Blake Hammond is the National Operations Manager for Compass Group Australia, which is a leading multinational catering company currently operating in over 700 locations across Australia, with 14,000 employees and serving 65 million meals annually. 

Blake was first introduced to Compass Group in 2004 as Head Chef of corporate fine dining brand ‘Roux Fine Dining’ as part of collaboration between Albert Roux and Compass UK in London. Following the partnership’s success, Blake was selected for the prestigious role of Executive Head Chef for Restaurant Associates UK, where he developed the culinary vision for London’s leading corporate boardrooms in Canary Wharf, Cannon Street, and other major finance centres in the UK. 

Following Blake’s 2007 restaurateur debut at the iconic Blue Duck restaurant in Cottesloe WA, he returned to Compass as Regional Director of its highly accoladed independent schools catering and events brand, Chartwells. During Blake’s time leading Chartwells’ operations, the company grew from catering to 20 sites, to now over 200 clients nationally. 

In 2020, Blake directed the mobilisation of client services at BHP’s Olympic Dam project, where he pioneered a contemporary dining evolution in three remote villages, including the introduction of dining technologies to enhance resident safety, nutrition, and wellbeing. 

Today, Blake continues to develop bespoke hospitality solutions at some of Australia’ s most prestigious and culturally significant venues, whilst leading digital transformation projects in the optimisation space; where Compass is adopting digital technologies to augment its retail customer interface, by the integration of Industry 5.0 ecosystems to reenergise its roadmap to sustainable consumer value in a volatile hospitality market.