Ben Kaye

SURREAL

Gimme a sec to settle into the role, and then I'll tell you what I've been up to!

Category & Commercial Manager

Spin Tennis App

• Drew up an events plan to add an additional USP and revenue stream for Spin Tennis App
• Creating and hosting events to further engagement within the Spin Tennis Community
• Sourcing venues to deliver an enjoyable experience for Spin members
• Initial events in 2025 have had 100+ attendees with a positive experience and demand for further events

Event Manager

2 Sisters Food Group

Category Manager within the Poultry division, working across a variety of retail customers:
• Responsible for analysis of all protein space & sales performance for a large convenience retailer, helping deliver "the best presentation across the supply base" (retail buyer), resulting in 20% incremental space and additional SKUs worth £m of pounds to the business
• Led and delivered the development of best-in-class insights reporting website, delivering the team’s category insight, in-store reports and data analysis all in one centralised place for customers
• Produced comprehensive consumer insight report to assist retailers in understanding Christmas purchase decisions
• Used data and analytics skills to redesign and rebuild the Co-op Sales Reporting process to give more profound and more powerful insights to the commercial team, resulting in the award of Employee of the Month
• Led the delivery of category insights for BBQ Season 2024, featuring new image-based market maps

Category Manager

Well Fruited

Co-founder of a drinks brand that used product innovation and fun to address the fact that only 28% of adults consume 5 portions of fruit & veg a day.

Some key accomplishments:
• Co-created the first fruit drink made using all of the fruit, designed to maximise fibre and nutrient content, whilst limiting sugar impact
• Bootstrapped the business through initial product testing phases by using self-taught skills such as web design, branding, financial modelling & prototyping
• Sold over 5,000 bottles as part of initial testing phase, through various channels such as D2C, B2B and live events
• 7m video views across TikTok, YouTube & Instagram
•Charted the growth of the brand alongside my insights into what makes a consumer-business stand out

Co-Founder & CEO

Unrest

Participated in the programme to help strengthen the foundations of the business and fuel the growth of the Well Fruited brand.

As part of the programme:
- Refined our Pitch Deck & proposition
-Built out Financial Projections & models
- Refined brand strategy
- Engaged in the wider Unrest community

Entrepreneur at Unrest (London)

Year Here

Working on solutions to societal problems to deliver positive impact and social change.

Mar - August 2021: Population Health Team, Bromley-by-Bow Health Partnership. Projects included:
• Project Best Start: analysing data to build a profile of young people within Tower Hamlets and help inform decisions on how to give every child the best start in life
• Project Ways of Working: delivered a report that assessed ways of working across the Health Partnership, with recommendations on how to improve ways of working across areas such as meetings, project management and document sharing
• Project Talking Food: organised and facilitated sessions around nutrition and healthy diet for local community members to help improve wellbeing, which results in some "life-changing" results

Sep - Oct 2021: Consultant on a project for Guy's & St Thomas' Foundation around equitable and representative employment for the local area

Social Innovation Fellow

Bakkavor

Working across UK & Ireland on one of the UK's largest retailers on multiple fresh prepared food categories.

Role included delivering first-to-market innovation, long-term strategic planning, stakeholder management, building customer relationships and commercial analysis.

Key accomplishments:
• Shortlisted for Bakkavor Group Innovation Awards for work on Post-Launch Review Process
• Led the introduction of a new software tool to deliver faster, more accurate and in-depth sales reporting on a weekly basis to transform the way the sales teams reported on performance, whilst saving countless hours of data collection
• Worked on a bespoke strategy for Tesco Ireland to adapt offerings to fit the market need, resulting in cutting wastage by 20%
• Launched new product ranges across multiple retailers, cuisines and tiers, worth over £10m in annual sales revenue

Testimonials:
• Attention to detail is fantastic and it’s been a great support

Commercial Manager

Managing key retailer accounts across a variety of Fresh Prepared Foods categories to deliver first to market innovation and profitable business growth.

Responsible for Category Strategy, Promotional Planning and International Projects, achieved through cross-functional working and a commitment to innovative and new working practices.

Key accomplishments:
• Improved forecasting accuracy by c.15%pt through the creation and implementation of an analysis tool
• Established a clear set of category information documentation that enabled the team to become category pioneers through easy-to-access information on product & promotional performance
• Grew an e-commerce account 28% YOY, ahead of the growth trajectory for the retailer overall
• Improve margin performance of at-risk lines through Product Development work to recover of £50k p/a

Testimonials:
Ben is a self-starter and is constantly looking at avenues and ways to add value to the business. 
He has proactively volunteered for add on projects and has been working with grit and determination on PLR (Post Launch Review) project which has been identified as a big opportunity.

Account Manager

Part of the Commercial Team, working directly with two of the UK's largest retailers and a wide range of various stakeholders.

Worked across a variety of Fresh Prepared Foods categories on both projects with retailers and supplier-related projects. This has included forecasting, promotional activity, category management and using specific data sources and systems.

Key achievements:
• Winner of Graduate's Graduate Award (2018) for contribution to the business and experience of graduates on the programme
• Won monthly innovation award for leading a project to save M&S over £1m in food waste on their Italian ready meal category

Testimonials:
Ben has made an impressive start to his career at Bakkavor and is a pleasure to have on the team. His approach is humble, respectful, resilient and committed.

Commercial Graduate

Tesco

Primarily working on promotional strategy and ranging across the Plant-Based ranges within Fresh & Frozen. Helping to deliver double-digit growth in one of the emerging areas within the food industry.

Additionally assisted in the delivery of the 2019 Christmas Party Food Range.

