What major business lessons have you learned since you co-founded Leon in 2004?

That the most important thing is to be focused on the output all of the time. It’s so easy to be distracted. In the retail business, when you have so many events on and so much bureaucracy, it’s important to remember what you set out to do and why.

At Leon, it took a long time to work out how to get the [business] model right, and find out what a healthy fast food business looked like. We went on a lot of random tangents, such as adding grab-and-go counters. We ended up getting confused with what we were doing and had to go back to the original business plan. So my advice is remember to focus.

What would you say your biggest business mistakes were and how do you feel about them now?

I’ve got used to making a lot of business mistakes. We’ve opened in the wrong places and had to close a couple of stores, brought dishes onto the menu that were not right and hired people who we thought were more experienced than us but who didn’t fit the culture.

You have to make a lot of business mistakes. But don’t make the same mistake twice. Try and surround yourself with more experienced, and probably older, people than you who have already made the mistakes.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t worry so much, it’s all going to be OK. In business, your strengths can be your weaknesses and your weaknesses can be your strengths. For example, I have an ability to continue to push for something and refuse to give up, but that can come across as stubborn. There’s always a flipside.

Have you ever had a business mentor?

If I was to pick a person who changed my life, it would be Bruno Loubet [chef and co-owner of the London restaurant Grain Store]. He was my first boss and gave me my first job as a commis chef at the Four Seasons Inn on the Park. He has an incredible balance of having pride without being arrogant.

He gave me my work ethic and helped make my abstract obsession with food into something tangible. I later worked at the Telegraph as a journalist and as a management consultant, but Bruno has been there throughout. At Leon’s fifth birthday party I mentioned him in my speech and burst into tears.

You’ve partnered with Jonathan Downey to launch a range of food markets in London – how did that come about?

Jonathan (the man behind street food brand Street Feast) is an old friend of mine. I’d been going to Street Feast as a customer and loved that feeling of walking into those spaces – they’re like little towns. I was completely in love with what he was doing.

I went on holiday to Norway last summer and was without my mobile phone for a few days; all my worries evaporated and suddenly I was having new thoughts. I had this strong instinctive feeling that London needed one of these markets on a permanent scale – one that could become a great food market of the world.

When I got back home, I told Jonathan that there was something I wanted to talk to him about.It was funny because he had already talked to Henderson [Real Estate] about Smithfield market and was thinking about talking to me to get me involved.

You and Downey have set up London Union – what’s the plan?

We’re talking to a number people about opening 15 local markets, and a permanent, large food market in central London – which could perhaps be a floating market off festival pier.

The potential floating market site, off South Bank, is one of several sites we’re looking at for the permanent market.

By 2017, we’d like to have opened the permanent space, and over the next five years we’d like to have opened a dozen other markets. What I love about the model is that it’s really good fun and a fantastic new way to eat.

We’ve got this ability to take derelict spaces and light them up. The Lewisham Model Market has changed the way Lewisham is now perceived. I used to take my kids to the one in Dalston, it was a lovely space, and we’d order from [steamed bun food stall] Yum Bun.

What’s been your career highlight?

The thing I love more than anything else is standing unnoticed at the back of Leon or Dinerama [London Union’s Shoreditch street food market] and looking at people enjoying themselves, and knowing you’ve had a hand in creating that. There’s no better feeling. Also, the work I did for the School Food Plan [a government-backed plan that set out to transform what children eat in schools] two years ago.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?

Calling it a work/life balance suggests that the two things are opposite to each other and one thing is a trade-off for the other. Obviously, there are times I’m working late and I’d like to be at home, but as far as possible I try and make the two things the same.

What advice would you give to someone just starting a business?

Focus on the objective every day. So, each day wake up and think about what you want to create and ask yourself if you done that. If not, focus on what you need to do to achieve that.

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