BUILT BY HOSPITALITY OPERATORS.
We've run shifts, rotas and recruitment ourselves. WHY HATS brings that experience to a simple belief: better hospitality starts with people. Getting to know each other is a good place to begin.
What we want to make easier
Finding an opportunity is the beginning. People also want to understand the team, the role and the support around them. Hiring teams want to explore what someone brings and keep the conversation moving while running a busy venue.
What HATS brings together
A reusable WHY Profile brings a person’s own answers, skills and experiences together. Venue and role profiles explain the workplace and opportunity. Applications, messages and interviews share one place, with preparation that helps both sides ask useful questions. The assessment supports that conversation; it does not establish ability or decide who should be hired.
Better hospitality starts with people.
The belief behind WHY HATS
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
People can share the skills, experiences, hopes and working preferences they want a future team to understand.
Fit Works Both Ways
Venues are choosing people, and people are choosing venues. WHY HATS gives both sides context and questions to explore before deciding.
Difference Deserves A Conversation
Different experiences and working preferences can bring something valuable to a team. The conversation helps people understand how they could work together.
Technology Should Support Judgement
HATS organises what people, venues and roles bring to the conversation. The decisions stay with the people involved.
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.
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?
Explore a workplace, build your own WHY Profile or introduce the team you’re hiring for.