Meet the bakery team - Head of Marketing - Emily Hawkins

This week we are delving behind the scenes at Skinny Bakery HQ, to bring you an exclusive series of introductions to the team. Each member of our team has a fantastic array of skills and fascinating background that has brought them here and made them the perfect fit for their role at the Bakery.

We have turned the spotlight on our Head of Marketing, Emily O’Reilly, this week. She usually is the one interviewing others so we thought it only fair to turn the table and delve a bit into her background, to see what brought her to be chief content wrangler at Skinny Bakery.

• How did you first come to work at Skinny Bakery?

I applied and was originally hired as a baker at Skinny Bakery, which I absolutely loved. It’s a fast paced job with lots to do and some delicious cakes as an outcome. I have worked in a few different departments here in Skinny Bakery HQ but have finally found my home as Head of Marketing and Operations. I get to be creative and help to organise the day to day running of the bakery. The perfect combination for me of design, customer and client relationship building, and on your toes daily organisation.

• What had you done before that makes you great at what you do?

Prior to Skinny Bakery I had been a chef at a vegetarian and vegan restaurant in Wales, for over 10 years. Food that involves certain restrictions, like vegan dishes, can be very off putting for a lot of people but I found that it gave me the opportunity to experiment and create in a different way. It opened my eyes to lots of new ingredients and world cuisines that I still really enjoy today.

Following this I decided to shift careers and went back to university to undertake a degree in Textile design. This eventually prompted a move to London to continue my design work at MA level.

This has given me a fantastic range of skills that I can apply here at the bakery, including creative cloud design knowledge to an out of the box thinking process. It’s such a joy to be able to combine both my passion for food and design in one great job.

• What do you do when you are not at Skinny Bakery?

I love seeing live music so can’t wait to be able to see more gigs when things become safer again. I also love my wild swimming, living in Wales meant I had access to sea swimming on a regular basis, but since living in London the Serpentine has been my go to. I’m also textile mad so can be found designing or making something at all times.

• Working in the foodie world you must have a recipe or 2 that you absolutely love?

I certainly do and am heavily involved in writing the ones that feature on the Skinny Bakery blog. I love experimenting with unusual ingredients and combinations, I particularly like using aquafaba as a replacement for egg whites.

• Who are people that inspire you in your field of work?

In the foodie world I’ve always really liked Yotam Ottolenghi as the vegetables are the star of the recipe, he is not trying to make them something else but celebrating and enhancing what they are. It’s the same in the textile side of my world I love design that shows off the fabric to its full potential so that you can see the true value of the work that goes into it.

• Which Skinny bakery treat is your favourite and why?

That’s a tricky one as I like quite a few and always really enjoy the Limited Editions. If I had to choose, I would say Cherry Bakewell is my favourite from our signature range and my favourite Limited Edition (to date) has been Chocolate, Caramel, and PB. I’m a big peanut butter fan!

• And finally, if you could take over the bakery for one day to make any Pearl what would you make?

I do love my fresh fruit flavours so maybe a cherry based sponge with a dark chocolate centre…hmm might have to suggest this one…