Gerry Ford is Founder and Group Chief Executive of the Caffè Nero Group, Europe’s largest independent coffee house group. The Group owns and manages 4 specialty coffee brands, with 1,200 stores across 11 countries with 12,000+ employees. Ninety-six percent of the stores are company owned.

Dr. Ford founded Caffè Nero as a start-up in 1997. He later listed Caffè Nero on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) from 2001-2007. In 2007, he took Caffè Nero private and today remains the majority shareholder of the company. Dr. Ford has been named the UK’s Entrepreneur of the Year by the Financial Times and The London Stock Exchange.

Caffè Nero is one of the few UK hospitality businesses to have earned Unicorn status – a private, founder-led company valued at over $1 billion.

Dr. Ford has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from INSEAD and a PhD from Oxford University. He sits on the boards of several consumer goods businesses throughout Europe and the USA and is a frequent speaker internationally on Entrepreneurship and how to develop a leading consumer brand.