Ackeeu Lee - Operation Specialist
Experience
“A Chef with an MBA” - Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
Extensive experience in senior management, restaurant operations, strategic planning, marketing, financial management, restaurant design and construction, culinary skills, procurement, and systems.
Expertise in the foodservice industry and in the retail sector in Canada and the U.S. including major restaurant chains such as Keg Restaurants, Cara Restaurants Ltd, Milestones Restaurants, and companies among the largest Grocery chains, and Foodservice Distributors in North America.
Foodservice Industry Expertise
Over 25 years in foodservice industry from dishwasher to senior management of a national restaurant chain in Canada.
Director of Operations, Director of Finance and Business Development of a $150M restaurant chain across Canada, leading the development of the brand in new markets
Created record margins by developing solutions in systems, design, outsourcing, product development, and financial management
Using foodservice expertise for the development of business and strategies of Canada’s largest retail grocery chain and the largest foodservice distribution company
Executive Chef of Chandlers, a restaurant in Victoria B.C, which was voted the Best Seafood restaurant in the city
Implementation of new technology and financial management tools, applying restaurant level experience to corporate level decision-making to develop effective solutions at the operations level.
Market development of branded national product lines for GFS Canada Inc, a Foodservice Distribution company with 8 divisions across Canada
Director of Purchasing for Spectra Restaurants Inc, a $100M multi-branded restaurant chain in Western Canada, developing a leading edge procurement system
Interests
Ackeeu has a passion to travel throughout the world to discover authentic flavours and ingredients found in local neighbourhoods, and to bring them back through photography, stories, and recipes and recreate them in the kitchen. Inspiring people to re-discover what great, simple food is all about like the thin crust pizza in Palermo Sicily, the clotted cream from the farm in Devon, the Vanilla slice in Sorrento, Australia, the steamed Chee Kuey at the Bedok hawker in Singapore. (Maybe not the fried spider in the outskirts of Phnom Penh)!
