Compass Group North America's Story

In 1995, Compass Group North America was established in Charlotte, North Carolina where it remains to this day. The company now occupies more office space, of course, but it still retains the same floor on which it began. Right from the start, Compass was thinking about its culture, so a number of people were brought across from the UK to run the back office. Here were the early pioneers - each crucial in bringing the Compass culture to the USA. Their expert back-of-house support combined with the American sales and marketing skills provided a winning formula.

The same year, Compass Group won IBM – the largest Business & Industry account in the US service market. It was the biggest single-source contract of its time, covering 34 sites with 74 cafeterias and 2,400 vending machines.

Having established Compass in a new market where the growth opportunities were massive, what followed was a masterful execution of sectorisation and branding. Looking back on that time, Palmer Brown, who led many of the US acquisitions and later became Group Chief Financial Officer (a role he holds to this day), says: 

Acquisition and Sectorisation 

In 1995, the first move was to acquire Flik International, an upscale New York caterer. The following year, Compass announced Eurest Dining Services as the new global name and identity for its Business & Industry operations. It followed this by purchasing the foodservice assets of Service America, which brought over 7,000 dining and vending accounts and made Compass the only national vending company.

After Compass bought Flik, which handled some education accounts, it also acquired Professional Food Service Management (PFM) for $56 million and then Daka International for £121 million – both of which were exclusive education companies.

Then, in 1997, Compass made a visionary strategic partnership with Warren Thompson, of Thompson Hospitality, a minority partner who has played and continues to play a major part in Compass’ success. Thompson Hospitality is now the largest minority-owned food and facilities management company in the United States. At the core of its mission is its goal to improve diversity and give back to the local community.

(Pictured above): Leaders sign one of the first Compass Group and Thompson Hospitality Joint Venture contracts. Left to right: Shelley Stewart, United Technologies; Kurt Kimball, Compass Group; and Warren Thompson, Thompson Hospitality. 

Next, the task was to bring together all these different companies – an exciting time for all involved. For instance, Chartwells was announced as the new global identity for its educational markets.  

Expansion into Canada

Growth through acquisition and sectorisation was paying dividends. In 1997 Compass went after another sizeable prize: SHRM – which provided Compass with a base for further advance into two new markets, Australia and Canada.

Compass maintained phenomenal retention of the acquired management teams, because each sector had a CEO charged with preserving the culture of each business. This demonstrated clear ownership of those businesses and created consistency and personal connections, which clients valued. Amazingly, nothing was operated using the Compass name. Instead, the Group was facing clients with the local sector identities that had been either created or acquired – an approach it maintains to this day.

By 1999, the North American business had grown to almost $2.5 billion, and Compass was operating in a staggering 90 countries.