Key accomplishments:
• Ranging recommendations delivered possible incremental sale of £31m and £14m margin for Tesco across chilled & frozen ranges
• Ensured timely launch of Christmas Party Food ranges to ensure all lines were correctly executed in-store

Product Analyst

The Holiday Place

Working in the Product Department which involves:
• Dealing with contracts with suppliers
• Content writing for the website
• Using the dedicated software to manage hotel and flight details

Administration Assistant

XpressionFM

I was:
• Head of Marketing at Xpression FM (www.xpression.fm)
• Xpression FM Saturday Sport Show pundit (www.facebook.com/xpressionsportshow)
• Producer of Highly A-Newsing (www.facebook.com/highlyanewsing)

Head of Marketing

💥 MY BACKGROUND
👨🏻‍💻 I work in Category Management across multiple customers, covering insights, sales analysis and consumer trends
🛒 I've worked with some of the UK's largest retailers on their own label ranges, launching over 100 products
📈 Focusing on sales growth, product assortment and category strategy
🍲 Seconded to work for the UK's largest food retailer in supporting the launch of two new brands
🍊Co-founder of Well Fruited; developing first-to-market innovation; a drink with half the sugar of a juice/smoothie, with 4k+ units sold and over 7m times across TikTok, Instagram & YouTube!
🎾 I once won the Junior Tennis Tournament at my local tennis club, so am always up for a game

💥 TESTIMONIALS
▶️ "The guys who created and make the product [Well Fruited] are extraordinary, they fully deserve the success coming their way!"
▶️ "Your ability to spot the smallest details in a giant spreadsheet of numbers is unreal"
▶️ "A deserved winner of Employee of the Month for going above and beyond in helping the team"

Feel free to connect with me to chat...or for a game of tennis 🤝

Co-Founder

Co-founder of a Food & drink brand using product innovation and fun to address the fact that only 28% of adults consume 5 portions of fruit & veg a day.

Some key accomplishments:
• Co-created the first fruit drink made using all of the fruit, designed to maximise fibre and nutrient content, whilst limiting sugar impact
• Bootstrapped the business through initial product testing phases by using self-taught skills such as web design, branding, financial modelling & prototyping
• 6m video views across TikTok, YouTube & Instagram
•Charting the growth of the brand alongside my insights into what makes a consumer-business stand out

Octopus Investments

Business Development Associate

luna

3 month secondment at Luna

Makemyday

Founder

University Bible

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/university_bible/

BorrowMyDoggy

BorrowMyDoggy Business Development Associate

Oxlife

The Ox Events

After a year as an event Manager, I was promoted to senior event manager. 

I am responsible for coordinating sales representatives as well as monitoring performance of the company. 

I also am involved with the organisation of large scale events in Oxford.

Senior Event Manager

After a year as a sales representative, I was promoted to events manager. 

I am responsible for coordinating sales representatives as well as monitoring performance of the company. 

I also am involved with the organisation of large scale events in Oxford.

Whilst in my first year at University I sold tickets for Oxford’s largest events company. The Ox Event run weekly events as well as large scale events including: 

- Gentlemen’s Fight Night
- This is Oxford
- Ally Pally: Student Darts

Sales Representative

Herbert & Cluff, Oxford 

Host Staffing

Bartender

Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin

I worked for Veuve Cliquot looking after VIP guests at Glorious Goodwood race course.

VIP Host

💼 Founder of Makemyday - The UK's first free subscription 

🐙 Worked at Octopus Investments as a BDA

👨‍🎓 Studied Business and Management at Oxford Brookes University

📚 Interested in start-ups

Harry Clough

Badgers 🦡, 

On Saturday, I finished running from Edinburgh to London for Movember. 

657km over 12 days. 
An ultra marathon every day for 12 days. 

What does running and business have in common you may be asking, and sadly it’s nothing to do with B2B sales..

But in truth their isn’t much, apart from I wanted to tell you about it 😆 

I already spoke about how it was epic being able to use smaller brands to help me get their including hylo athletics, Puresport, SURREAL, Flaming Phoenix Company, Ltd. 

The whole thing was pretty incredible and taught me a lot that I think will filter through it everything I do in my day to day life. 

Here are a few thoughts I had while munching the tarmac: 

- Things take time, nothing happens over night and often progress is bloody slow but if you’re moving in the right direction, you will get there in the end. 

- No pain no gain. Without some pain in most things you probably won’t get the gain. This can look so different in everything but I think applies to almost anything.

- It’s good to be prepared but you also will never know what your going to come against so don’t wait to be perfectly prepared because you never will be, so just go and do it and find out on the way 

- Friends and family are the most important thing, with no exceptions (For me at least). They are the ones that will drive you and be there for you. You can celebrate with them when things go right and they can help you when things go wrong. 

- Don’t compare yourself to others as every situation is different. This is almost impossible a lot of the time. I found myself constantly thinking how slowly I was going and how it was pathetic that I was limping the last few days as people like the hardest geezer would do something like this in their sleep. 

- And Lastly, no one gets anywhere without help. I did this run unsupported, no dietary plan (apart from Macdonalds and Greggs), no physio, no car driving behind me etc BUT the amount of support I got from my friends and family was insane and there is absolutely 0 chance I would have done it without them. 

Sorry for preaching, but yeah we did it and we raised some money for an amazing charity (currently just over £4.5k). 

In other news… MATCHA HAS ARRIVED - Harry Can't Sit Still is coming soon 👀

Chief Focus Officer at Harry Can't Sit Still - for the ADHD and Anxious. Fuel your focus. Quiet the chaos. ⚡️🧠 Pre-order now ⏳

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The Battle

Ben Kaye

Harry Clough

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The Battle

Ben Kaye

Harry Clough

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Harry Clough's LinkedIn Performance

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