Clare Nicholls
Clare Nicholls covers how money, products and suppliers move through the hospitality sector, focusing on the financial stakes behind corporate strategy, supply deals and operational change. Her reporting sits at the junction of company results, brand portfolios and the supplier ecosystem, showing how boardroom decisions shape what operators buy and how they trade.
Corporate performance and portfolio decisions
Nicholls reports on trading updates and results with an eye on what they mean for specific brands, formats and assets, rather than treating numbers in isolation. In coverage of moves such as Whitbread exiting branded restaurants amid a strong first quarter, she sets financial performance alongside estate changes, highlighting where management is reallocating capital and what this implies for sites and concepts. Across similar company pieces, she tracks shifts in portfolios, restructures and disposals, and consistently connects headline figures to operational levers like room sales, restaurant covers and cost lines. Her finance stories are rooted in the day‑to‑day realities of hotels, restaurants and pubs, rather than abstract market commentary.
Products, suppliers and commercial partnerships
Alongside corporate results, Nicholls follows the money flowing into hospitality’s supply chains. As products and suppliers reporter at The Caterer, she covers food, drink, equipment and technology providers, examining how product launches, category innovations and new partnerships fit into operators’ commercial strategies. Her work on The Caterer Supplier Awards shows her familiarity with a broad range of manufacturers and service providers, from kitchen equipment to consumables, and her reporting in this area foregrounds return on investment, efficiency gains and long‑term value for operators. She frequently highlights cases where supplier collaborations underpin brand positioning or menu development, treating procurement decisions as strategic financial choices rather than purely operational ones.
Supply chain, operations and cost pressures
Nicholls’ products and suppliers beat leads her into detailed coverage of supply chain resilience and cost management. She reports on sourcing trends, logistics challenges and category‑specific pressures, showing how inflation, regulation and changing customer expectations feed through to operators’ buying decisions. Her stories often unpack the commercial logic behind switching suppliers, upgrading equipment or adopting new technology, explaining how these moves affect margins, productivity and risk. The result is finance‑inflected coverage of operations, where capital expenditure, total cost of ownership and payback periods are as prominent as product features.
Hospitality awards and industry initiatives
Nicholls is closely involved with The Caterer’s supplier‑side events and initiatives, reinforcing her view across the commercial landscape of hospitality. She serves as a key editorial contact for The Caterer Supplier Awards and has a visible role in presenting and reporting on the winners, which gives her regular access to senior figures on both the operator and supplier sides. Her writing around these projects focuses on concrete outcomes such as performance improvements, sustainability gains and revenue opportunities delivered by new products or partnerships. Across this work, she treats awards and case studies as evidence of where investment is flowing and which innovations are gaining commercial traction in the market.
4 more finance journalists.
Abba Ihonde
Abba Ihonde is a content writer for Guardian Digital at The Guardian whose beat sits where crypto, fintech and mainstream finance meet. He focuses on how cryptocurrencies, trading platforms and digital tools are reshaping business and finance, especially through regulation, crypto policy and their impact on financial services. His explainer pieces follow the practical realities of traders, importers and growing businesses, tracking everyday crypto use in cross-border trade and the turn to stablecoins. He reports on retail trading platforms and market education, drawing on experience in cryptocurrency futures trading and earlier SEO analysis and editing roles to keep finance coverage clear and structured. Abba also writes on business visibility in the digital economy, policy and tax technology, and takes on broader news and lifestyle assignments, from security incidents to celebrity weddings.
Adam Clark
Adam Clark links fast-moving moves in global markets with clear, stock-focused takeaways for investors, combining breaking news with thematic analysis across equities and commodities. He is a reporter at Barron's, covering breaking news and markets, a role he took on in 2022 after five years with Dow Jones Newswires. His beat is how individual stocks, sectors and major indices react to shifts in the economy, monetary policy and corporate strategy, and what those moves mean for portfolios. He covers real-time moves in leading stocks and indices, high-profile names such as Alphabet and Newmont, and themes like technology volatility and gold market resets. He works in fast-turn news and longer market features, drawing on experience as reporter, editor and Insight columnist across print and digital platforms linked to Dow Jones brands.
Alasdair Ferguson
Alasdair Ferguson is a multimedia journalist at The National whose finance reporting is defined by a strong focus on culture, heritage and history. He uses archives, museums and cultural institutions to tell contemporary stories, linking public money and policy to how Scotland understands its past. He covers finance, culture, heritage, sport, arts and civic campaigns, often showing how decisions and events affect daily life and national identity. His work includes pieces on historic conflicts, museum photo releases, lost music, football history, large-scale supporter travel, arts festivals, television industry shifts and grassroots independence campaigns. He reports through news, features and multimedia, including podcast and video interviews. Across formats, he relies on concrete historical material, scholarly research and institutional sources to foreground why discoveries and campaigns matter now.
Alec Whitaker
Alec Whitaker is a senior court reporter for The Westmorland Gazette and also writes for The Mail. He stands out for reporting criminal cases in a tight, court-led way that links offences to fines, bans, compensation and other legal outcomes. His core beat is magistrates’ and crown court hearings, with regular coverage of theft, drugs, motoring offences, harassment, stalking and robbery. He reports on how the justice system turns behaviour into sentences and financial penalties, from short theft cases to serious drug charges. His pieces give the charge, the hearing, the pleas and the final order in plain terms. He also covers inquests and other court proceedings, and his work has included reporting for The Mail, The Westmorland Gazette and the North West Evening Mail.