Picture this… as Gordon Ramsay describes it in his autobiography, Playing with Fire. It’s the end of a glamorous evening. Everyone has gone upstairs for a presentation. And yet, in the kitchen, one person is still working.
Here, he found Gillian Thomson, in her early 20s, “washing up and clearing the kitchen”, despite the fact that it was almost certainly not her job. He promptly hired her and she went on to become Global Head of Operations.
Thomson spent the early 2000s working within Gordon Ramsay’s orbit helping the restaurant group open internationally, working with incredible talent: Angela Hartnett, Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing, Mark Askew and Mark Seargent, to name just a few of the exciting expansion team.
As he recounted in his book, Ramsay describes Gillian’s ability to see what’s required and act on it: her “great talent was to take an overview… and then deal with it.”
That she was “everywhere” in an “amazingly… non-invasive” way. Ramsay commented in particular on how she watched new joiners “not as a mother hen but as a hawk.” And that same fierce leadership and protectiveness persists today.
Today, Gillian is our COO at Act-Clean, a business trusted by London’s most demanding hospitality operators. But her relationship with hospitality began long before boardrooms, brand names, or high-profile openings.
It began on changeover day…
From seaside chalets to service culture
Thomson’s first job came at 12, cleaning holiday chalets in the Scottish seaside town she grew up in. Saturday mornings meant stripping beds, washing up, cleaning windows, she became very familiar with the unglamorous reality behind a guest’s arrival. “My first proper job was in cleaning,” she says. “Everything comes full circle in life!”.
Alongside that, she spent weekdays Highland dancing as a child, performing in hotels for tourists. The pay, was “three pounds for the evening,” plus “as much Coke from the bar as you could drink and a bag of crisps!” she recalls with a grin.
Thomson is the first to admit her route into the industry wasn’t pre-planned. “Like many people it happened… by accident,” she says. Her mother was determined she would go to university, but after results day, hospitality became the option that made the most sense and pivotally had space left on the course!
She called the Scottish Hotel School at the University of Strathclyde, and took up a place. Her mother’s initial reaction has become family folklore:
“We’re going to spend £30,000 on your education, and you’re going to be a waitress!” Now, I’m sure her mother thinks very differently!
Thomson recounted a funny time where her mother thoroughly “had to eat her words” once she ended up seated next to Kylie Minogue at an event at Claridge’s.
For Thomson, the pull of hospitality isn’t only the aesthetics, or the incredible venues. It’s the human aspect and the closeness of the craft.
“The people, the places, the experiences,” she says. “Life is just a massive collection of stories – and people that work in hospitality have the best stories.”
But by that same token she’s equally direct about the industry’s rigour, and the underestimation it sometimes attracts.
“People often assume that if you work in hospitality… you’re a little bit of a dummy,” she says. Her own career tells a different story: she has worked at PLC level, with global operators, across multiple continents, and alongside demanding commercial stakeholders. “All those businesses have to make money, so you become commercial.”
Act-Clean part of it since the beginning
Thomson’s involvement with Act-Clean, she says, goes back to its very inception: “I’ve been involved since the day before it even started.”
One of the founders approached her while she was working for a mutual client, “will you help us?” he asked. Thomson couldn’t become their customer immediately, because they didn’t really have a business, but she could do something else, see its potential and open doors.
She began introducing them to people she trusted, encouraging early opportunities and helping them build credibility.
Later, she offered Act-Clean’s first real operational challenge: cleaning Terminal 5. “Airport’s are a nightmare, you need five years of vetting for every cleaner,” she recalls, but if they could handle that, “you can handle everything else.” And, they did.
Despite the incredible rooms she’s been in, filled with huge talent or wealth, Thomson’s favourite memories of Act-Clean are about the people.
Long-tenured team members who started as night cleaners, sometimes as their first job in London are now operations managers.
“I look around the table,” she says, “and we’ve got people who’ve been with us for over 10 years… and now they’re managers.”
That is the kind of progression she values most: “Being able to be part of a very, very small part of improving the lives of people… That matters.”
Although she cherishes milestones like sponsoring the Caterer Acorn Awards and being part of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts too.
In the end, the through-line in Gillian’s career isn’t the need for a title, or praise. It is an attitude she had very early on: to do the work, to do it well, and to never forget who the important people are.
From left to right:
1. With Robert Holland (Jeremy King Restaurants)
2. Royal Academy Culinary Arts Awards for Excellence with Chef John Williams (The Ritz), Louise Hewitt (Savoy Educational Trust), Chef Brian Turner
3. Creating memories with fellow women in the sector: Marcolette Anastasi, Rita Dreyer, Yvonne Thomas, Liz Harstone, Janet Harmer, Bronwyn Groves and Pru Parkes
4. Gillian with Amanda Afiya (Editor of The Caterer)
5. Innholder Scholars Dinner with Rob Flinter, Grant Campbell, Erick Kervaon, David Lockhart
6. At the Shangri-La London, Act-Clean’s client from opening
