Shelley Pedersen
March/April 2007
By Hope S. Philbrick
Salute to Women
Shelley Pedersen is the senior catering executive for Edgar’s Catering at the Goodwill Career & Conference Center in Macon. Previously, she owned Beyond Cuisine, Inc., a catering and professional consulting company based in Atlanta that specialized in events with custom menus. In Milwaukee, WI she launched her foodservice career working as director of catering for two upscale gourmet markets. She first came to GA in 1988 to work with Tom Murphy, owner of Murphy’s Restaurant in Atlanta’s Virginia-Highlands neighborhood. A frequent seminar speaker, industry panelist and workshop presenter, Pedersen is also a GRA board member, chair of the Macon Chapter, and chair of the catering roundtable.
Sometimes, a career path can be a circle: Pedersen first worked at a Goodwill store in Milwaukee as a part-time cashier during high school and college summer breaks. Returning to the company made sense, she says, since “there’s a respect for the individual that I’m just a maniac about.”
Though perhaps “when you think of a chef you still think of a man,” Pedersen says that she’s “never found it a barrier to be a woman” in the foodservice industry. “Who’s got the best chops for the job, the drive and creativity, the stamina to be in this business?” she asks and then answers: “Sometimes a guy, sometimes not.”
The key to success is to “find what you’re good at. You can’t do it all. If you’re the chef, be the chef and hire the business piece. If you’re the business leader then hire the chef,” she says. “I owned a very successful catering company for 14 years and wasn’t a chef at all. If you think as an entrepreneur that you have to do it all, something is going to suffer.”
Secret of Success
“Find out what you do best and that’s where you’ll shine.”
-Shelley Pedersen
