Deborah Kan attributes her “natural born interest” in food to her family. “My family has always been in the food industry; my grandmother started a restaurant in Newmarket in the 1970s which is operating very successfully still within the family today. My parents owned everything from fish and chip stores to five-star restaurants, so I had a very early behind the scenes view of food operations.”
One of Kan’s first roles was with Coca-Cola where she got the full corporate manufacturing experience. Before starting at Foodfirst, her previous position at Information Resources Inc. involved a diverse range of IT, software knowledge and support, to full client service, providing insights, analysis and working with businesses to make informative decisions based on their data performance. Kan hopes to be able to challenge the norm by bringing experience from other channels. She hopes that her fresh perspective and her experience with big company efficiencies will help her in her role at Foodfirst.
Kan is aware of the challenges that she may face. “Being so new to the role, it’ll take time to build the customer relationships and familiarity that I had in my previous job having been there 15 years.” However, Kan is looking forward to getting to know her clients and being able to work with them creatively and collaboratively to achieve what is needed.
“I’ve personally enjoyed ‘jumping ship’, moving from the world of FMCG to foodservice. To get exposure in different channels has been a good move for me.”
