Meet the Mixology22 Judges: Des Gunewardena, D&D London
Gunewardena is the Chairman and CEO of D&D London, one of the UK’s most influential hospitality groups, with 45 diverse restaurants across the country and an 80-room hotel in London.
As part of our ongoing Meet the Judges series, we introduce the industry leaders and sector experts deciding this year’s Mixology Awards winners.
Gunewardena was born in Sri Lanka and has lived in London for most of his life. In the mid 1980s he was responsible for financial planning at property conglomerate Heron International, before joining design entrepreneur Sir Terence Conran in 1991 as his business partner and CEO. During their 15-year period together, they built Conran from a small design company into a global restaurant, retail, hotel and design company, employing 2000 staff in major cities around the world.
In 2006 Gunewardena, as its Chairman and CEO, led a buyout of Conran Restaurants (now D&D London), a luxury restaurant group that owns and operates over 40 venues in London, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Paris, and New York. D&D also owns South Place, an 80-bedroom luxury hotel in the City of London.
He is a non-executive director of Fulham Shore and has previously held non-executive directorships of London First and publicly listed restaurant and design companies. For a number of years Gunewardena has been listed as one the Evening Standard’s Top 1000 most influential Londoners and in 2013 was shortlisted as EY’s London Entrepreneur of the year.
The deadline for Mixology22 has been extended, and entries are open until Friday 11 March.
