Inspiring Women in Hospitality (Naureen Ahmed)

On this episode we hear from Mona. The first Emirati woman I have interviewed whom, as you will hear through the episode, chose to work in hospitality, which is very rare in the UAE as a woman. One of her first roles was at the Burj Al Arab in training, where she worked with one of my previous podcast hosts, Caroline Stevens. With the desire to help people and make maximum impact, she went onto having a career in HR across various hotels in Dubai. She talks about her ambition and how she wanted to be the best. She took the time to educate herself, work on her self-development and something she invests in always is lifelong learning. One of her professional learnings is, if you want to create real impact, you have to do things out of the normal. She also real about her experiences of speaking up, you may come across people who will not appreciate it. Moments like this, turn to your internal compass and believe in what you did. She shares more of her journey in her book 'Beat the odds'.

On this episode we hear from Jennifer. What I admired the most about her journey is that she had a plan for her career, something I could learn to be better at. Plans for her MBA, when to be a GM, to have international experience and she went on to achieve them all. She utilised education to help leap frog her career and its what she needed to do to level up. She shared that its good to have to have the courage to make mistakes and combat your imposter syndrome by owning the role and making it your own. She went on to do her PHD in crisis leadership and she created what she called the living manual. Before she took on her first CEO role, she joined the company knowing that this was her career path and she had her mentor supporting her. Throughout your career she says that its important to be transparent of your ambitions so that you can work together with your employer. She believes in the gift in education and has helped her throughout her career journey.

On this episode we hear from Candice. She calls herself a true-blue hotelier and someone that is very rooted in luxury brands. She started in product and moved into service, which started her career in hospitality, and she grew to have a deep appreciation for what is takes to deliver a truly luxury hotel experience, which is truly extraordinary. She started her career in PR, then marketing and branding and talks to us about her journey in luxury brands. She shares that her career progression happened because she had her hand raised. Coming into luxury as a brown woman she had to break a lot of cliches. She also reminds us to pause, appreciate, recognise and acknowledge ourselves for the work we do. Sometimes we take ourselves for granted, yet we sometimes forget to recognise how far we have come.

On this episode we hear from Lada. She studied to be a lawyer, but very specifically a lawyer in hospitality. At the start of her career, she spoke up about her interest an asked for every hospitality project. Her career has taken her from Ukraine to Dubai and now Singapore and now works on projects in 27 countries. She has learnt that she has resilience and courage, with every move she made, and she can be successful. We discuss the changes that we have both witnessed in the hospitality market and how she has seen negotiation change to more healthy discussion with in-depth knowledge of the market. She shares the advice her mentor gave her very early on, 'treat every project as if it were your own' and she has taken that fundamental principal throughout her journey, Another learning she shares is take the moment to reflect and recognise yourself for the effort you have put in, and when it gets tough, take the time for yourself and treat yourself. Find what gives you the energy you need.

On this episode we hear from Ling. One of her key learnings was to be able to voice out your concerns, do not hold that negative energy and be vocal of your needs to your organisation. A lesson all women, including myself can learn from. During her time at JLL she had the opportunity to move to Shanghai to set up their hotel brokerage team, which was her time to shine, come out of her shell and she was inspired by the strong female role models she came across in Shanghai. One she feels is different upon her return to Singapore and she is now actively getting involved in various initiatives to support women empowerment. We also talked about networking, which is important for our careers but how the networking culture is. Often in the evening, with drinks and not every woman or man wants to drink. To making that ok that we do not have to drink to enjoy ourselves or build our careers.

On this episode we hear from Khun Yuwadee. She wanted to be a medical student and after a work experience at a hospital she realised that it was the engaging with patients that she enjoyed more, than giving out the medicine. So, despite her parents’ reservations, she switched to hospitality, and they respected her decision. She started her career in 2002 and since then Thailand has seen many turbulent years. She started her career at a time when OTAs were coming into the market, and she was eager to learn and be useful. So she took it upon herself to educate herself and become an expert, which allowed her career to grow from sales, e-commerce and revenue management. I love the way she describes the hotel industries adoption of technology: 'we are not behind, but we have time to adapt and learn'. After a prolonged maternity leave, she joined D-Edge solutions as country manager and works closely with local hoteliers to provide support on business performance.

On this episode we hear from Michele. Originally from Buenos Aires when she moved to the US, she found herself in hospitality. She was the most enthusiastic barista who make your first cup of coffee in the morning. She has this saying of 'creating opportunity doors' to knock on and going for it. Which is how she progressed in her career to become VP of operations with 2000 people to look after. She then embarked on her entrepreneurial journey to follow her values to help businesses with leadership and organisational behaviour. For her team to work together they needed not to work in silos, communicate and treat each other as humans. Whilst she had no female mentors to guide her, she wants to be the female mentor for any woman coming through her career now and reminded us that we have to not be afraid to seek out those mentors we want. Finally, don't forget that we are all inspiring.

On this episode we hear from Pyn. She started working in hotels from the age of 15 through various internships and her interest in hospitality just grew from there. Having graduated in 2020 in the middle of covid, she took any and all opportunities for work experience, always asking questions, being willing to learn and being open. She is now in a feasibility and development role with Radisson. She does often find herself being the youngest person in the room, so that does mean she feels she has to prove herself, but at the same time she sees it as a luxury. Its ok to make mistakes and learn from them, now is the time to learn and soak up as much knowledge as possible and be inspired by the people around you. She has an incredible amount of self-awareness and confidence that I admired throughout our conversation. I love how she describes confidence. It’s about loving yourself and having the courage to try. She may be young in her experiences, but we all have a lot to learn from her.

On this episode we hear from Catherine. It’s her father who made inspired her to be a tough business women. After high school she spent a few years working across different hotels and restaurants across Europe learning the different styles of F&B. Then after completing her diploma at EHL she moved back to Barcelona, where she grew up, and after a short detour in a kindergarten she moved back into restaurants. And at the age of 27, with our common friend, opened her first restaurant, which was one of her life goals to open her own establishment by the time she was 28. After a couple of years, she moved to Thailand, where she has now been for the past 10 years. The last 7 years with event company Shloka, doing both corporate events and weddings. What has made this company work is the relationship with her business partners and how they level each other out. And relationships in general, it’s important to cultivate them, both professionally and personal and put the effort in to maintain them. This is how you build your support system.

On this episode we hear from Tabatha. Grown up in Adelaide Australia, it was studying tourism that took her to work in seven different countries, across a wide range of companies and roles. A career in hotels that started in the UK, took her to Japan, Australia and then a long stint in Asia. She has worked in big organisations like Starwood to smaller independently owned hotel companies like Vihn Group in Vietnam, which then tapped into her tourism experiences. A wide range of experience in commercial roles in a wide range of types of businesses in our industry. She had different learnings across these companies, like Starwood was great for people, skills and branding and her time at IHG taught her about revenue and technology. Tabatha says that it was her curiosity and desire to experience new things and new cultures that took her on this career journey.

