Hawthorn is an ambitious company, that’s something chief executive Mark Davies is very clear on. Speaking to MCA following the group’s half-year financial results, which reported its 700-strong estate had outperformed the market for the six months to 30 September 2020, Davies is in the enviable position of being able to look ahead, and he isn’t holding back in his plans for the business going forward. “We want to be the number one community pub company,” he says. “If anything, the pandemic has endorsed our strategy of focusing on community pubs, and our intention is to keep at it. We have the team to do it and the desire, so watch this space.”