Elton Mouna

Elton Mouna has spent his life in pubs. He ran three of them before moving into corporate roles - becoming Head of PR and Marketing at a respected pub, hotel and brewing company.

After years in big organisations, he joined Remarkable Pubs, a small East London group, and discovered a different way of leading. “I took the disciplines I’d learned in large companies, but applied them in a less ‘big corporate company’ way which I found wonderful and above all matched my personal values so much better.” He brought structure, refreshed the offer and helped shape a business he was genuinely proud of.

By his late 50s, everything was going well. He could have stayed until a traditional retirement but felt restless. He gave a year’s notice to leave at 59. Then Covid hit. “I couldn’t walk away in a crisis. I had all these relationships with managers and staff. It wouldn’t have been right.” He stayed until the pubs were through lockdown and recovery, then finally stepped away.

He had worried that leaving corporate life might feel like losing identity. Instead, the stillness of the pandemic gave him time to breathe. “The merry-go-round of work stopped for everyone which meant I blended in, but crucially it gave me time to really think.”

From that pause, Elton reinvented himself. He launched a hospitality podcast to help the sector recover, paid for the studio himself and recorded a series that unexpectedly opened new doors. Coaching assignments, writing for a trade magazine, video interviews filmed on his phone and even an unpaid but joyful Friday-morning news slot on Talk TV followed. One of his early employees later hired him for projects. “I made myself the biggest target for opportunity.”

He insists he has never been happier. He sleeps better, he is fitter, he studies NLP for fun and he stays active without taking on stress. “For years I was Head of this, Director of that. Now I’m just me – and that’s more powerful.”

But in his early sixties another shift came, and it has become the most important chapter of all.

In the widely-read hospitality focused publication, Propel, Elton wrote an opinion piece about two memories that had stayed with him since childhood. As a boy he had watched a classmate being bullied and always felt a sense of regret that he had not been the one to intervene. A few years later Elton himself was bullied by an older boy in the town he lived. It was his mother who marched round to the shop where the bully worked to put a stop to it.

He then went on to write about bullying in the hospitality industry, “I have always been on high alert to bullying and, during my career in hospitality, I witnessed a lot and was on the receiving end of a lot. But when you’re in the mêlée of it all, with a mortgage and the kids at home, and when the cash reserve is more of a cash puddle, it is difficult to speak out. Conversely, when you’re mortgage-free, the kids have flown the nest and the pension is topped-up, it is so much easier to speak out about the bullying in our sector, just like I am doing now and will continue doing.”

Writing about these moments (plus corporate bullying) decades later triggered an extraordinary response.

Messages poured in from across the hospitality industry; “If you want to do something about bullying, we’ll stand with you.” Chefs, managers, charities and industry figures told him this issue was everywhere and rarely spoken about. Many said, “It doesn’t get addressed in kitchens. It’s part of the culture. No one calls it out.”

Elton decided to act. He has brought together organisations and leading individuals from across the sector - from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy to individuals such as Hawksmoor’s Ceri Gott and UKHospitality CEO Kate Nicholls, who has agreed to be an ambassador.

One charity has already offered seed funding. He is creating a community interest company, a website and a movement he calls The Good Apple Effect – the idea that one person behaving well can change the culture around them. The logo is a single apple dropping into water, sending ripples outwards.

People have begun to approach him. A head chef told Elton he had been a bully until he worked for someone who quietly said, “We don’t do that here,” and showed him another way to lead. A woman told Elton she had left a job she loved because of the culture. She is thriving elsewhere. “It’s their loss,” he says.

Asked why he is doing this now, Elton is clear. “I’ve got a voice now and I can use it. I want to achieve my ikigai. I don’t want another top job. This feels good.” The CIC will pay him a modest salary but that is not the point. He has found a mission that uses every part of his experience, and one he can do for as long as he chooses. At some stage he will hand it on, but he will always be part of it.

Few people show more powerfully what later life can unlock.

What can we learn from Elton

• Leaving a corporate title does not have to mean losing identity. Most people struggle with this but Elton shows you can bypass that fear.
• Opportunities often come from long-standing relationships built through curiosity and kindness rather than strategic networking.
• Doing something to help others can lead to paid work and, more importantly, a renewed sense of purpose.
• Later-life impact can be profound. Elton has used his voice, experience and credibility to take on an issue the industry has ignored for decades.