On this episode we hear from Cat. She started her hospitality journey as a chef and like many of us her journey took her on a circuitous route to sales and with a pandemic in between to disrupt it. She always wanted to travel, so she first left Vancouver for the Rocky Mountains. Then a desire to work in Europe brought her to London, which is where her career in sales started. During the conversation, she 'nerded out' on the Danesfield hotel and when you listen to her, you will understand why. Her passion and positivity is infection. And it helped her during the pandemic, she sees every situation as an opportunity and how to make the best of it. She volunteered, up-skilled, networked, freelanced and did various initiatives to keep her busy. She loves the diversity of the industry, not only from a career perspective, but also from cultures and people you meet.

@thenerdyhotelier

On this episode we hear from Bettina. Her first career was in advertising, second as a mother and third as a chef. She married and had children very young and what I admired about her own reflections on this time is how she grew as a person and built a family. She became a chef because culinary was her first passion, but being an Asian kid, she was not allowed to follow her passion at the time. With the support of her husband, another 'hospitality husband' she found the opportunity to study in culinary school in Singapore. Whilst she was trained in the classic French style, she was also taught the Asian cooking techniques, which she believes gave her an advantage. She shares an amazing story of a time she went to New York and knocked on Daniel Boulud's kitchen doors and asked for a couple of days of work experience. She describes this as a pivotal moment for her that changed her world. Today she is the Executive Chef at the Sofitel in Manila. She shares with us the joy she is experiencing today to be able to spend time with her kids as adults, going out, borrowing clothes and it is because she had her kids young. And as she reflects on her journey on this podcast, she shares that there is not a single thing that she would change.

On this episode we hear from Eljesa. She came into hospitality, like many others, by chance, taking up work during uni. Unlike others, she dropped out of uni to pursue a full time career in hospitality. She has done every possible role, starting from bar back to now General Manager at the Zetter Town House in Marylebone. Some early negative experiences with mentors, shaped her own leadership style. She demands and commands her space, and is not apologising for her, for her voice deserves to be heard. She believes in investing in your teams development, in fact she encourages them to go after her job. Each one of us has a different perspective to share, and its diversity where change will happen. She challenges women to not see each other as competition, but rather supporting one another to bring each other up, together. Learn who you are, own it and bring your whole self everyday.

On this episode we hear from Emma. She always knew from a young age that she was destined for something different. Never enjoyed school that much, and surrounded by a big entrepreneurial family she started her first business at 16. It was thanks to the help of a mentor, who spotted her early in her career, that she was able to build up her first company to sell by the age of 18. Originally from Australia she moved in Hong Kong and here she set up two business, one in website design and the other as an online butcher. She is now based in Singapore where she has now started an alcohol-free beverage supplier in Asia. She identifies gaps in the market and goes for it. She sees the potential, networks, asks for help, collaborates, identify the end game, and finds a way. Inspirational conversation for any aspiring entrepreneur.

https://www.freespirit.com.sg/

On this episode we hear from Lucia. She started working in hotels while studying at university and when she graduated, she had the choice to stay in hotels or go down a corporate career. She chose hotels and the plan was to stay one year, 9 years later she was still there. She enjoyed the variety, new challenges, and the people she was working with. After her first GM role she realised that operations was not meant for her future and after a conversation with the asset manager, she found an opportunity in investment. She didn’t know if she was going to sink or swim, but after three months she realised she was swimming and has continued to do so for 13 years. Her operational plus investment experience allows to speak both languages and communicate each perspective clearly to bring about collaboration. She and I both agree, to advance in your career you have to express your ambitions and do the work.

On this episode we hear from Caroline and she introduces herself as a communications consultant. She has worked across several industries, but it was through her work with Hyatt that exposed her to the hospitality world and she realised that it was the first consumer sector she had worked in that focused on how you make people feel. And it was not just about selling the product. While growing up in a household with two brothers she was not exposed to the gender differences, but she had a different experience when she came into her professional career. For career development she shares that its about knowing yourself, understanding what motivates you, are you learning, developing and perhaps even challenge yourself in a gentle way. And always leave on good terms, watch out for red flags and know when to let go. She now has her own consultancy/agency and said being an entrepreneur was always in the genes, it is just very scary to begin with and we all need to work through those fears. Whether working in a corporate environment or as a consultant, her one advice is to protect your downtime. Taking the dog for the walk is as important as that big presentation at work.

Here is what we discussed on this special episode:

• Frustrations we face when we are physically limited as women
• How do we want to be communicated to
• How we can be more vocal about our needs and career ambitions.
• Lets change the language. Time to speak about parental responsibilities.
• Let us challenge ourselves to not become invisible when we take time out of work

This podcast episode came about when both my guests had to pull out last minute from the EquipHotel panel on gender balance due to pregnancy related health issues.

We decided to take this opportunity to create this special episode to explore what this meant and how we can challenge ourselves not to make assumptions about a woman's career choices.

On this episode Elizabeth shares her journey into hospitality which actually started with a psychology degree because she wanted to work with people. She quickly realised she didn't want to go down the academic route and on her guidance counsellors suggestion she went on to do the Disney college program for a year and that got her into hospitality. After graduation, she opened up a restaurant with her father as a first time entrepreneur. A few years later she joined Loews at front desk. After a masters program, she had the opportunity to do the opening of the JW Marquis in Dubai which then took her onto an opportunity in China. It is her time in China, where she discovered her true passion for learning, inspiring, educating and she started Inspire Hospitality. Through Inspire Hospitality she consults with business who want to put customer service at the core of their offering, education of the upcoming generations and hotel ownership. I love how she describes hospitality - its noble work. And it's this noble work where we learn the skill of human connections, which she predicts will be the new luxury.

On this episode we hear from Gemma. Editor and director of Content Inc, providing a range of content and communication solutions to the travel and hospitality industry. She happens to be a fitness instructor, which has come in handy when she needs to motivate an audience at a conference. Also, a mum of two, which she says is her most difficult and rewarding job. She tells us of her journey brining publications like Arabian Travel News and Hotelier Middle East to life. In this role she got to know so many people in the industry, and they are the ones who helped her fall in love with the industry. She went freelance when she had her kids and transitioned into communications for the hotel companies she had been interviewing in the past. When I asked her how she got started in the world of media, it was because she was a good at writing. One of her earlier jobs during her media career was being a fake contestant on the show 'Play your cards right.' Skills that she picked up during her time in media, like shorthand, still come to use today, although can sometimes be confused for Arabic. Her time in journalism once helped jail a prisoner because of the investigative report she wrote in a local newspaper. Her father used to say to her, always meet someone once because you don’t know what might come of it, is one of the many tips that Gemma has on networking.

