Skip to main navigationSkip to main content
The University of Southampton
Southampton Business School

Upcoming Distinguished Lecture with Paul Ettinger, Co-Founder of Caffè Nero

Published: 15 September 2015
Paul Ettinger

The lecture, entitled ‘From Coffee Communities to Online Communities, The Changing Face of Britain’, will be held on Wednesday 7 October at 18:00 in the Turner Sims Concert Hall, Highfield Campus.

The incredible growth of the coffee bar market is part of a much wider change in the British High Street and our shopping and recreational habits, which has now led to the growth of online shopping and social networking.

This will be the story of how Caffè Nero went from nothing to 800 coffee bars across the world, and how, in the past two years, that has led to the emergence of the fastest growing UK community social network with over 1m users almost entirely over the age of 40!

Paul has a BSc in Physics and Electronics from Southampton University and an MBA from Insead in France. Following his MBA he spent 13 years in the chemical industry (Courtaulds PLC) latterly developing joint ventures in Asia and running a German acquisition for two years. On moving back to the UK in 2008 he helped a friend acquire 5 coffee bars which subsequently became Caffè Nero. The business floated on the LSE in 2001 and was taken private in 2007. It now has over 800 outlets in the UK, Ireland, UAE, Cyprus, Poland, Turkey and the USA. For the first ten years of Caffè Nero Paul was responsible for all food and beverage development as well as purchasing and distribution. He now spends two days per week at Caffè Nero looking after the International business as well as the extensive music programme which has sponsored many young musicians over the past years. In 2011 Paul helped to found a community social network, www.streetlife.com  which has grown rapidly to over 1 million users in over 4500 active communities across the UK and which is now raising a Series B financing to take it to a global business.

 

 

Privacy Settings