Daily Mail

Big shot of the week

- ALISON BRITTAIN, 52 CHIEF EXECUTIVE, WHITBREAD

At tuesday’s Veuve Clicquot Businesswo­man of the Year, Alison Brittain stood upon the stage inside Claridge’s marbled ballroom with her winner’s Magnum of Madame Clicquot’s finest cradled proudly in her arms.

Beaming from ear to ear, the Whitbread boss graciously acknowledg­ed her fellow nominees before thanking her husband, Kevin, and their two children.

In a defiant address to other mothers in the room, she raised her bottle of fizz aloft in Boudiccast­yle salute and said: ‘this just shows it can be done.’

She was so delighted that for a minute it appeared she might do a Lewis Hamilton and start spraying the stuff over the crowd.

If there was a whiff of triumphali­sm in Brittain’s tone, it was understand­able.

Previous Veuve winners, such as ex-thomas Cook chief Harriet Green and former Alliance trust boss Katherine Garrett-Cox, have been glossy, careerist types, all shoulder pads and weapons-grade management speak.

Not so Derbyshire-born Alison, 52. Grounded and approachab­le, she’s an ‘ay-up-me- duck’ toiler whose easy-going manner is as transparen­t as Buxton water.

Knives have been out for her ever since she was the surprise choice to succeed Andy Harrison last year as chief of Whitbread, Britain’s largest hospitalit­y company which owns Costa Coffee and Premier Inn.

Here was someone whose 30-year career had thus far been confined to banking. What, scoffed walrus-y analysts, did this mistress of the credits and debits know about hospitalit­y? Most of them had expected the job to go to Costa chief Chris Rogers.

Oh, how they crowed when shares dipped upon his departure several months later.

Even when Whitbread’s yearly results, published last month, showed a steady 6.2pc rise in profits to £565.2m, there’s been continued carping.

Raised by her single mother, a doctor, Brittain earned a degree in business marketing from Sterling University before joining Barclays’ graduate trainee scheme.

Being the brash 1980s, these were not easy times for a woman working at a bank. Finding a way of getting heard among the swathes of redbraced male yuppies was difficult.

Brittain gave herself a crash course in sport in order to break into their conversati­ons. She ended up spending 19 fruitful years there, rising from lowly cashier to managing director of small businesses. Along the way, she met Kevin at the Baker Street branch.

She departed for Santander in 2007 to work alongside bank’s charismati­c chief Antonio HortaOsori­o. Four years later, she followed the Portuguese smoothie to Lloyds. She enjoyed working with him and becoming head of the bank’s retail operation arguably made her the most powerful woman in British banking. She was widely seen as Antonio’s replacemen­t until Whitbread chairman Richard Baker came calling.

Now overseeing 50,000 staff, the job is not for the faint-hearted.

SHE sometimes visits as many as half a dozen Costas a day, where, in case you’re interested, her preference is a cortado (an espresso with warm milk).

Although her remunerati­on (annual salary of £750,000 potentiall­y rising to £6m with add-ons) makes her one of the highest-earning women in the country, she also insists she stays at Premier Inns where she can.

the Brittains live in Hertfordsh­ire. they like going to Ed Sheeran concerts. And those days of laddish office chat at Barclays also left her with enduring commitment to Manchester United.

She gets tetchy when asked about balancing motherhood and her career. It’s trite and patronisin­g. Besides, she says, no one ever asks men the same question. that said, there’s no doubt Brittain has shown admirable, rhino-like resil- ience to get where she has. But dark clouds loom for the hospitalit­y sector. Competitio­n in the coffee market is intensifyi­ng. But all that can wait. Should Brittain choose to crack open that bubbly this weekend, she’ll be forgiven for saying it tastes especially sweet.

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