Join us for our Open Evening at Leiths on Thursday 12th March 2026, 6:30–8:30pm, and discover how the Culinary Diploma can launch your career in food.
Join us for our Open Evening at Leiths on Thursday 12th March 2026, 6:30–8:30pm, and discover how the Culinary Diploma can launch your career in food.
Previous career/study:
Career – I have worked in the advertising, marketing and events industry for the past 20 years. My most recent job was managing corporate partnership (fundraising) clients and hospitality events at the Royal Opera House.
Previous Study – university graduate with degrees in food science, and marketing (attained over 20 years ago).
Experience of food to date:
No direct experience within the food industry, however for the past 15 years I have managed corporate events, such as client hospitality /entertaining at large scale sports and arts events and business conferences, so I am most familiar with food in an event and private catering setting.
Longer term goals:
To get involved with NGOs and/or government organisations that work around child food poverty and finding solutions around this.
Other useful information
I am also interested in research and would like to explore the social and anthropological studies around food at some stage, and how this might lead to opportunities in teaching / media and food writing etc.
Teacher: Caz
Course: Three Term Diploma 2023/2024
Dem you’re most looking to: Shellfish
Best moment: Jointing a chicken
Worst moment: Wet pizza dough! Never again!
I’m quite excited for Helen Lau. I think she might be onto something.
A career changer on this year’s Culinary Diploma, until now Helen has spent many years managing corporate sponsorship using experiential marketing through performing arts and sports events. See: the events at Royal Albert Hall, tennis grand slams and, well, not one, not two but three Olympics. We’ve just spoken on the phone before she goes into a Friday afternoon pasta and risotto demonstration. In her previous job, she tells me, the thing she most enjoyed was ‘working with catering teams at different event locations and collaborating with chefs to create menus so that the catering becomes part of the guest’s most memorable experience at an event. I always volunteered asking “Can I work with the chefs?” ’
‘For certain events you’ve got to think about dietary requirements – it can’t get on the ladies’ dresses, it can’t smell and it’s got to tie back to the client and the brand.’
‘I worked with Veuve Clicquot and everything had to be yellow.’
This was when she realised she wanted ‘to work on the other side like these chefs and food creatives.’
After Leiths, she has laudable ambitions to bring ‘essential nutritional knowledge and life skills (cooking) to young children’. But her business plan is this: to provide ‘quality, thoughtful food’ to ‘an audience that least expect quality food options because they are in a work setting, such as a business conference or for athletes at a sports tournament.’
‘Eventually, I would like to bring together my skills gained at Leiths, along with my experience working with brands and interpreting client briefs and consumer data, into a role in food consultancy to work with food and hospitality brands to take innovative food ideas and creations to the masses.’
It feels all wrong writing this down, this idea is good enough to steal. That being said, it’s not like this sort of catering, which is easier said than done, hasn’t been attempted before. I just get the sense Helen is the person, with the know-how and the creative rocket fuel, who will actually pull it off.