Goodwood House manager celebrates winning same award won by Jamie Oliver

GOODWOOD House’s operations manager has been awarded a national award that was once won by Jamie Oliver and Marco Pierre White.
By Hope Mckellar
Published 21st Jun 2019, 13:15 BST
Updated 25th Jun 2019, 15:22 BST
Shelley Freeland, operations manager at Goodwood House, who has just been announced as one of the winners of the Acorn Award 2019. Picture: Alex Benwell.Shelley Freeland, operations manager at Goodwood House, who has just been announced as one of the winners of the Acorn Award 2019. Picture: Alex Benwell.
Shelley Freeland, operations manager at Goodwood House, who has just been announced as one of the winners of the Acorn Award 2019. Picture: Alex Benwell.

Shelley Freeland, 26, was awarded the Acorn Award by industry magazine The Caterer. It is a national award celebrating the hospitality industry’s most talented stars aged under 30.

She attended a prize-giving event at the five-star Coworth Park Hotel in Ascot, Berkshire, and a celebratory weekend.

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Shelley said: ‘Winning an Acorn is one of the greatest achievements in my career. I love my job as no day is ever the same at Goodwood and you cannot always predict how your day will turn out.

‘Working in hospitality at Goodwood is such a diverse industry and the opportunities for growth and to experience new things keeps you engaged and motivated. It can be very rewarding, from the wonderful people you get to work with, to delivering a great customer experience. You really do have the power to make someone’s day and that’s a great feeling.’

Shelley began working as a junior supervisor at the Aerodrome Cafe at Goodwood when she was 19, then as an events administrator with the Goodwood House team, before moving on to the operations manager role in 2017.

She is the youngest member of the senior leadership team at Goodwood working alongside the directors and managers.

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‘In my first year in the role of Goodwood House operations manager I had to make a big step up from a co-ordinator role to be responsible for delivering 120 events per year and over 350 staff at events.’

Goodwood Entertaining and Hospitality managing director Andrew Coggings said: ‘Having beaten off competition from across the country, this should be recognised as a huge achievement for both Shelley and Goodwood and we are all very proud of her. This is a fantastic and well deserved achievement in Shelley’s career.’

Previous recipients of the Acorn Award include the celebrity chefs Marco Pierre White and Jamie Oliver.

 

Related topics:Ascot