Leaders Who Build Leaders
How a five-year partnership with 2b Limitless has helped Chef Middle East build leadership capability, embed coaching and extend development across the organisation.
Client: Chef Middle East
Partnership began: 2022
Areas of support: Executive Coaching, Strengths-Based Development, Leadership Workshops, Accredited Performance Coach Development, Internal Coaching Capability, LEAP and Immersive Leadership Experiences
Building The People Capability Behind Growth
Chef Middle East is an established foodservice business serving the hospitality and culinary sector across the Middle East. Its success has been built not only on the products and services it provides but on the expertise, relationships and commitment of the people behind the business.
When Chef Middle East first began working with 2b Limitless the organisation was at an important inflection point. It had emerged from COVID and was preparing for a change in ownership. The business already had ambitious plans for growth but the next phase required acceleration. Investment was needed in infrastructure, technology and operational capacity. But CEO Steve Pyle recognised that another part of the equation was equally important and perhaps more complex. That part of the equation was people.
According to Steve Pyle, CEO, Chef Middle East, “We needed to increase capacity, introduce new technology and, really importantly, we had to make an investment in people – in the development of people, professionally and personally.”
From the outset the ambition was bigger than developing a handful of senior executives. “From very early on, we had a picture in our minds that we were trying to build leaders who build leaders. This was never about an investment in a few individuals. It was genuinely about building the capability of the entire team,” states Steve.
That idea – leaders who build leaders – has shaped the partnership between Chef Middle East and 2b Limitless ever since.
Starting With The Leadership Team
The partnership with 2b Limitless began with Chef Middle East’s senior leadership group. The business had completed a 360-review process and wanted to turn the insight from that work into meaningful individual and team development.
For HR Director, Maria Gibson, choosing the right partner was a considered process. Chef Middle East explored a range of coaching providers ranging from boutique organisations and individual coaches to online solutions. The leadership team included strong personalities with very different development needs. Chef Middle East therefore needed more than a standardised coaching programme. It needed depth, flexibility and choice.
For Maria, “What 2b Limitless could offer us was a powerhouse of coaches that could really adjust to our needs. That really stood out.”
That willingness to customise became an important part of the relationship, “In every conversation I have felt important. I felt that what we need as a business is a priority for the 2b Limitless team. There has always been an appetite to customise rather than just picking from a menu and moving forward.”
What began with senior leadership coaching would gradually become something much broader.
Creating A Common Language Through Strengths
One of the earliest breakthroughs came through Gallup CliftonStrengths. At an individual level, the work helped people understand more clearly how they naturally think, behave and contribute. It created the kind of recognition Steve describes as a “eureka moment”, that moment when some goes “That sounds like me!” But the greater impact came when individual insight became a shared language. “We have a common understanding of our strengths. We understand how to leverage the strengths we have in each other and how to amplify success using strengths,” comments Maria.
For Steve, that understanding also changed how people worked together, “It helped us, as teams, get greater clarity about each other and how we could really leverage or maximise the knowledge and insight that the strengths work gave us to collaborate in a more positive, effective way.”
Over time, strengths became more than an assessment or workshop. The language began to show up in day-to-day conversations, feedback and collaboration. For Maria, that is an important distinction between delivering development and actually creating change, “It is not the workshop itself or the coaching session itself or the certificate we get at the end of an APC programme. It is what happens in between – the leaders that become stronger and the people that become more inspired to put in that extra effort. That is where you see the meaningful impact.”
From Being Coached To Becoming Coaches
As coaching became more familiar across Chef Middle East the organisation began to take the next step. Rather than relying only on external coaches it started developing coaching capability from within.
Through the 2b Limitless Accredited Performance Coach programme Chef Middle East now has a panel of 10 trained internal coaches supporting colleagues who want to develop personally and professionally. The organisation plans to continue expanding that capability. For Victoria Tipper, Senior Executive Coach at 2b Limitless, this has been one of the most powerful parts of the journey, “They’ve paid for people to do our APC course, where we’re training them to be coaches, and they’ve now got 10 internal coaches. That’s an amazing investment for a company to make.”