On this episode we hear from Jinal. She started her career in commercial real estate and a chance project on a hotel brought her into hospitality. She then put her learning skills to good used and soaked up as much knowledge as she could about hotel operations. She calls hotels 'living real estate'. She considers herself a conversationalist, which has helped in her career journey and also to surround herself with good people. Often, still today, she is the only women or one of two women at the table or on the team, she hopes that will continue to change, but when she was starting out it was hard. Which is why finding those good people was so important - build up your support network. She would like to see more balance and opportunities for women, there is change happening but more needs to be done.

On this episode we hear from Shona. She had her first role in hospitality at 13 and much to her parents dismay she was inspired to pursue a career in hospitality. At 17 she was in Glasgow to work for a year, which solidified her interest in hospitality and then went onto study it. She worked at various hospitality companies throughout her career in the UK, found herself in revenue management in the 90s and made that her area of expertise. 13 years ago, she decided to take all her knowledge, experience and network to start her own business as a commercial consultant within hospitality. During this time her own consultancy has evolved as the industry as evolved and now take on project management and technology transformation. She thought she wanted to be a GM when she started her career in hospitality, but we discussed the importance of keeping in an open mind to different opportunities, understand what you enjoy and what your skillsets are. She has been a big fan of the stories shared on 'Inspiring Women in Hospitality' and she especially appreciates the variety of the women who are interviewed.

https://www.cogentblue.co.uk

On this episode we hear from Patrizia. With one parent being in hospitality, she did not think this was the route she was going to take, but eventually it became inevitable. You can have a variety of careers with a hospitality education both within and outside of the industry, our quality of putting people first is highly valued. She shared how it was graduating in the midst of covid. Whilst it was challenging to find any kind of role, it also took the pressure off to find that perfect job, that is often placed on student upon graduation. We talked the importance of your values lining with the values of the company you aspire to work with and how interview cultures are changing with each generation. She got her current role in development, because she was vocal about her aspirations and one day her mentor shared with her a job opening in the area that she wanted to go into.

On this episode we hear from Susan. She is the founder of b2b marketing consultancy Hive Marketing and fellow podcast host of Top Floor podcast. When she was a kid, she played at being the boss and we will see how this then materialised in her career. During college she had been working part time with a catering company and when she graduated, they offered her a full-time position, which she accepted as she was still not sure about what she wanted to do, and this was meant to be temporary. She then got stuck in hospitality. She spent a lot of her hotels career working in pre-openings. She realised through this experience that she enjoyed the full autonomy she would have at the start of any opening. Which then inspired her to start her entrepreneurial journey in 2009. She shares how she started out, how her business evolved and some of her own hurdles that she had to overcome, like the 'chip on her shoulder' of being the youngest. She overcome this feeling by her strong work ethic and knowing that all her efforts would come back to her.

On this episode we hear from Vivien. She decided to follow her father into hospitality, making her a third generation hotelier in her family. She went in and out of hospitality and dipped her toe into other industries, but they are all opportunities for learning and growth. She is curious by nature and education has always been a big part of her life, an area she also felt it important to learn from other industries. Her career journey has taken her around the globe and each move was when an opportunity presented itself, at the right time for her professionally and personally. While she has been moving around, it always brought her back to Paris, which has been her home, on and off for the past 20 years. She has weaved a network of women and male peers to stay connected with, learn from and they are the people who have supported her career journey thus far.

On this episode we hear from Shinn. Her love of hospitality comes from her years of travel with family, where there were moments of magical experiences in hotels. Her first work experience was at the Four Seasons Seychelles, where she learnt the difference between island life and city life. One more fast paced and the other slower. She pushed herself out of her comfort zone by taking her higher education in Switzerland, her first time in Europe ever and learning to adapt accordingly. After graduating her path lead her towards learning and development within hospitality. We discussed the concept of service culture and whether that can be taught or something you have innately within you. Shinn relies on reflection throughout her life, to help her navigate various situations or coming up with ideas, etc. She promotes life long learning to everyone and advocates for us all to invest in ourselves. One of the areas that she has worked on over the past year is her assertiveness.

Please note since this recording in November 2022, Shinn has left EHL Singapore team.

On this episode we hear from Karin. She knew at the age of 10 that she wanted to go into hotels, and she ended up going to Hotel School de Hague to study hospitality. She takes us on a journey of her impressive career across several continents with different brands and different roles. She now finds herself at the Le Meridien in Dhaka, my father's home and one of my homes. I am so proud to bring this story to you, cause not only is it in Bangladesh but also a female hotel manager. While Karin has looked at each of her career moves to different countries as an adventure, she recognises for other women in the industry with a family in particular, may not always be easy. It is improving, but hospitality is still very male dominated especially in senior roles. One advise she has is around networking and relationship building. Its a small industry and its important to start fostering those relationships from the start of your career and throughout. She says that we should all set aside at least 1 hour per week to invest in our network and utilise LinkedIn.

Time and time again as I do my podcasts interview, the advise women share for career progression is work on your visibility. Yet it appears to be an area that we struggle with. It is what motivated me to start this podcast, the events and the Inspire Community. To provide a platform to increase our visibility.

In this podcast episode I talk about my own journey of transforming my visibility.

Three key moments in my life:

• Arriving at hotel school
• Starting at STR
• Building the brand 'Inspiring Women in Hospitality'

I myself have not always been visible and I have learnt the hard way what happens when I was not and learnt the benefits of what happens when I am. I have created this amazing community in less than a year because I was visible and put myself out there. I share insights from this journey and lessons learnt in this podcast. With the hope to inspire you to start your own visibility journey.

#inspiration #inspiringwomen #empowerment #hospitality #passion #stories #sharing #inspiringwomeninhospitality #learnings #experience #courage #group #podcast #global #diverse #genderbalance #learning #life #career #fulfilment #visibility #transformation #guide #mission #uplevel #coaching #leadership #feedback #share #giveback

On this episode we hear from Emma. She says hospitality was in her DNA, having travelled and moved around a lot growing up, she knew this was going to be a part of her life. She made a career for herself in marketing and PR working for various brands in different parts of the world, like IHG, Starwood, Raffles, TFE and more, before she decided to start her own business. For her business she has focused on brand strategy, and we have an interesting conversation around branding, what it means and for someone who is looking into a career in branding what they should be looking into. Her one piece of advice is when it comes to marketing, dream big. She shares a fun story of a PR stunt she did on the helipad of the Burj al Arab in Dubai. The key learning that she has taken away from her career is to be present and show up.

On this episode we hear from Monika. Growing up in South America, she came to Germany for her education, but it was her desire to learn French that brought her to France and where she has now been for 26 years. Impressive career across various hotels in France in front office roles, with some breaks in between for studies in Cornell and Essec. She is all about continuous learning and allowing yourself the time and space for new ideas. She never wanted to be a GM because she saw how the role was changing to be more focused on finances and away from the floor, where she wanted to be. She took all her skills she had gained in hospitality to open an interior design firm in Paris, which reminds us of our valuable transferable skills. We talked about the importance of empathy and how its needed to build a strong team. When we know our employees, trust them and care for them, they pay it back to us. Her firm she has now is run on the principals of trust and flexibility to allow everyone to do their best work.

