BUILT BY HOSPITALITY OPERATORS.
We've run shifts, rotas, and recruitment ourselves. WHY HATS exists because CVs and job boards were never built to help people and venues understand each other before they decide to work together.
The problem
Hospitality hiring runs on CVs and gut feel. Good people get filtered out for missing keywords, and good venues get judged on a job ad instead of the team and culture that actually make a role work. Turnover stays high because nobody really understood each other before day one.
Our solution
The WHY Assessment surfaces how someone actually works — their motivations, work style, and what they need from a team — and puts it alongside a real venue profile of culture, team size, and expectations. Both sides get a clearer picture of each other before a single application goes in. HATS doesn't choose people, and it doesn't score them against each other — it helps two sides start a better conversation, and the judgement stays human.
“We built the tool we wished existed: something that helps people understand each other before they decide whether to work together.”
The WHY HATS founding team
Meet the team
Hospitality people and product people, building WHY HATS together.
Gareth Hazard
Founder & CEO
Gareth has spent more than 20 years in hospitality, becoming an entrepreneur at 25 before moving into consulting, learning and development, mentoring and speaking. A Fellow of the Institute of Consulting, he brings together frontline experience, business thinking and a long-standing belief that better businesses start with better-supported people.
Alex Munford
Co-founder & COO
Alex has spent more than 20 years working across cafés, bars, restaurants, events and contract catering, progressing through frontline management into General Manager and senior operational leadership roles. Seven promotions in seven years shaped his practical approach to leadership: understand the operation, look after the team and make things work properly.
Kristiyan Tsvetanov
Platform Engineer
Kristiyan is a developer and entrepreneur with hands-on experience across web development, software, SEO and digital products. Alongside studying Maths, Physics and Computer Science, he has built his own digital business and delivered projects for clients across the UK and beyond. At WHY, he helps turn ambitious product ideas into practical, working technology.
Will Underwood
Founding Leicester Community & Partnerships Ambassador
Will has spent nine years building his career across Leicester hospitality, from coffee shops and cocktail bars to restaurants and busy entertainment venues. He has progressed to Assistant General Manager level, trained and supported teams and competed successfully in cocktail competitions, while building the local relationships that make him a natural community connector.
David Coveney
Founding Technical & Product Advisor
David brings together hospitality, commercial leadership, brand growth and technology. His career has included helping launch and scale drinks brands, leading national sales, and advising on digital products and technical strategy. At WHY, he provides experienced challenge across product, technology and commercial decisions as the platform develops.
Hannah Topliss
Team
Hospitality hiring should feel more like hospitality.
A few things we hold to as we build WHY HATS.
People Are More Than Their Past
A CV shows where someone has been, not how they work. We put the emphasis on motivations, work style, and what someone actually needs from a team.
Fit Works Both Ways
Venues are choosing people, and people are choosing venues. WHY HATS gives both sides a real picture of the other before either commits.
Difference Deserves A Conversation
Compatible doesn’t mean identical. Two people can work brilliantly together without being the same — the assessment is a starting point for a conversation, not a verdict.
Technology Should Support Judgement
HATS doesn’t choose people, and it doesn’t rank them against each other. It surfaces useful signal so the humans on both sides can make a better call.
Start local. Build it properly.
We're starting in Leicester and the East Midlands, where our founding team already knows the venues, the shift patterns, and the people. Building close to home means we can test WHY HATS with real teams, get it right in a market we understand, and fix what doesn't work before we take it further afield.
We're building relationships with hospitality venues and training providers across the East Midlands as we grow, so the platform is shaped by people who actually work the floor and run the shifts — not built in isolation and handed to them.
Who we work with
From single independent sites to multi-site groups, WHY HATS is built for hospitality teams of every shape and the people who want to work in them.
Want to see WHY HATS in action?
Whether you're looking for your next role or your next great hire, start with a WHY Profile.