Gary Marshall left school at the age of 14 to join his father on his fruit stall in one of London's street markets. At the age of 19 he started work in New Covent Garden Market as a junior salesman.
 
In 1987 he opened Bevington Salads Ltd, which is now trading in its 25th year. The company has been built upon the continuity of quality produce at competitive prices backed up by first class service and full traceability on all produce.
 
Gary became Chairman of the Covent Garden Tenants Association in 2005, following six years working as the Deputy Chairman. Gary comments: "It is a challenging but exciting time to be Chairman, leading up to the re-development of New Covent Garden Market. The Tenants Association is a major stakeholder in the process."
 
New Covent Garden Market has a turnover of over £500 million a year and employs around 2,500 people, playing a fundamental role in the local community and beyond.

Nigel Jenney has been chief executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium since 2004. He is also vice-chairman of Freshfel's wholesale division and a director of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority's Board.

After a senior management position at Heinz, Nigel became MD of a potato packing business, converting it into a limited company, and expanding customers to include major multiples/manufacturers. As MD of a vegetable co-operative, he focused on producing fresh and prepared products across multiple sites.

Coming from a family-owned glasshouse business, Nigel was educated at Writtle College and joined the Department of Agriculture & Fisheries for Scotland.

James (Jim) Paice has been the MP for South East Cambridgeshire since 1987, and before joining Defra was twice the Opposition spokesperson for Agriculture and Rural Affairs. He has also been spokesperson for Home Affairs.

Jim held ministerial posts at the Department of Education and Employment and the Department of Employment from 1994 to 1997. He also served as parliamentary private secretary to two ministers.

Jim has had a lifelong involvement with farming. He was a key figure in the Young Farmers movement, and represented the UK on the European Council of Young Farmers for four years.  He was also a member of the Suffolk Coastal District Council between 1976 and 1987 becoming the chairman in 1983.

Peter Durose has helped deliver profit growth, brand value and global presence for blue chip companies such as Boots the Chemist, Roche Pharmaceuticals and Tesco.

His previous role was as director of the Fresh Produce business in Tesco. Peter has extensive international management experience including a period based in Asia where he set up the Tesco operations on a green field business.

Since leaving Tesco, Peter set up Fresh Approach Produce that focuses on providing flexible and innovative supply solutions to a number of major UK retailers.

 Fresh Approach has become one of the fastest growing, profitable and leading players within the fresh produce supply sector and is rapidly becoming a market leading force within the UK industry.

Jan Matthews joined the London Olympic Organising Committee, in September 2009, having spent all her working life in hotels, catering, retail and facilities Management.

Starting out in hotels, Jan has worked for Moat House and Forte Hotels as a General Manager, followed by the BBC before joining City Inn as their Operations Director.

Moving to Contract Caterer Aramark as operations director, Jan joined to run the largest corporate Contract Aramark had at the time.

From there she moved to Germany with her family where she took up the first of a number of roles with the NAAFI as Head of Operations , moving on to lead the introduction of "PAYD" across Germany a contract worth £500m over its lifetime before taking on the role of Change Director for the company.

She returned to the UK, taking up the role of MD for Education and Business & Industry South for Avenance, prior to being approached to take on her current role.

Speaker profile coming soon.

Speaker profile coming soon.