On this episode we hear from Regitse. To her hospitality is like being part of a big family in a universal versatile industry. After working in operations for a couple of years, she went down the route of creating her own life and become self-employed. She is now a consultant in marketing, communications and PR as she wanted to tap into her creative side and apply it to the industry. This path was fraught with ups and down, learnings and allowing herself to fail. However she never gave up, she was fighter, ambitious and after having her son it gave her greater clarity and direction. One of her life lessons is importance of networking and that we must invest in it all throughout our career.

https://regitserosenvinge.com

On this episode we hear from Tamina. She came into hospitality because she needed money. She stayed because it also allowed her to travel and have a freelance career on the side. She left university to work on a project that converted old military bases into resorts. She has spent time in Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, and the US, as she says herself, she got around a lot. She spent a lot of time travelling solo, which she loves as she gets to meet great people this way. Throughout her career, she was freelancing as web designer, marketer, and several other skills. She put all of this to use when she decided to start her own business in tech to implement AI in hotels. With her knowledge of the hospitality industry and experience with AI, she built a service that aims to help hoteliers work through problems, like automating mundane tasks for employees.

On this episode we hear from Jennifer. She has what she calls a meandering path to hospitality. First with stops in banking and technology, before opening her own restaurant. And now she has a tech company that connects trusted talent with flexible work opportunities in the hospitality industry. Each role she went into, across the different sectors involved her convincing someone to give her a chance and she tells us how she did that. For her career she had a plan, but as she says herself life kind of laughed at her and she realised she had to let go. One exercise that she has gone back to over the years is 'perfect on paper', which is ask yourself what you want in life, go for it and do not apologise for it. The two businesses that she started was born from something she saw was missing in the space. First was the restaurant serving healthy food. Second was the tech company to provide work to top talent, especially woman who needed flexible hours and providing businesses with staff to help run their businesses.

On this episode Yvonne shares with us her journey into hospitality. From her teens she knew she wanted to be in hospitality, very much drawn to it by the architecture of the buildings. After realising that an architectural career was not for her, she decided to work in hotels. After hotel school she started working with the Capella Hotel Group in Singapore in operations and moved up thanks to the support of some great mentors. Then she went to Cornell to do a masters, which helped her get a role in development back at Capella. After a few years she went to work at a co-working start-up. Which eventually inspired her to start her own business - Relogo. They are the relocation experts and also have a booking platform for co-living accommodation. Having a child did not deter her from continuing her own start up journey. Yvonne and her co-found spent time analysing the market to understand what would be the best offering and what was missing in the market. She has been inspired by other  founders, such as from The Great Room in Singapore and Cappella Hotel Group. She credits her experiences and learnings form hospitality to help her start her business. She reminds us not to be scared of the skills we do not have, but focus on what we do and what we can bring to the table.

https://relogo.sg/

https://coliving.relogo.sg/

On this episode we hear from Khristina. She has a masters in mathematics and toxicology and was meant to do a phd in Sweden. To pay for her education she started working in hotels, and that completely changed her career path. She went onto becoming one of the youngest GM's in Ireland. She shared that in Ireland, she was surrounded by great female leaders and role models, whom she learnt a lot from. She has also had several male mentors, who have taught her how to express herself differently. Her true love lies in hospitality teach, where she is now, and she brings with her all her experience and relationship. She loves that she can still work with her friends on a daily basis. One point we both agree on is that the pandemic helped us foster better connections and build meaningful relationships. On the topic of why women struggle in the workplace, she shares some of her own struggles and believes that we collectively need to support all women along our careers.

On this episode we hear from Michelle. This recording was done 25 years to the day she started in hospitality. She originally wanted to be on stage and following an advert she found herself at a pre-opening in Mayfair and loved it. To her it was like a performance every night. Her career then took her around the world opening restaurants. Whilst she did move around across several roles, reflecting on her career path she felt sometimes she stayed too long in a role and would now tell her younger self to be more curious of what was out there or create more opportunities through networking. Life circumstances created an opportunity to set up on her own as a leadership coach for women in hospitality to tackle recruitment and retention issues in the industry. From her 25-year career her main lesson to us all is to: Listen.

Today's recording comes to you from Guatemala! And what an inspiring story that Noemi has to share of following her passion of food and through food how to make an impact in someone else's life. She went to Guatemala to work with chefs from Noma and then the virus hit the world and she decided to stay and make the most of it and opened a wild bakery popup. Which is in line with her brand wild daughter ( you can find more details here: ) a wild card to play with new ideas and concept.

You can follow her on instagram @wild.daughter and @wild_bakery_

Website: www.wild-daughter.com

On this episode we hear from Charlotte. She is the Hotel Manager at the Grand Hotel in Birmingham, and she shares with us her journey in hospitality. She loves the industry and is a great advocate for Birmingham as a destination. Her career in hospitality started organically, with both parents working in the industry and that she recognised in herself that she enjoyed the work. She says if anyone i struggling to find their feet, hospitality is a great place to explore to find out what you are meant to be doing. Added bonus is that you made some great friendships. In her 20s she applied for the Acorn Scholarship and in her application, she said she was going to be a strong female general manager and through some ups and downs, 12 years later she is a strong female leader. And now she is paving the way for future female leaders. One of her learnings she shared is that when you look after your people, the profit will look after itself.

On this episode we hear from Bharti. She started her career as an accountant. She had her first experience with hospitality when she joined the finance team with Jamie Oliver and she never looked back. Any future opportunities that were presented to her had to always be in hospitality. She worked in several companies and made it to CFO level. During COVID she took the opportunity to realise her dream of having her own business in hospitality and in September 2020 she opened her first Bloomsyard cafe and by 2022 she had three sights. It was through her networking in her career that she got to know suppliers and landlords, who were prepared to give her the opportunity to realise her vision. She trained to be a barista herself and sends all her team members on trainings as well. She has found the flexibility in life through running her own business, which she did not have when working a corporate role and found that she had mores time in fact. And we both agreed, that making mistakes is part of the journey and that we learn from them.

https://www.bloomsyard.com/

On this episode we hear from Rowena. Shared love of data and understanding the reason why people make decisions inspired me to join me on the podcast. The choices people make are abundant with emotional experiences. She studied astrophysics in university and its her passion for people and psychology that helped co-found her business Starcount. We discussed the important of using data at scale to understand the customer and make strategic business decisions from them. One of the greatest skills you can have in the world of data is to be able to communicate and tell the story behind the data, a skill she learnt that she had. Hospitality business is a people business and a lot of emotions are involved when making decisions. Through Starcount hospitality businesses can understand the reasons why people choose to spend time with them, time being a precious commodity.

https://www.starcount.com/

On this episode we hear from Kim. Born and raised in New York, with a French parent, which explains her energy and what she brings to the table. She is a leadership coach and teacher, teaching hospitality professionals to create sustainable careers. From a young age she was immersed in hospitality and grew up wanting to have her own restaurant. She studies in the French school system all her life and she shares that she experienced quite the culture shock when she went to university in Boston. Her passion for hospitality comes from loving the dance of service. She started her working career in New York and spent most of her time there, with a brief nine-month stint in Miami. She talks about how running became a big part of her life, both for physical and mental fitness and it eventually became a thread throughout her career. What she realised during her experiences is her ability to create a sense of calm, in a chaotic environment, like opening restaurants. After her last restaurant opening during the pandemic, giving it her all, she was inspired to start her own business to help others with the skill sets she had.

