Meet the Team

Ruth Soroko - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
As the founder of Eat Club, Ruth Soroko offers the charity a range of personal skills. Her Masters degree in Food and Nutrition Policy from City University of London underpins the academic and research foundation of Eat Club. Her past experience with running her own design business has given her financial and project management skills as well as aiding her in giving Eat Club a unique visual identity

Ruth Soroko

Chief Executive

Svenja Duppenbecker - Head of Projects - London
Svenja is passionate about helping the environment and people and so has spent the last 7 years working in sustainability and community engagement roles, including many projects focused on food. Having had a love of food since childhood she is a keen home cook, hosting dinner parties for friends, as well as for charities including FoodCycle, Furloughed Foodies and Refugee Community Kitchen.

Svenja Duppenbecker

Head of Projects

Liza Konash - Comms & Marketing Lead - Eat Club - London
Liza is an AfN registered Nutritionist with a marketing background, and an interest in how our dietary choices and environment sit at the nexus of human, planetary and economic health. She’ll be getting more and more people to know about and support the incredible impact of Eat Club.

Liza Konash

Comms & Marketing Lead

Jennifer Wittingham - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
A recent MPhil graduate in Environment, Society and Sustainability from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, Jen has a keen interest in sustainable agriculture, farmer’s rights and food justice. She has experience farming and cooking with prisoners in South Africa, cooking for homeless shelters in Brighton, and running healthy eating sessions with young carers and Alzheimer suffers in Cornwall.

Jennifer Whittingham

Fundraiser

Session Leaders

Em Chittock - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
A pasta aficionado and brunch expert at Esters N16, Em is as talented as she is kind. Loved by all the young chefs, she fosters a welcoming and supportive kitchen environment.

Em Chittock

Session Leader

Feilim O Cuireain - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
Féilim has been a professional chef for the past ten years, spending time in restaurants in Ireland, London, Amsterdam and Jersey, focusing on cooking and sustainability. Much of his work has been cooking for groups involved with refugees based in London and Calais in Northern France where he was conducting research for a Masters in International Development with the University of Amsterdam.

Feilim O Cuireain

Session Leader

Laura Lo Faro - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
Laura’s food journey started in 2013 when she found a bakery called The Biscuit Badger, here in London. Being Italian, food has always had a central role in her life especially in the South of Italy where she is from. In 2020 she enrolled in the Le Cordon Blue Madrid, where she lived for one year, graduating with a diploma as a pastry chef.

Laura Lo Faro

Session Leader

Moon Bedeaux - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
Moon is a self-taught chef. She has run her own food business in Camden market from the age of 21, working for cafes and food stalls preparing and cooking food. She continues to cook for her current business as well as professionally chefing for commercial clients,

Moon Bedeaux

Session Leader

Kirsty - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
Our brilliant in-house food scientist, Kirsty, is always crafting innovative and exciting dishes, inspiring creativity in our young chefs.

Kirsty Farr

Session Leader

Neo Elijah Cessari - Session Leader - Eat Club - London
With a deep connection to his Italian heritage, Neo infuses every menu with rich, authentic flavours. Having spent much of his career at Perilla, he’s now sharing his expertise with young Londoners.

Neo Elijah Cessari

Session Leader

Emily Cline - Session Leader - London
Emily grew up on a diet of fish fingers and spaghetti’s and was very adverse to all "green stuff". Being inspired by a Sainsbury's ad featuring Jamie Oliver at age 6 she found the desire to learn to cook and fell in love with food. After training as a chef she became a bit fed up with how elitist and patriarchal the kitchen could be. She the decided to pursue teaching in order to foster a love of cooking in young people and improve the UK's food culture and has now worked as a food teacher for the last 2 years.

Emily Cline

Session Leader

 - Session Leader - London
From head chef at Jolene to a residency at Cadet and frequent supper clubs, Liam brings a wealth of expertise to our kitchen. He’s passionate about teaching young chefs techniques he learned in some of London’s finest kitchens.

Liam Doniach Hughes

Session Leader

 - Session Leader - London
Sumant is a passionate pizza chef who thrives in the kitchen, experimenting with flavors and techniques. While he's skilled in various cuisines, his true culinary love lies in Mexican food. Whether he's working with a wood-fired oven or marinating meat for a feast, Sumant brings creativity and joy to every dish he prepares.

