Every now and again the worlds of business and the holy creative (in this case food), blend to strip out the extreme and especially the ugly side of business. I came across this CV of Noam bar, a senior partner in Ottolenghi, the London based foodie experience.
Noam Bar
Having oscillated between a job in the City and time in a Buddhist monastery, Noam shrugged off the urge to choose between the two worlds, and is now both a homeopath and the strategic thinker of Ottolenghi.
As the former, he practices in London and in Africa. As the latter, he knows enough about the business to understand it perfectly, but not enough to be drawn into the day to day details.
Any business, Ottolenghi included, can be viewed as an organism, just like the human body. And the same ideas of health and disease are applicable to both: it is necessary to listen carefully, to identify the core of the imbalance, and to apply a minimal intervention that would help the organism repair itself.
Noam, like the other managers of Ottolenghi, believes that people are happy, creative, and inspiring when they are in their naturally balanced state. Consequently, much management time is dedicated to ensuring that our staff is fulfilled, satisfied and content; that they are empowered enough to deal with the challenges life brings them. Amazing food, customer satisfaction, and a positive Profit and Loss account are simply by-products of this constant effort.