On this episode we hear from Cidalia. She introduces herself as Portuguese and passionate about hospitality. She talks about hospitality as selling dreams, not the hotel room. Having started in hospitality 20 years ago, she shares with us how she got started in revenue management when it first came to Portugal. This career has taken her from her home town of Porto, Geneva, Paris, London, Hong Kong and now Copenhagen. When asked how she moved around so much, she said it was in two ways. First was through head-hunters and second through recommendations. So that means networking and staying open to opportunities. We talked about leadership and to her it’s about being authentic, having a learning mindset and shining the spotlight on your team. The one learning that she has to part to us is 'trust yourself', you know yourself better than anyone else. And at the end she shares that her inspirations are her nieces, Polar Preet and Courtney Dauwalter.

On this episode we hear from Kathy. She started her career in hospitality as a chef in New York. She then moved to front of house, where being a bar tender helped her overcome her shyness. She shares some great stories from her time in New York working with chefs and guests and creating memorable moments. During a career break she discovered coaching, which then moved her to the other side of the US and beginng a new chapter as a career coach. She started @ladiesagainstthegrain to help women in hospitality focus on their careers and the career of their choice. It was so refreshing to hear her take on career, where you start with yourself first, understand your own values first before starting the job search. We spend so many hours as our place of work, its important that we give it the right amount of attention and be intentional about our career choices.

Instagram @ladiesagainstthegrain

On this episode we hear from Emma in Singapore.She realised in her teens that she wanted to work in hospitality. It was during her time at hotel school in Lausanne, that she realised that there are more career paths available to you other than operations. We agreed that in hospitality you can have a variety of different career paths open up to you. After graduating she started a role in sales and marketing, as she wanted to understand how to bring the business into the hotels, what are the various channels and sources of business. She then had an opportunity in revenue management to learn more about the data and financial side to the hotel business. She then took her sales, marketing and revenue experience and transferred that into a consulting role. Where she applied her operational knowledge to financial projections. She has always worked in a pre-dominantly female led team and has had many mentors and allies that have helped her and encourages her to pursue her career. She does feel things are changing within the industry for more senior female representation and hope that it will continue. One of her learnings throughout her career has been that she is curious and always asking questions to help understand the why. An invaluable skillset to have.

On this episode we hear from Komal. She first became a tour guide at the age of 19, in India, where it was very uncommon for women to be tour guides. So, in many ways she was a trail blazer in her field. From the beginning of her career, she was determined to have greater diversity in her teams and at one point she had a 60% female team. In 2020, covid was the catalyst to take her drive and purpose to start her own business. She shares with us the challenges she faced in the past ten years, especially when it came to breaking stereotypes and safety. She is happy to see the progress that’s been made in the past years and that is primarily all the work she has done in talking about the industry. And when it comes to hiring, not only do you talk to the candidates you also have the convince the family in India. It’s a family affair. Even when it comes to travelling, women are expected to travel either with their family or their husbands. She shares with us how she came up with the name of her company, sitting on the banks of the Ganges. Women for world, owned by women but open to everyone.

On this episode we hear from Gunjan. Inspired by the history and culture of Rajasthan, she came into hospitality and tourism. She focused her career in sales and worked at several of the resort hotels in Jaipur, before moving to New Delhi. First time she was away from home, but she was in for a bigger shock a few years later when she not only moved countries but continents. She initially struggled when she arrived in Canada to find a job. What she missed the most was her financial independence. While she had to take a step back to restart her career, she realised it was the best thing that happened. But Gunjan, as you will hear in this episode was determined and ambition and she shares how she grew in her career to now a VP position within Wyndham. She also loves the coffee culture downtown Toronto lifestyle and grateful to be an immigrant success story.

On this episode we hear from Ike. Like myself, it was her Dad who encouraged her to follow a hospitality career. She chose to go down the F&B path and that eventually got her a role as project manager for 15 F&B outlets for the hotel that she was working for. At the time she knew nothing about F&B concepts and she was really thrown into the deep end. She was open and honest about her experiences, she took one day at a time, she asked the silly questions, cause she would rather look like an idiot for a day, rather than a lifetime and with strong work ethics she was successful. She eventually took on a bigger project of an entire hotel construction. One of her disciplines was when she was working, she was working and didn't mess around, however when she was 'off the clock' she was not contactable. Whilst her colleagues may have been frustrated with her at times, she took her personal time very seriously. She recognised that she needed the rest to perform at her best. During covid she pivoted and now set up her own business in 3D printing to enable local manufactures in Indonesia, where she is from, meet their supply chain requirements more efficiently.

On this episode we hear from Viona. She has been an independent thinker and making decisions for her life since the age of 9, when her parents sent her to boarding school. Her Dad would give her a budget for clothes, and she would shop for herself. At the age of 17 she was already asking herself why she was on this earth, but it’s this thinking that made her realise that she wanted to explore the world and brought her to hospitality. Her first internship was at Disneyland Paris and six internships later she knew she wanted to go into consulting. Which she did for five years in hospitality real estate. She is now the co-founder of Saijai based out of Bangkok bringing work to the informal workers who are not protected by social benefits, as is very common in Asia. She is driven by purpose and impact, and not just money and climbing the corporate ladder. Throughout the conversation she shares some great insights from her life experiences e.g. self-love comes constant reflection, we have our greatest learnings from failure, questioning whether we are doing things we want to or just because society says and so much more. I think we could have carried on for a long time. One final thought from Viona I will share is to view life like a river.

https://saijai.io/en

Chiara shares her journey to co-founding Heroomies. A platform designed for women to help them find their ideal accommodation. Putting 'Her' front and centre of the design of the platform and what her requirements may be, finding someplace safe and with a community of like minded women. She started her hospitality journey in events in Dubai, running festivals, building communities. She then took the time out during Covid to really reflect on what she wanted to do. Heroomies was born out of a personal experience that she had when trying to find accommodation in Barcelona. I wish something like Heroomies had existed when I first moved to London We also discussed how its so important to take care of your mental health and look after yourself. Focus on the things that you are passionate about.

https://herroomies.com/en/

On this episode we hear from Stephanie. It was french toast in New York city and Home Alone 2 that got her hooked into hospitality. From a young age she loved to travel and so she started working to be able to make the money to travel. This theme carried on in her career, she chose destinations based on where she could learn a language, learn culture or work for organisations she admired. She ended up moving across to seven countries during her 20 year career thus far. Even though she is not a risk taker, she shares with us two experiences when she took the risk to leave jobs without having a new one lined up. She did this knowing two things, in hospitality you will always find a job and second, she believed in herself.

