Meet Our Leadership Team
Are you a hospitality professional interested in expanding your company’s reach?
Our team is available for strategic planning, operational solutions across multiple venues, on-site and virtual professional training, and start-up support. Our mission is to help you attract and serve the growing population of plant-forward and plant-curious guests, working within your unique needs and goals. We help you clarify your vision and create a customized action plan to streamline your F&B and customer service to make for a more hospitable experience for both your guests and employees. We work with restaurants and hotels that want to add plant based options, create separate vegan menus, or transition to completely plant based food service.
Meredith Marin
Co-Founder & executive director
Meredith Marin is a Hospitality Consultant and Industry Leader specializing in Vegan Hospitality and Tourism. Beginning in 2017, Meredith worked with restaurants, hotels, food service businesses and chefs in the tourism-focused Caribbean to boost business by training staff to attract and serve vegan guests. In 2019, credited to her extensive work on the island, Aruba was recognized as the most vegan friendly island in the Caribbean, attracting guests specifically for their vegan culinary scene.
Meredith has a master’s in social work and experience in the public health sector, supporting communities, schools, and restaurants in creating and implementing wellness intervention. She has worked in the U.S. to transform school lunch rooms, including upgrading point of service technology, food safety protocol, meal planning and food sourcing, worked with chefs to create community health campaigns for their restaurants, and led countless food demos and nutrition trainings for businesses, government offices and non-profit organizations. At the university level, Meredith has taught courses on advocacy, psychology, and community empowerment.
Meredith's vegan hospitality expertise has been featured numerous times in the media including on television, podcasts, print magazines distributed on major airlines and in hotel lobbies, as well as on popular vegan media sites such as Happy Cow and Plant Based News. Meredith currently lives in Aruba with her husband and two children (yes, her family is vegan too!)
Hayley Cooper
Co-founder & global operations consultant
Hayley Cooper is a Certified Vegan Hospitality Consultant and Industry Leader with 25 years of professional experience in hospitality management. She is based in Greater Kruger in South Africa where she co-manages a luxury 5 star safari lodge. She is also the founder & CEO of Wild Dreams, a successful & well-established hospitality business offering recruitment, training & consulting services all over Africa. As the first certified vegan hospitality consultant in Africa, she has pioneered the Vegan Hospitality movement across the continent and helped Africa become one of the first destinations with Vegan Hospitality Certified lodges and guest houses.
Hayley is frequently featured in the media both in print and on podcasts sharing her expertise about hospitality, tourism and veganism. She has authored and created several courses and e-books on topics relevant to both hospitality and veganism. Her enthusiasm for veganism and sustainability stems from a love for rehabilitating wild animals, which is how she made the connection to this way of life. She prides herself on providing a professional and personalized service in everything that she does and loves sharing her passion with others.