It is a tangible expression of the original ambition: leaders who build leaders. Coaching is no longer something that is simply delivered to Chef Middle East. Increasingly, it is a capability being embedded within the organisation.
The wider work has also helped strengthen relationships across teams. Through workshops and coaching colleagues have had deeper conversations about themselves, their strengths and how they work with others. Development around communication and radical candour has supported greater openness and more constructive challenge. As Victoria states, “People are building much deeper bonds with each other and building that trust. I’ve really noticed that people have become more transparent with each other, and that’s led to some really great changes.”
Victoria has also seen individuals grow significantly in confidence, find their voice, strengthen their executive presence and step into broader roles. Maria sees that cultural shift too, “We’ve come a really long way. When we started with 2b Limitless, coaching was completely new for most of our employees, including our leadership.”
Taking Development Across The Organisation
What began with a relatively small group of senior leaders has steadily expanded. Individual coaching continued. More colleagues accessed strengths development. Chef Middle East invested in internal coach accreditation and immersive development experiences, with around six leaders participating in the 2byb experience in Thailand.
The biggest expansion in reach has come through LEAP – Learning, Education and Performance. Through LEAP more than 200 people across different functions and levels of the organisation are now accessing development through approximately 35 workshops. For Vicki, the breadth matters as much as the number, “You’re working with senior managers and leaders, but you’re also working with individual contributors. You’re getting this massive reach across people at different levels. The most powerful thing is that Chef have given everyone the opportunity to learn within the organisation.”
Over the same period, the business itself has continued to grow. According to Steve, Chef Middle East has more than doubled in size and more than doubled its profitability since the relationship with 2b Limitless began.
That performance cannot be attributed to leadership development alone. The business has simultaneously invested in capacity, technology, infrastructure and its markets. But investment in people has deliberately been one of those growth levers. “These businesses are built on the shoulders of the people that work in them. Our belief is that the more investment we put into the capability of the individuals in the business, that will of itself help us deliver growth,” says Steve.
The leadership team has also become more future-focused. Rather than concentrating only on the demands directly in front of them, Steve sees people thinking more about where Chef Middle East is heading, what it will need next and the contribution they can make to that future, “We’re much more future-focused than perhaps we were three or four years ago. Everybody’s mind is focused on how the business grows and, by implication, how the people who work in the business grow.”
Five Years In And Still Evolving
For Victoria one of the most rewarding aspects of the partnership has been the opportunity to see development happen over time, “It’s been such a powerful journey, five years in the making. It’s been really powerful to see people grow over those five years.”
A person might begin by discovering their strengths, move into individual coaching, participate in development with colleagues, experience an immersive retreat, train as a coach themselves and ultimately begin supporting somebody else’s growth. That is very different from a one-off intervention. And the relationship continues to evolve.
Building on the experience of Chef Middle East leaders who have participated in 2bYB, 2b Limitless and Chef Middle East are now developing a bespoke retreat for 10 leaders in 2027 creating dedicated space for reflection, coaching, connection and thinking about the organisation’s next chapter.
For Maria, 2b Limitless has become deeply integrated into the organisation’s development journey, “2b Limitless is already so integrated. They’re part of the family. They’ve been instrumental in the language and the approach that we use, and in seeing strengths as something to leverage rather than just as a poster on a wall.”
And she is equally clear that the value comes from treating leadership development as a longer-term commitment, “I would recommend 2b Limitless to a company that is really serious about a journey to upskill and elevate the growth of their leadership or the self-development of their staff. It’s not a one-stop solution for overnight success. It’s a longer play – but they have an appetite to start small and grow with you.”
Five years on, the scale of the partnership looks very different from where it began but the purpose remains remarkably consistent: Build stronger people. Build stronger leaders. Build leaders who build leaders.
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