The daughter of the late Celtic legend Harry Hood, Lisa Wishart, Managing Director of Lisini Pub Company, has died. Lisa passed away at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital with her family at her side following a year long illness.
Lisa, 57, steered the Lisini business, founded by her parents, Harry and Kathleen Hood, successfully through the pandemic, focussing on her team, and ensuring that there was a business to come back to. Over that stressful period she worked tirelessly before suffering a brain haemorrhage in December 2021.
Lisini was established in 1969 and, over the years, under the family stewardship, it has become one of the best respected and most successful hospitality companies in Lanarkshire and in Scotland. It employs more than 300 people with venues including Angels in Uddingston, Dalziel Park in Motherwell, The Parkville in Blantyre, the Castle Rooms in Uddingston and The Croft in Glasgow.
Although hospitality became Lisa’s passion it was not her first love. She inherited her father’s sporting prowess and started out as a PE teacher at Mary Erskine School in Edinburgh after completing her Batchelor of Education from Dunfermline College of PE.
While her father gained accolades on the football pitch Lisa kept her expertise to hockey and played for Scotland.
A knee injury forced her to step back from PE and she subsequently joined the family business in 1992 as Manager of Angels before taking on the role of Managing Director.
Lisa also completed a Masters of Business Administration from Strathclyde University – a degree she funded herself while working in the business full-time, and without telling her parents what she was studying.
Lisa had a passion for hospitality for her team and for her customers. Over the years she became an ambassador for the industry speaking out on key issues such as rates and immigration and during the pandemic she championed the industry and was a founding member of the Scottish Hospitality Group. She was also a former Director of the licensed trade charity The Ben.
Susan Young, Editor of trade publication the DRAM said, “Lisa was a one off. She had a passion for hospitality, integrity, a brilliant business mind and empathy. Lisa was eloquent, brilliant with figures and a firm believer in ethics. She was also great fun, had a great sense of humour and was much loved by everyone that met her. Her death leaves a massive hole in our hospitality family.”
Lisa is survived by her mother Kathleen, husband Keith, son Jamie, sister Siobhan and brother Nicholas.