Hot Bread Kitchen’s Management Training Institute (MTI) has been named a winner of Fast Company’s 2026 World Changing Ideas Awards, recognizing our bold, innovative solution that is making meaningful impact in New York City’s food and hospitality industry.
The award validates what we’ve long known: investing in management training creates long-lasting careers, sustainable businesses, and a stronger food industry.
Solving a Challenge
Great workplaces start with great managers. Yet across the hospitality industry, talented employees are often promoted into leadership roles without the training or support they need to succeed.
After nearly two decades of culinary workforce development, Hot Bread Kitchen recognized an opportunity to change that.
“There’s research to support that people don’t leave jobs; they leave managers. So that’s why we’re here, creating a resource for recruiting, training, and management.” — Eva Chertow-Spence, Director of Strategic Workforce Partnerships
In 2025, we created the Management Training Institute, an eight-week leadership development program designed specifically for high-potential hospitality workers moving into management roles. Developed alongside New York City restaurant owners, employer partners, hospitality leaders, and HR professionals, MTI equips emerging managers with the practical skills they need to thrive in their jobs.
A New Model for Cultivating Managers
MTI is built around the realities of restaurant work, and our employer partnership model reinforces impact and tangible outcomes. Employers nominate participants, commit to promotion timelines and wage increases, and help shape the curriculum, ensuring training translates into real advancement and measurable business outcomes.
For Kimiko Poe, a Confections Supervisor with 15 years of bakery experience, being nominated by Ole & Steen, a Danish-style bakery, to join MTI meant she could receive the management training she had always desired. Josh Pickens, President of Ole & Steen, quickly saw Kimiko’s potential and experience in leading teams and nominated her for MTI.
“MTI reinspired and motivated me to get back into a leadership role and realize my potential. MTI helped me understand that I can have goals and dreams.” — Kimiko, 2026 MTI graduate
MTI’s curriculum prioritizes the skills that most directly drive employee retention, performance, and business stability. We teach the skills most often missing when workers are promoted: everything from people operations and team culture to finance and inventory management. Participants graduate MTI feeling ready to lead.
Career Outcomes
Since launching MTI and with two cohorts graduated, job retention is 100% at 6 months, and, on average graduates have already received a wage increase of 12%, ranging from $22 to $45 an hour. MTI graduates have access to better wages, expanded opportunities, and long-term career growth.
After completing the program, Kimiko was promoted from Confections Team Lead to Confections Supervisor and received an 18% hourly wage increase.
For our employer partners, MTI has cultivated stronger leadership pipelines, retention, and improved leadership performance.
“Hot Bread Kitchen’s MTI program has given our Front of House and Back of House team the outside perspective and dedicated space to grow into the kind of leaders our day-to-day operations simply can’t build on their own” — Josh Pickens, President, Ole & Steen
Looking Ahead
As demand for MTI continues to grow, Hot Bread Kitchen is expanding the program to serve two cohorts annually, doubling its reach and helping even more hospitality workers advance into leadership roles.
Receiving a Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award is an incredible honor, but it’s also a reminder that innovation isn’t always about new technology. Sometimes it’s about what we do best at Hot Bread Kitchen: recognizing people’s potential and investing in them.
At Hot Bread Kitchen, we believe the future of the food industry depends on the people who power it every day. By giving emerging managers the tools to lead with confidence, we’re creating stronger careers, stronger businesses, and a more equitable hospitality industry for everyone.
As we launch our third cohort next month, we’re grateful to all of our partners and all the participants who made this program possible!
If you’re a NYC food and hospitality employer, reach out to Ashley at abelle@hotbreadkitchen.org to join our growing network of partners.
