Accent Catering names Kerrie Cole Access Champion amid industry inclusion push

Accent Catering Services has appointed Operations Director Kerrie Cole as its Access Champion, formalising the contract caterer's move into the Accessible Hospitality Alliance (aha) that it joined in August.

The role plugs Accent into aha's Access Champions Collective, a peer group where members swap experience on the barriers disabled workers and customers face across hospitality and catering — and compare notes on what's actually working to remove them.

Cole frames the appointment as a recruiting and retention issue, not a compliance exercise. "I jumped at the chance to become the Access Champion for Accent Catering Services," she said. "It really frustrates me when workplaces are not open to change and I would love to be a driver in making the workplace accessible for all."

Her argument is straightforward: the talent pool widens when hiring practices do. "There is so much talent out there and companies thrive when they welcome, and facilitate, a diverse team that all bring different skills, experiences and views," Cole said. "I can't wait to spend time with like-minded people who can help me to make significant differences in this area."

What does this change for Accent's hiring?

In practice, the Access Champion role gives a named senior operator responsibility for auditing where candidates and staff hit barriers — from how a job is advertised to how someone is enabled to perform it once hired. That puts accessibility decisions into the same operational conversations that shape scheduling, recruitment and role design, rather than leaving them to a separate policy track.

Cole's operations background is the point. She brings an everyday-decision perspective to the Collective's exchanges: where interviews are held, which systems a role depends on, and how flexible the working pattern really is.

The appointment also comes with a date. Cole will attend The aha Forum at the BT Tower on 11 November, alongside Accent's Commercial Director Antony Prentice. The forum is the Alliance's direct engagement channel with the experiences and ideas informing accessibility work across the sector.

A keynote built on questioning role requirements

The forum's keynote, from Dr Irene Di Giulio, pushes the same logic further. Her session explores disability and spaceflight, using scientific research to challenge assumptions about what a role physically requires — and who potentially best meets those requirements. The framing matters for operators: if spaceflight's demanding specs can be re-examined, so can the unwritten criteria attached to kitchen, service and delivery jobs.

Robin Sheppard, Chair and co-founder of aha, said Cole's approach fits what the Collective needs. "Kerrie's enthusiasm begins with seeing what people can bring to a business and wanting to give that talent room to flourish," he said. "Her willingness to question established ways of working, alongside an appetite to learn from others, will be a valuable addition to the Access Champions Collective."

Sheppard added: "Progress comes through listening carefully, sharing experience and putting what we learn into practice. We look forward to welcoming Kerrie and Antony to the BT Tower and working with Kerrie as she brings that approach to her role at Accent."

For a sector still wrestling with persistent staff shortages, the Alliance's bet is that accessible recruitment widens the labour pool at little structural cost. Accent's pairing of an operations director and a commercial director at the November forum suggests the company intends to treat that bet as an operational question, not a side project.