 With these mad panels we love to end with a chef because we love chefs and the chef we have today has come down from Brisbane to spend some time with us so we're very grateful. Alana Sapwell, she's plied her trade in three different countries, has been a globe trotting chef. She actually got her start in a play kitchen at the age of six. I want to know what she made and a childhood passion for cooking eventually led to apprenticeships at the River House in Nusa, Stints in Florence, Italy, in Japan. She returned to Australia and joined the team at Brisbane's Degustation Focused Urbane, worked her way up to Head Pastry Chef and then spent two years at the Sydney Seafood Destination. Everyone's talking about Saint Peter. She returned to her home state. She grew up in Gympie. She decided not to put her restaurant in Gympie. She decided to very smartly, having been to Gympie many times, to take the top spot at the kitchen at Brisbane's Ark Dining and Wine Bar at the beautiful spanking new Howard Smith Wolves. Welcome Alana. I too would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the owners of this land. There's no cookie cutter of leadership. I've always believed that it starts with looking after your people. The truth is, I need everyone in my team to be successful for us all to succeed as a whole. I've learnt that everyone has their own agendas and it's how you incorporate that into your business and values to establish a common goal. That's the leadership challenge. I've learnt more from what not to do than what to do. I settled down early. At 23 I had a fiance, dog and a mortgage. Six months into this reality I knew I needed to get the hell out of there. So I did up my van at the time and travelled to Northern Territory with my partner to meet my best mate, who was travelling Australia at the time. When we met in Dublin, the car had broken down. Potentially I put a little bit too much time into the aesthetics of the van rather than the mechanics. We all got a job on Pasipali pearls. I was stationed in Arnhem Land, where I really started to hone some skills and leading the way. How would I get rid of my waste every day? How would I feed 30 plus men well? We started to throw our food scraps into the ocean, which would attract a bounty of fish, which I would then cook for the guys. You can't learn that kind of problem solving at school. But when it came to tropo season I had to escape the heat, searching for anywhere cold I sent my resume out to Japan and landing a job as head chef. Whilst the bosses were happy with my food and used to laugh at me communicating with my team, obviously it was an off the cuff decision and I didn't have time to even learn the language before I was in the thick of it. My manager speaking both languages was astonished that even though I was speaking to them in complete English and they were speaking back to me in complete Japanese, nothing was missed. But this is where I was hit hard with imposter syndrome. Whilst I had enough to get me through the day and get the food up, how could I properly lead this team? Not to mention, I was hitting my limitations with my food as well. I never wanted to do anything mediocre, so I took it upon myself to take a step back, treat every section as a trade itself, and dedicate a few years to every section. So when back in that position, I could give it the respect that it needed. I headed home and found myself in a high-end job and right at the time dude food came through Brisbane. Everyone was gravitating towards cooking burgers and chicken wings. Brisbane being home, instead of whinging about it, I fought back and created drinks with chefs. I gathered the influences of Brisbane's cooking scene and gave them a platform to show where they wanted to steer Brisbane's food. We'd drink, talk, eat and reimagine together. One of our events was called Wasted. We rode tripped up to the long apron in Montville. Chefs cooking the things that would normally be wasted and talks from scientists, forward-thinking farmers, foragers and one another. And the events continue still. Recently we had one here in Sydney called How I Failed Successfully. Whilst these were all issues I wanted to change, the people I involved taught me a great deal and have helped shape me and my views and how I lead today. Probably the most influential person I've learnt from was at my last job at St Peter, owner and head chef Josh. In the first night we lost our manager. The way Josh not only had to be head chef to lead the team, to change the menu every day, he then also had to take on a manager's position until we found someone. His attention to every detail was the music right, the lighting on top of everything really reinforced me that it's not all about cooking. He is a true leader. This brings me to Ark. I started Ark with a clear vision. One, I wanted to create thoughtful, delicious and confident food that people would want to eat not just on special occasions but three times a week. Two, to support farmers doing the right thing, whether it be ethically raised animals, old farming techniques or lesser used species of fish. Three, to grow a garden that can provide us with unusual ingredients but also gives us a backup plan. Working with small farmers means accepting that there will be a supply issues so always have a backup plan. Four, to create a kitchen that teaches people a solid foundation of cooking. We teach the basics how to make your own butter, break down a carcass or make charcuterie. I've always believed that there's too big a gap between being a great chef and opening up a restaurant. I wanted to provide an environment that creates a better all rounder chef which leads me to creativity. What is creativity? Creativity is thought to be a skill that you're born with but why can't it be obtainable for everybody? I believe that it can be trained and at Ark I encourage every individual from the kitchen hand up to own their own section. Constantly relook and rethink how can we make this better. Come to me with ideas and we can decide together whether we implement them and set new standards. For example I've been working a lot on pastry recently and even if I've done 90% of the work towards a new dish I'll showcase the other person who did the 10%. This builds up their confidence and ownership and who knows in two years it could be that person putting in the 90% and I do the 10%. We're all just focused on creating dishes that are aligned with Ark's values. To foster this kind of focused creativity requires growth opportunities so as a team we've decided instead of collecting $20 a week each in tips we save them and do something worthwhile for the team in particular the people that have been putting in the extra. We've recently done a chef swap with Oak Ridge in Victoria paying for all expenses for Jake to spend some time down there or Josie our vegan chef getting to work with Shannon Martinez the queen of vegan food. This is a no-brainer we have an amazing hospitality community in Australia this creates opportunity to learn from others whilst not having to change the roles and helps us retain staff. Staff shortage is a major issue in hospitality across the board. People have been moved up the ranks quickly in some cases too quickly and now we're finding that people have an unrealistic expectations of what position they should have. At Ark I wanted to start with a clean slate introducing it as a no ego kitchen but also as part of that hierarchy was not sought after. My priority is how we all work together to get the job done. I've found that by doing this natural leaders emerge and they get promoted slowly with a list of expectations to be met but still room to grow and bringing back the meaning to titles. If you're given a sous chef position that's because you are a sous chef. We hire for attitude not so much skill level because of that there's one of the best cultures at Ark that I've ever worked at and it's actually a real pleasure to go to work every day. As you can imagine it's been an ongoing slog of kerples but being surrounded by people that I trust with the mind frame that no one's too good for a job and to have been trained over numerous sections so everyone can jump in and help each other if needed. It's the collection of putting all these little things into place that translates into the mentality of pulling together to get the job done which is one of the key reasons why we have achieved what we have in the last eight months. Howard Smith Wars is a unique place with its own opportunities. We have a leadership program so all the heads of the department catch up once week and it's pretty incredible to see the range of perspectives and approaches to the same challenges we face. Everyone has their own style of leading and I gain so much from these conversations. I'm sure I'm running out of time but essentially I think leadership is a mixture. The key elements I've used enabling creativity facilitating futures being available and as cliche as it sounds it's leading by example and don't be above washing the dishes. One last thing always make staff meal a highlight it's a small gesture like many of the gestures we make as leaders. It not only gives them the energy to get the job done but it's just nice to sit all together and talk about something other than work. Thank you.