On this episode we hear from April. She opened her first restaurant after being a participant on the show The Apprentice, with zero restaurant experience. But it was her time on the show and media that ensured thta her restaurant was full when she opened. Prior to having her own restaurant she ran events in Jamaica. Covid gave her and her partner the time to rethink their concept, so they rebranded and opened as Wood and Water, modern english cuisine with Jamaican soul. April is using her voice and her position to elevate the perception of Jamaican food, cause its not all just jerk chicken. Some of the things she has learned is that she doesn't have to be a perfectionist, 70% will do just fine too and just giving yourself some downtime does not mean you are not being productive.

https://woodandwater.uk/

On this episode we hear from Valerie. She defines herself as an entrepreneur. She started her first business in import export, after selling it, she went into politics. She left politics to start her own business, start up and think tanks at the age of 59. Never let age be a barrier to what you are capable of. She was inspired to be an entrepreneur because if she saw something was wrong, she knew she had to be the one to fix it rather than wait for someone else to do it. She is the founder of the 'She Travel Club' which is a label that certifies hotels that tailor to the needs of the female traveller. The criteria set by the label are based on regular survey from their 5000 strong member base and as women make up 64% of the global travellers, it's time to take notice and make changes. The hospitality industry has been very receptive to this initiative and are grateful for the information. Valerie noticed, as a newcomer to the hospitality industry that we are still lacking several women in c-suite positions and other industries are starting to catch up. All the research shows that when you have diversity of thought at your senior team, the business is more successful.

https://www.shetravelclub.com/

I love their brand statement: "We make hospitality better for women."

On this episode we hear from Catherine. She started her career as a business journalist, and she was drawn towards travel and hospitality after she moved in Thailand and immersing herself in each destination. She then joined Quo, a creative branding agency and her career just grew organically from content to now Chief Branding Officer. She shares with us her journey, which grew alongside the company's growth. We spent some time talking about branding and what it means, and how its plays a role in so many areas. Not only the external branding for clients, but internal to attract top talent and your own personal brand that will assist you with your career progression. One of the hurdles that Catherine had to overcome was public speaking. As her role grew she was asked to present to clients and she had to build her courage and confidence to do so. What she found was once she did it, the clients were response and she was not so bad afterall. With the support and push from her mentor and CEO of Quo, she has now been presenting on larger stages in conferences and in doing increasing female representation at these events, which while improving is still male dominated. We ended the conversation with admiration for her team, her leadership style and pride in the development of team members ability to shine.

https://www.quo-global.com/about/

On this episode we hear from Viviana. She started her education as bio-chemist, but realised that she did not want a career in it as much as she loved science. She found hospitality at a career fair and she found her place. After taking a year out to go backpacking across Europe, she came back to the US to work on front desk and then had several roles in HR. She went on to do a masters degree, because she was looking for a career change and after what she thought was her dream job with Four Seasons covid hit. During her masters she also participated in SheHasADeal competition, that exposed her to Tracy and eventually a role with that organisation. She has ambition of owning her own hotel someday and inspiring other women to do the same. Throughout her life she has had her support systems in place, that she took time to build, but have proved invaluable throughout her life.

On this episode we hear from Khun Lak. Being a diplomat's daughter meant that the first 25 years of her life she was constantly moving around the world but coming back to Thailand in between. She has lived what she calls a blended life- western efficiency with Thai smile and warmth. When she became a single mother, she returned to Thailand and made a commitment to her family for a good life. So, she decided to start her own business in manufacturing crystals. Then she went into education and opened an international pre-school. She was not done yet; on property she inherited in Hua Hin she opened a boutique hotel. She did not have any experience in any of these industries, but it did not deter her. She researched, learnt, asked questions, networked and most importantly she had belief in herself that she could do it.

🎙 Yesterday I streamed my first live podcast episode of @inspiring women in hospitality. This was a new experience for me and I enjoyed it! Gave me some new ideas for content in 2025! :)

🤩 The purpose of this live stream was to offer 3 ways to transform your 2025. To offer inspiration on how to engage with the Inspire Community next year.

On this special episode I shared what you will gain across the three membership levels that I have introduced for 2025:

🏔 Grow your professional network and learn about the topics that impact women in the workplace

🏔 Develop your professional brand (I am rebranding personal brand)

🏔 Take the next step in your leadership journey by identifying what habits are holding you back

And as I am also looking to constantly develop myself, here is what I learnt about myself from this new experience:

🍁 Stop saying 'you know'

🍁 Prepare a stronger closing

🙋‍♀️ Apply today to be part of the Q12025 cohort of the Inspire Community: subscribepage.io/myqu3v

🙏 As this will be my last podcast episode for 2024 I would like to end with gratitude to say thank you to everyone who has been part of my journey this year.

On this episode we hear from Jane Mack. A holiday-let coach and consultant, where she is sharing her knowledge of 10 years of her own experience of running a holiday let business. She always worked in hospitality throughout her school and uni years. She went onto study hospitality management with the vision to run and manager a big five-star hotels, but after her placement year in a boutique hotel she shifted her focus. Then while trying out different experiences and roles, she discovered HR, which is where she went onto develop her career. She was made redundant during her maternity and when an opportunity arose for her and her husband to buy a holiday-let business, they went for it. Being unfamiliar with the holiday let industry, I asked her to share her experiences and what changes she has seen during her time. Another point she raised was a motivation behind running her own business was to be a mother who was present for her kids’ school activities, whilst it was not an easy juggling act, she found a way to make it work.

On this episode we hear from Caroline Zwierz. She shared her career journey that started in auditing and then took her to revenue management, both underpinned by her capabilities in numbers. She shared her experiences of managing a team in India and Hong Kong, at separate points of her career and her role of giving guidance, direction and offering a different perspective. Whilst she worked in many different parts of the world, in a mostly an english environment, albeit being French, she struggled to adjust to the French working culture when she returned home. We also discussed how to incorporate networking in your life and its not just for when you want something, but something to keep active throughout your career in an authentic manner. The one learning she shared was that anyone can have more than one professional life in their lives, its about asking yourself what makes you happy and going after that.

Anne shared her journey into hospitality that started by reading books by Agathie Christie. It was either going to be a career criminal or a travel career, I am very happy to say that she chose the latter. She has worked with some great brands such as Regent, Mondrian and Four Seasons, where she spent over 20 years and is now working with a independent Thai hotel owner with two properties. Her family and friends have helped steady her and give her perspective. On one occasion steering her towards making a career decision that aligned with her values and commitments which was ready to give up for her dream job. Her colleagues in Thailand have said that 'Khun Anne, you think too loud' and although she was timid as a child, her life experiences taught her to speak up and use her voice.