Sumant Sinai

Session Leader

 - Session Leader - London
When not creating dishes at Alba inside Whitechapel Gallery, Jess dedicates her time to New Horizon’s Youth Centre. Together with the young chefs, she prepares global delicacies most Tuesdays, bringing joy and flavour to every meal.

Jess Young

Session Leader

 Louis - Eat Club - Session Leader - London
I started washing dishes as a teenager in Cornwall where I grew up, since then I've lived in Bristol and London, working in a range of spots, casual and fine dining. I love the process of transforming basic ingredients into something more, and think it's something everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy.

Louis Brookman Prins

Session Leader

 Despina - Eat Club - Session Leader - London
Despina Siahuli, a London-based chef with Athenian roots, began her culinary journey at E5 Bakehouse and worked at St. John in Smithfield. She has hosted workshops at Borough Market and now collaborates with restaurants to create seasonal menus, sharing her passion for wholesome cooking through writing and creative projects.

Despina Siahuli

Session Leader

 Dan - Session Leader - London
Hi I’m Dan and I’m a chef, gardener and food grower! I have loved working for eat club which can be both fun and challenging (in a great way!) I come from Leeds and also run a school allotment.

Daniel Romans-Hay

Session Leader

 Freddie - Eat Club - Session Leader - London
Freddie has worked in hospitality for over 10 years, from cafes to fine dining restaurants (Luca, St John and Westerns Laundry). During lockdown he took time to think assess his next move and decided to stay in food but with a more altruistic direction. For the last three years he has been working with chefs in schools helping to improve school food and food education.

Freddie Thompson

Session Leader

Zish - Eat Club Session Leader
Zish joined us having started their career working between advertising, communications and fashion before moving into hospitality and higher education in the art world. At Eat Club, they use this diversity of experience to encourage participants of all ages to see the value that they can bring to (and get out of) communal cooking and eating through care-based and creative-centred workshops.

Zish Alexander

Session Leader

Michelle O’Mahony

Session Leader

Governance

Peter Brown - Trustee - Eat Club - London
Peter Brown is a corporate, marketing and brand strategist with over 20 years of experience including work at KPMG and Orange. He is a trustee and strategic advisor at The Connection at St. Martin’s, the leading London homelessness charity, as well as strategic consultant to Independent Age and The Seckford Foundation.

Peter Fischer Brown

Chair of the Board of Trustees

Carmen brings over 15 years of leadership experience specialising in growth and partnerships, executive advisory, and risk management. A holder of MBA from the London Business School and Fellowship with the Society of Actuaries, coupled with strategy advisory experiences at the Boston Consulting Group and Google, Carmen brings her acumen in growth and tech balancing with responsible finance, risk and governance.

Carmen Leung

Trustee

Caroline Chandler - Trustee - Eat Club - London
Caroline is a public policy expert, who has been working in research and evaluation at the local, national and international level since 2014. She led on food and agriculture policy evaluation for Ipsos UK, before leaving to complete a PhD at the UK Food Systems Centre for Doctoral Training. Caroline is a Director of the Kentish Town Vegbox, and has experience as an organic grower.

Caroline Chandler

Trustee

Debby Webb - Trustee - Eat Club - London
Debby has worked in the public sector all her life – first in the NHS and now as a Civil Servant at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). She is currently responsible for certain aspects of national nutrition legislation. She is an experienced Trustee having first become one about eight years ago and is also vice-Chair of International Cat Care.

Debby Webb

Trustee

Young Leaders

Becky Odoi - Young Leader - Eat Club - London
As an avid sports enthusiast I like to spend my time being active; whether that be doing athletics, playing volleyball or even going for a walk. I joined Eat Club so I could share my knowledge about the food system from my previous work but join members in a social setting to create an environment where we can learn about nutrition and health in a fun, creative way.

Becky Odoi

Young Leader Programme Coordinator

TBA

Young Leader

TBA

Young Leader

TBA

Young Leader

Would you like to join the Team?

We are always on the look-out for great people to join our team. Click the button to download our Session Leader Job Description

Get in touch

For all inquiries contact Eat Club by:

Phone

+44 7452 999751

Email

Address

Hackney Cooperative Development,
62 Beechwood road, London, E8 3DY