largest conference and incentive facilities within a resort hotel in Scotland.
- Please send your On the move stories to chris.druce@rbi.co.uk, giving start date, details of the appointee's previous job and, if possible, a head-and-shoulders photograph.stronorm
Recruitment from A to Bee
Cambridge-based Bee Recruitment is the latest company to enter the recruitment market, handling junior to senior grades, area management appointments and all grades of chefs.
The company, founded by recruitment consultants Catherina Scott and Rory Laffan, claims specialist knowledge of the East Anglia region.
Scott previously worked in the City for recruitment company Lister Charles as a regional branch manager. Laffan was a trainee recruitment consultant with Lister Charles, also in Cambridge.
Bee Recruitment's strategy will be to work with a small number of clients, in a bid to foster closer relationships and provide more personalised service. The company is considering a move into the health centre leisure market.