He is the son of a taxi driver who grew up on the gang-ridden streets of London and later became the boss of Pret A Manger.
Pano Christou, chief of the coffee chain, now has a salary of £400,000, having started at just £2.75 an hour when he joined McDonald’s aged 16.
He took Pret’s top job in 2019 and has set his sights on making it a global force to be reckoned with, giving thousands of employees their third pay raise in a year.
The married father-of-two said the increase was to help staff struggling to make ends meet amid the cost-of-living crisis, which has seen bills skyrocket.
He came from a humble background and grew up in Tooting, South London where his father, half Greek, half Italian, was a mini-cab driver and his mother, from Cyprus, a nurse who at one point also worked as a cleaner for extra money.
Pano Christou (pictured) has a salary of £400,000 as CEO of Pret. He started at just £2.75 an hour when he started working at McDonald’s at the age of 16.
There was little money, with clothing that came from flea markets. The daily struggle inspired Mr. Christou to get to work early.
‘My first job, on 14/15, was delivering mini-taxi tickets through the door. I wash my dad’s car every Sunday,” he told the Mirror.
“He’d pay me a pound or two, but I’d probably find more change under the seats than he paid me.”
He skipped university in favor of a job at McDonald’s – where he earned £2.75 an hour, ‘much to my parents’ dismay’.
But being the dead end they feared, he had fallen in love with the hospitality industry and a few years later started his career at Pret.
“My mom and dad weren’t happy at all then, but they’re happy now,” he said.
He joined the company in 2022 and became their third CEO in 2019, following Julian Metcalfe and his mentor Clive Schlee, who spent 18 years at the helm.
His salary is £400,000 and he received long-term stock options, linked to performance, bringing the total for last year to £4 million.
Now he has ambitions to turn the company into a global powerhouse, but he believes staff should be given the money they deserve.
Knowing how tough living on a budget can be – after watching his parents struggle to make ends meet as a child, he is now trying to raise the salary of thousands of his staff with the third pay raise in just 12 months
He confirmed wages for thousands of his workers will go up in April, saying: “If you pay people what they should be getting, you shouldn’t have a staffing problem. I want us to pay more than the competition.’
Around 7,800 UK shop workers will receive an extra three per cent pay rise, meaning average base pay has risen by 19 per cent in 12 months.
At £10.60 an hour, the lowest-paid workers are still paid just 18 pence an hour above the national living wage for 23-year-olds and above.
And baristas are paid up to £14.10 an hour, depending on where they live and their experience.
Meanwhile, staff will continue to receive free food and drink during the shift and a 50 percent discount at other times.
Mr Christou said he ‘wouldn’t be surprised’ if another rise was looked at sometime this year.
The 45-year-old said, “It depends on inflation whether it continues to rise.”
“It depends on inflation whether it continues to rise,” he said, warning that prices for customers may have to go up.
He’s been forced to deal with one nightmare after another almost since he took over at Pret.
From April, baristas at Pret will be paid up to £14.10 an hour, depending on where they live and their experience. Pictured is a Pret show in London’s Leicester Square
Having survived Covid, Pret is now facing massive fuel bill increases, as are countless other businesses.
“Energy costs are huge for us,” he says in an interview with the Financial Mail On Sunday last year. “It’s the biggest cost challenge we’re facing right now.
Ingredients in Pret products are also going up. Sunflower oil, much of which comes from Ukraine, is rising in price, as is wheat.
Entrepreneurs Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham opened the first Pret store in London’s Victoria in 1986.
In response to the cost of living crisis, Pret has launched a range of lower cost products.
“It’s not a meal deal per se, but the idea is that you can buy a can of booze, a baguette or a sandwich and some crisps for less than £6,” says Christou.
All this comes as Pret is still recovering from the pandemic, when it was only surviving thanks to a £185m capital injection in February 2021, and a further £106m in November 2021.
He said: ‘I was, of course, very concerned. We were losing millions a day and burning money. Leave was a lifeline. It was very difficult. Watching a company you’ve been a part of for so many years disappear right in front of you…’
The company suffered a pre-tax loss of just under £270m in 2021, but said in the summer it had turned a profit for the first time since the pandemic, having moved from the city center to out-of-town stores.
Pret has 430 stores in the UK, with around 200 in London. As a result of Covid, Christou says ‘we have re-evaluated the estate’, closing about 30 stores, five of which have returned, and opening 30 to 40 new ones.
His ambition is to become a global brand similar to McDonald’s. But that means expanding in the UK – and growing abroad, adding to its existing 200 outlets in the US, Europe and beyond.
“We really want to be global. Why can’t it be like McDonald’s – we don’t really have a UK brand that has done that so this is our target,” he said