On this episode we hear from Rachael. She was born and raised in hospitality and her very first job was an ice cream scooper. It was when she moved to New York City where she learnt about the world of hospitality and work at every possible food and beverage service type that you could find in the city, from tourist traps to fine dining. Throughout her working career, she found the only way she could grow was to leave her current job and find another one. After several years, she was burn out and took some time out, learnt to teach English as a second language and that somehow drew her back to hospitality, but with her own business this time. After five years, this transitioned into her second business, Opus, a training software for frontline employees. When it comes to gender changes in the workplace, she raised an interesting point on greater pay transparency.

On this episode we hear from Lue. We start the conversation by talking about the 'art of hospitality' which remains a theme throughout the recording. She has a near 20 year experience at TGIFridays where she worked her way up and through various roles to head of people and culture, which is where she honed her skills in culture in organisations and leadership training. She always had a keen interest in languages (she speaks 8 languages) which helped her get a role in the international side of the business and got her travelling and living in several countries around the world. During the pandemic she started her own consultancy that helps businesses with culture, wtih hospitality being the core theme that runs throughout her work. In her words "Culture is the glue that holds humanity together, hospitality is the ultimate example of it". Let's all help her in securing the anthem for hospitality ' Maybe there is a place that feels good' - who knows Harry Styles?

On this episode we hear from Tely. Born and raised in Mexico, she moved to the US as single mother of two in 2001, where whilst learning the language educated herself to get her real estate licence. With her husband Jim, they bought the Drake Oak Brook hotel in 2013 and from there began her career in hospitality. As you will hear through her story, Tely was always meant to be an entrepreneur, which takes courage and a lot of self-motivation and something she inherited from her family. She has always had the support of her children throughout her journey as she followed her entrepreneurial pursuits and put in the long hours to be successful. She shares one of her core leadership principals is that service is love. Showing their team appreciation, recognition and love and this in turns mean they are showing their customer the best service, anchored in love and appreciation. And if you are ever fortunate enough to have Tely as your mentor, be prepared to answer this question: What do you really love to do in this life?

Coming....On this episode we hear from Kerry. Growing up her family moved and travel around a lot, which exposed her to various cultures and taught her to adapt and learn what makes people tick. After working a couple of years in operations, she moved into sales at property level before moving onto above-property positions, which then eventually led her to her commercial role that she oversees today. When it comes to growing your career Kerry says that you must show willingness and also be vocal about what it is that you want. She also talks about building relationship with people within your organisation and identify those supporters who will speak up for you, even when you are not in the room. She also shares her thoughts with how she notices that women often tend to start with 'I am sorry' and sadly it’s an overused word by women in the business. She also shares with us her journey and the mindset she had to position herself for the chief commercial role. And she says it best - ultimately it’s a fun business to be in.

On this episode we hear from Chef Ahu. Originally from Turkey, but now runs a restaurant in Hawaii. She shares with us her journey to becoming a restaurant owner. She first came to the US for her education and unfortunately, she faced several immigration challenges, which led her down a path of depression. It was her mother and her home cooking that revived her, and then inspire her to open a restaurant. I love how she describes food as being the connection to her heritage. I have always believed the best way to know a culture is through the food. After testing the market with at a farmer's market, together with her family and a bank loan, they put all their investments into opening a restaurant. Now when she looks back on her period of suffering, she looks at it with gratitude, as it got her to where she is today. When it comes to confidence and belief in herself, which she believes to be the secret recipe of her success, she says the most valuable ingredient is time.

On this episode we hear from Saloni. Founder of Paras Corporation which is a PR agency specialising in hospitality and travel sector. When she started, she identified a gap in the market and has continued to grow the business from there and now has two physical offices in India and in Dubai. She describes her work as promoting the soul of the property. We went onto having a great conversation about women in leadership and as entrepreneurs in India. The topic of balance came up, but not in the way we normally speak about. It is actually the balance of culture and tradition, and how women are born to wear multiple hats. We also discussed the evolving Indian traveller who are now looking for the non-conventional travel destinations, one that is worth taking note of.

On this episode we hear from Claire. Her journey to finding hospitality was by process of elimination. By trying everything - working construction, on a boat, english teacher, pubs, etc. She then did her MBA in hospitality and went into asset management and investment. It was her attitude and not her lack of 'traditional' hotel experience that helped land her first role after graduation. We talked about her time in Vietnam as an english teacher taught her to 'feel the fear and do it anyways' a quote that she still gains experience today. We both shared our experiences of how this fear grips us and the gremlin often tells us to shut up. But it is working through this fear, where the good stuff lies at the other end. It is about creating new neural pathways until it becomes natural. Technical skills vs Interpersonal skills - which do you need to grow your career? What qualities do leaders have? For Claire, everyone inspires her in different ways.

On this episode we hear from Shell. Her family, of Italian heritage has always been in hospitality, working for the royal families, and now she is the chosen one of her generation to carry on the tradition. She has worked at some incredible hosptialtiy businesses in the UK and shares with us her learnings. She shares with us what the industry can do to encourage more to come into the industry and stay, which is mostly around taking care of your employees and what managers can do to support their team. Losing team members is a high cost to any business, the constant change with changing team members takes an incredible amount of time and energy from everyone. When you take care of your team you take care of your industry. Through her career she felt she had to emulate a more masculine energy, its only later she learnt the benefits of being true to herself. We had an honest conversation about the impact of alcohol and drugs in our industry and her own challenges with addiction. She has recently started her own podcast to have more meaningful conversations around mental health in our industry.

Link to her podcast, 'We recover loudly': https://open.spotify.com/show/24OFDBpIuItcOScVuGUDqg?si=229a9201baf848e2

On this episode we hear from Katherine. She likes long walks in the country and the hospitality industry. Its full of good and welcoming people. She originally started in the music industry but realised that it wasn’t good to combine your hobby with your work. She worked as a paparazzi at one point, to help fund her education. She then found herself in the hospitality industry and stayed. She has seen a lot of changes during her career, rise of the brands, hotels being seen as a viable asset class, lease back, etc and now she is interested to see if hotels could become a consumer brand and not just a brand for the owner. If you are considering becoming a journalist Katherine's advice is to go to a well-known university with a broad network and just do the work. She was very shy when she was a child and so networking did not come easy to her. She has developed the confidence over time by until it becomes natural to you. She now has her own business with Emily Newman, where they offer PR services to the B2B hotel investment sector.

https://newdogpr.co.uk/

On this episode we hear form Bianca. Whilst she was not traditionally academic, she loved talking to people and that made her a great candidate for hospitality. Her career in the industry started as a door girl at a night club in Brisbane and has taken her to Sydney, London and back. Her early career developed into a pattern of opening venues across various locations. Her second career has led her to recruitment and talent management. One difference she pointed out of people working in hospitality in Sydney vs London, was that in London it was a long-term career, not something one does just part time through uni. She shared the challenges that she faced being a woman in a male dominated hospitality industry was 'using her voice' and battling imposter syndrome. In terms of her own leadership style, I love how she describes as leading with compassion and bringing people up with you. It was after having children, she had to refocus her career which then drew her to recruitment, and which ended up being everything that she loved in terms of building teams and finding great talent. Also, we have another great example of hospitality husband who encouraged her to take the lead in her career.

