Work With Cassie
Hospitality SME expertise for founder-led businesses and the organisations that serve them.
Hospitality SMEs are under pressure to do more, adopt more and change faster.
At the same time, founders often have less time and headroom to step back and make clear strategic decisions.
That creates problems on both sides.
Inside the business, important decisions get delayed because the day-to-day takes over.
Outside the business, suppliers, funders, technology companies and sector organisations can invest significant time and money in products, support and campaigns that do not land because they are built around the wrong assumptions.
Cassie Davison is a hospitality SME expert, author, speaker and consultant with more than 30 years in hospitality and 25 years building and leading founder-led businesses.
She helps hospitality SMEs make better strategic decisions, and helps the organisations that serve them understand how these businesses really think, prioritise, buy, adopt and change.
Because getting that wrong is expensive.
How organisations work with Cassie
Most relationships begin with one focused piece of work.
Speaking & Facilitation
Cassie speaks at conferences, trade shows, leadership events, partner events, panels and roundtables.
Her talks explore what makes hospitality SMEs thrive, what shapes founder decisions, why customers choose and return, and why apparently good ideas sometimes fail to land.
Her speaking is commercially grounded, practical and rooted in decades of lived experience.
Hospitality SME Consultancy
For organisations whose success depends on understanding founder-led hospitality businesses.
Cassie works with suppliers, technology companies, funders, BIDs, trade bodies and sector organisations to challenge assumptions and improve how they reach, support and engage hospitality SMEs.
This can include testing a proposition, reviewing customer strategy, diagnosing why something is not landing, shaping a support programme or bringing an experienced founder perspective into an important commercial decision.
The aim is simple: make better decisions before time, money and trust are wasted.
Step Back
A focused strategic reset for established hospitality SMEs.
Founders can spend so much time running the business that the decisions shaping its future keep being postponed.
Step Back creates the structure to decide what matters now, what needs to change and where limited time, attention and resources should go next.
It is designed for established businesses at points of pressure, growth, change or realignment.
Not management training. Not generic coaching. Strategic clarity for people already inside the business.
See how Step Back supported hospitality SMEs in a major city centre →
Licensed Stand Out Hospitality
A scalable strategic development programme for organisations that want to strengthen the hospitality SMEs they serve.
Many hospitality founders learn how to operate the business without ever being given a structured way to think about the business itself.
Stand Out Hospitality gives them that structure.
It helps founders think more clearly about standards, distinctiveness, identity, customer loyalty, belonging, story and the foundations they need for growth and change.
For the organisation providing it, the value is equally commercial: stronger customer relationships, greater trust, better retention and support that competitors cannot easily replicate.
Direct strategic work with hospitality businesses
Cassie also works directly with a limited number of established hospitality SMEs at points of significant growth, change or strategic realignment.
This is bespoke strategic consultancy rather than ongoing coaching, designed for businesses that need an experienced external perspective on an important decision or next stage.
Why Cassie
Cassie spent more than 25 years building and running hospitality businesses across pubs, bars, cafés, restaurants and festival concepts.
Her businesses earned 3 AA Rosettes and more than 25 hospitality and business awards.
She is the author of Stand Out Hospitality, a Business Book Awards 2026 finalist, holds an MBA, is an Ambassador for the British Institute of Innkeeping and Strategic Advisor to De Montfort University Business School.
Her businesses and work have been featured by Forbes, The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, BBC, Restaurant Magazine, The Caterer and Olive Magazine.
But the most important part of her experience is that she understands founder-led hospitality from inside the business.
She knows the pressure, risk and trade-offs involved in running an SME.
She also understands the objectives of the organisations trying to sell to, support, fund or influence those businesses.
That makes her useful on both sides of the table.
“Step Back was valuable because it gave us space to share experiences and remember what we do this for. It helped me refocus on identity, particularly pride, and the role belonging plays for customers. Cassie’s approach was engaging, focused and rooted in the real experience of hospitality. I’d say it is worth attending for any operator who wants to check their perspective on the industry.”
What People Say
“Cassie’s expertise in this sector is unparalleled. I wholeheartedly recommend anyone in hospitality to connect with her at your earliest opportunity. Discover first-hand how she can propel your business forward.
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“Your session sharpened my thinking ahead of a meeting with a founder-led business that is starting to expand. It reminded me to begin with the bigger questions first, then build the people foundations around that. That is such a more valuable conversation than simply starting with contracts and policies.”
Start a conversation
If you are planning an event, developing something for hospitality SMEs, trying to understand why something is not landing, or looking for a stronger way to support the businesses you serve, start with a conversation.
