Director's Table loses second boss in a year

Director's Table has lost a second managing director in less than a year. Rebecca Thomas has left her post at Sodexho's City fine-dining business to join London-based caterer Eaton as director of strategy. Sodexho confirmed Thomas had left her post but Eaton was unable to comment. Thomas is said to be on gardening leave.

Mark Philpot, Thomas's predecessor at Director's Table, left Sodexho last year after two years heading up the fine-dining division to set up his own company with ex-Eaton finance director Clive Heatherington.

Thomas is also the second Director's Table managing director to move to Eaton. Rodney Widdowson, who was managing director of Director's Table three years ago, joined Eaton in October 2002 as joint chief executive.

After losing three of its managing directors, rumours about the future of Director's Table have been circling, but a spokeswoman for Sodexho insisted that the business would remain and that it was an "extremely successful and integral part" of Sodexho's business and industry division.

\* Before Christmas Sodexho made 18 people redundant from its IT department. The staff had been employed to implement a new system at the contract caterer. Redundancies were made across all levels.