Movers
& Shakers
The sales and marketing director of the successful catering company
and restaurant Five Rivers, Shamim Huseinmiya, talks to Tandoori
What made you want to become
the sales and marketing director of
Five rivers catering company, and
subsequently its restaurant offshoot?
I’d studied business and marketing at
university and one of my dreams had
always been to have my own restaurant.
So when the opportunity came up to join
Five Rivers, it seemed like the perfect
culmination of various things I wanted to
achieve. In any case, I’ve always been
very passionate about food.
As a catering operation, the company
started in 2004 in the West Midlands,
with you joining in 2007 just as you
were finishing university. Then its
fine dining restaurant, the £1.1m Five
rivers A la Carte, opened just over a
year ago in Walsall. Did you feel you
were thrown in at the deep end?
It wasn’t the work ethic that bothered
me because I’d been working from a
very young age, but more so that I was
entering an industry that I knew almost
nothing about. Then again, that was an
exciting prospect. The one aspect that
I came up against were the long hours.
Doing a 13 hour day was a bit of an eyeopener for me!
How do you find working for both the
catering end of the company and its
restaurant?
On the catering front, my diary gets really
full-up between the months of June and
August because that’s the prime summer
season, particularly for weddings and
various other events. We have a massive
team of people to oversee, with just
the chefs numbering up to 18. We’re
contracted and approved to cater for
the Hilton and Marriott hotel groups as
well as a host of prestigious venues such
as Blenheim Palace. The work is very
fluid and you are having to build a whole
event to fit into the brief of your client,
and putting it together very quickly. The
restaurant is very much an extension
50 T A N D O O R I
of our catering business, operating like
a showcase for our clients and being a
permanent base for ourselves.
What’s the upside of what you do and
what’s the downside?
The upside is that no two days are
the same and you get to meet some
wonderful people. The downside are
the hours you are having to put in and
virtually spending more hours at work
than you are with your family.
What makes a good sales and
marketing director?
You have to be super organised. Be
creative and have an eye for things that
others may not be able to spot.
you are in a profession where you are
very much a female in a man’s world.
Do you find that to be the case?
It can be tough and sometimes you have
to fight to make your voice heard. But if
you are determined you will get there in
the end.
What do you find so satisfying about
the work that you do?
For the catering side, it’s the satisfaction of
seeing the months of planning it has taken
for an event finally take fruition. For the
restaurant, it’s the smile that our food and
service bring to our customers’ faces.
How would you like to be
remembered?
As a hard working and passionate
individual.
June / July 2013
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