About Tina O’Hagan

Tina has been in catering management roles since she was 19 years of age and has excelled in Senior Sales Director roles within the food and hospitality industry for the last 35 years.

She has set up and managed her own two successful businesses. She has been an advocate of self-development since she was 20yrs of age, and is committed to this day to continually learn.

Her self-development journey has seen her travel all over the world in search of experienced teachers to learn from. She believes she will always be learning and developing regardless what stage in life she will be at. “Knowledge is power but it is of no use unless you share it.”

That’s why she wishes to impart and empower others in what she has learned in her successful selling career and pass on her knowledge to others so they too can achieve their goals and grow in a holistic way and enjoy and fun on the journey.

Tina works from personal experiences and prefers to deals with all her customers on a personal one to one basis.

Tina O’Hagan is the first woman in Ireland to be certified as a Foodservice Professional. She achieved Platinum level and is one of the top 5 Platinum achievers in Europe for foodservice.

Foodservice Design Consultancy

Tina has designed, sold, managed, and delivered turnkey kitchen and foodservice projects to numerous places both within Ireland London and Scotland.

Some of the most prestigious projects were at:

Tina O’Hagan – An Interview

“Knowledge is power but it’s worth absolutely nothing if you don’t pass it on to someone else.” That’s the ethos which has propelled Irish businesswoman, Tina O’Hagan, from 35 years in catering and hospitality to her current position at the forefront of foodservice consultancy and now she has established her new business here in Cairns Australia. Tina O’Hagan Foodservice Consultancy AU assists and mentors small start-ups and medium to large food entrepreneurs and established food businesses to increase their sales through a selection of tailored training programs available through her Consultancy business.

The vivacious and charismatic Irish woman set up Tina O’Hagan Associates Ltd and The Food Pod Ltd in 2008/2014 respectively.  From her base in Ireland, she and her small team supply catering equipment to the hospitality and leisure industry and run a highly successful international foodservice design consultancy, food waste management consultancy and sales training.

A conversation with Tina is peppered with references to “opportunities”, “challenges”, “connections” and “energy”.  Her passion for embracing new challenges, being open to opportunities and pushing herself to the edge, has brought her to the top of her field. In 2010, she became the first woman in Ireland to receive a Platinum accreditation as a Certified Food Service Professional, and is one of the top five people in Europe to hold that accreditation.

Tina worked early on in her career as a cook and evolved rapidly into airline and transport catering management. She set up and managed many foodservice outlets before embarking on a selling career where she went back into the hospitality industry selling catering equipment and designing kitchens for bars, restaurants, hotels, and many public sector outlets like Hospitals and School projects. She worked throughout Northern Ireland, as well as in Dublin London and the USA. She says she delights on building connections with her clients and “escorting them on their individual journeys”, before moving on to the next challenge. Her entrepreneurial sights are now firmly set on markets in Australia and the Asia Pacific as she confronts head-on the challenges thrown up by the global economic recession.

“Advances in technology mean that entrepreneurs like me have the global market on our doorstep,” she says. “I can coach train and mentor through Skype, design kitchens and oversee their installation without ever having to lay hands on an oven or dishwashing equipment. Doors are opening and opportunities are presenting themselves in a way we could never have dreamed possible before.”

Tina is keen to share her business philosophy and is undaunted by the difficulties currently facing the World economies. She insists that prosperity lies in developing new skills, seeking out new markets and sharing knowledge. “There’s more than enough for everyone” she contends, “but we need to think outside our own tiny geographical space.

“I see life as a huge adventure. It should be about using our energy to find new opportunities and to challenge our abilities. It’s about going to the edge and trying things that no one has done before. It’s only by doing that that you can learn and develop new skills, before passing them on to others.”

Despite her infectious optimism and her contention that failure should be treated as part of the learning experience, Tina cautions against what she calls “false hope”. “There’s no point sitting back and hoping that the government or anyone else will do things for you. That won’t happen.”

An over-reliance on public sector employment, she believes, has inhibited the development of entrepreneurial skills  “Too many people allow fear to limit their thoughts and actions. They’re paralysed into non-action. We need to grow and evolve and to take action by ourselves to make things happen”.

 “Everyone has gifts,” she says. “Some people – like me – are inventive and creative, while not being particularly enjoying the academic route.  I’d like to see schools taking advantage of this and encouraging an awareness of entrepreneurship from as early an age as possible – seven and upwards. The universities, in particular, should be putting more emphasis on the art and techniques of selling, rather than just marketing.”

Tina laughs heartily as she recalls how she put a meeting with former US President Bill Clinton on her ‘wish-list’ in 2010 years ago. It is a testament to her single-mindedness and ‘can do’ attitude, that she achieved that wish at the end of 2012 and got to speak to him at an Entrepreneurial Summit in New York.

President Clinton’s keynote address about the importance of collaboration, making the most of new technologies and creating something to pass on to others was music to her ears. As well as planning to introduce her food service design consultancy to Australia and the Asia Pacific, Tina intends to step up her efforts to pass on the knowledge she has acquired during the past three decades in her training workshops.

She says she wants to give women in particular a “map to self-awareness”. “More women than ever are starting to bring their creative energies into business and that’s a good thing. But too many women don’t feel good enough about themselves. I want to help them change that through self-awareness, self-examination and self-development.”

That’s a strategy which has stood Tina in good stead, and it’s an approach she advocates for the world as a whole. “We have to evolve and grow. Diversification is key to our development and economic recovery. In N.Ireland we have a divided society, we have political issues, but we have an enormous amount of talent.” Let the world experience it!