Sean Paterson is the founder of Olive & Oak, a hospitality leader with extensive experience across front-of-house, back-of-house, and senior management roles in hotels, restaurants, bars, and large-scale operations across the UK.
His career spans independent venues and multi-site operations, with responsibility for large teams, complex service environments, and full commercial accountability. Roles have included Head of Hospitality, General Manager, Bars Manager, Area Manager, and Head of Beverage, overseeing operations with significant turnovers, managing P&L, leading large teams, and delivering training, cultural change, and operational rebuilds.
Sean has been responsible for rebuilding businesses post-COVID, developing internal training programmes, improving gross profit margins, launching new concepts, and supporting teams through periods of significant change. His experience includes high-pressure destination venues, hotels, events, and large-capacity sites, where pace, standards, and leadership decisions directly affect both performance and people.
Olive & Oak was created as a response to that experience. After years spent carrying responsibility inside hospitality, Sean saw first-hand how much talent and potential gets lost simply because people never get a genuine, well-supported route in — and how much the industry loses when it doesn't invest properly in the people who show up ready to work. Real, sustainable change meant looking beyond consultancy alone.
Today, Olive & Oak works to help people build real skills and real futures through hospitality — particularly those who've had the least opportunity to get started — through Acorn to Oak, its community and employability-focused training programme. Sean also continues to work directly with hospitality venues, from training days and speaking engagements through to longer-term support where it's needed, bringing clarity to leadership, culture, and operations without compromising standards.
Based in Northumberland, Sean works with communities, hospitality businesses, and delivery partners locally, regionally, and across the UK.
The Mission
"I believe hospitality can be more than a job — it can be a genuine route to a better life. I help people, especially those furthest from opportunity, build real skills and real work in hospitality, alongside a healthier, more sustainable relationship with work itself. I do this by partnering with communities, not chasing clients."
Why Hospitality
Hospitality is one of the few sectors that hires on attitude over qualifications. It offers a fast route to real, paid work — not years of unpaid apprenticeships or qualifications first — and builds skills that transfer well beyond the industry itself. For someone who's struggled to get a foot in anywhere else, it's often the fastest, most realistic route into real, sustainable work.
Why Why this, why now
Hospitality already runs on young people — it just doesn't keep them. 52% staff turnover, the highest of any UK sector. An average tenure of just 3 years. The barrier isn't a lack of opportunity — it's readiness, retention, and access. That's the gap Olive & Oak exists to close.