On this episode we hear from Alison. She got sucked in both into hospitality and London. She went to Cornell to study hotel management, came to London after graduating and basically never left. She was fascinated by the multi-cultural people that are drawn into this industry. She started with IHG, few years with consulting before joining ownership group Archer Hotel Capital, where she has been 16 years now. And this might have come to pass had her boss at the time not shown her some flexibility when she felt she needed to take a step back after having children. This is the positive kind of examples I hope to see more of across our industry. Throughout the rest of her career, she adjusted her role not only based on her personal circumstances but also with the cycles of the industry. We both agreed that a lot of our learnings come from time and experience, and we just must go through them.

On this episode we hear from Sherry. She starts her story by sharing that she grew up on a farm in Iowa and how inspired she was by her mother who started a catering business on the side. She started her career in hotels working in the corporate office of Hilton and Intercontinental. Then went on to start a business intelligence company with her husband, which they have just sold 29 years later. Now she is advocating to encourage more women into STEM. A theme that you will hear throughout her story is the people she met and the friends that she made around the world that kept her in hospitality. And now with a group of friends they make an annual trip together. She shares with us what motivated her to start her own business, and how the company evolved over the years and what strategy they applied. Growing the business globally and running a business with your partner. For her own career growths, she calls out some of the women who have supported her growth and sometimes they created roles together. One thing that she hopes for women to do is to acknowledge their accomplishments, and I could not agree more.

On this episode we hear from Sandunie. She has taken her love of travel, hospitality, ocean conversation to find herself a career in sustainable tourism. From Sri Lanka, she knows first-hand the importance tourism has on a country's economy and the risk we can face on the environment with over tourism. One of the values that guide her is to have diversity and to have an interdisciplinary mindset towards sustainability. She is new to the hospitality industry and one thing that she noticed immediately was the lack of diversity in senior roles across the sector. We all need to do our bit by acknowledging it and by speaking up. Whenever she finds a new topic that interests her, she immerses herself into it, attending events, webinar etc and not being afraid to "cold call" ie reaching out to experts in their field and asking for their time and insights.

On this episode we hear from Ambika. She wanted to be a chef, but then realised she did not want to work those hours in the kitchen and transitioned into a career in broader hospitality through education, which was always important in her family. After a few years in operations, she then went into development and then consulting. She is now running her own business in Canada as hotel real estate consultant. She helps her clients to look at hotels as a real estate business, not only from an investment perspective but also operationally. Every holiday for her is like a site visit, where she drags her husband with her to check out the construction. She has had some great male mentors who taught her differnet aspects of the job along the way from hotels, real estate and finance. We discussed how there is still a lack of women in the real estate sector, which is especially visible when she goes to conferences and there is ver low representation from women in the sector.

On this episode we hear from Ashleigh. She is the co-founder of Halo Business Consulting, and they work with the hospitality industry to drive guest loyalty and guest retention. She started in hospitality at a young age and found it to be character building for her, developing social skills and dealing with conflict. It was during her management trainee program that she found her passion in marketing, especially at a time when marketing was going digital. Over her career Ashleigh has moved roles, companies and countries before starting her own business. When asked what inspired her moves she says that when she was younger she was more of a risk-taker. Now she applies visualisation when thinkings about her business and how they want to take it forward. One of which includes to committing to donating 1% of profits to charity every year. One of her key learnings that she shared was to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

https://www.gohalo.co.uk/

A super conversation, talking about building standards, hotels wanting to be more environmenatally conscious, to being brave. Samantha has a background in public health and environmental science and she is bringing her knowledge to the hospitality industry to help support them in their environmental and sustainability efforts. And we went on to talk about a variety of topics from women and their collective empathy, importance of sleep, how one economics class makes you more likely to cheat etc

On this episode we hear from Nosipho. For her it was fate that brought her to hospitality. She got her start in her career at Disney where she learnt the magic of customer service Upon returning to South Africa, she became assistant GM at a local hotel, but her path was set on going into learning development. It was her earlier experiences that prepared her for this career and a way for her to give back to the industry. We discussed how hospitality is an industry where you can have a career through your work experience or by going into hospitality education. She is there to develop anyone at any stage of their career. Working closely with teams, heads of departments and individuals to identify future talent and put together development plans. What hospitality has taught her is that she can handle any high pressure situation and survive it. Last year she was nominated for the Pyne Rising Star Award and its great to see this recognition for her.

On this episode we hear from Selin. She credits studying in an international school while she was growing up as a path to hospitality, due to the multi-cultural environment. She shares how coming 'home' to Thailand was a reverse culture shock after having lived and worked abroad. Her career in hospitality, started in Chicago and then spent six years in the Middle East, where she held roles in sales and business development. And of all her experiences in hospitality it was in sales that she found her energy, also influenced by her mother's career in sales. She found several role models who inspired her, and she took action to identify key people that she admired and asked them for mentorship, so she could learn and grow. She trusts her intuition to guide her when making decisions for her career. And when it comes to making choices for her career, she chooses the boss over the job. Who is the person who is going to help her grow and she can learn from.

On this episode we hear from Linda. Travelling with her Dad from a young age exposed her to the hospitality world. The crazy shifts of her early career didn't scare her away but she had the vision to be working in sales and be the lady travelling with the suitcase and the high heels. Which she did go on to achieve and now she has her own representation company, assisting hotel companies with their sales. She is thankful to have have mentors and the proper training when she first started out, however she does regret not making the most of her travels. We are always so busy moving from one appointment to the next, that we often fail to take a moment to stop and appreciate where we are and get to know where we are. Hoping pandemic has helped change this mindset for many.

On this episode we hear from Samira. She helps places and brands with development, community engagement, strategy and marketing while travelling full time for the past 8 years. She started her career in tourism and hospitality at an early age, working in hotels to earn money that allowed her to travel. She realised early on in her career that she liked marketing, and after graduating she worked in agencies in both Singapore and Stockholm, before starting her own business. Which came about when she had this sense that something was missing in her life, even though she had everything. She decided to choose a life of freedom, become location independent by starting her own business and helping her clients with their marketing and strategy. She calls it living a life where you feel that you are aligned with who you are. And you do this by spending time on understanding what matters to you.

On this episode we hear from Erika. She was determined to come into hospitality, driven by a desire to travel, no matter what obstacles the universe threw at her. Her early career years in London were most in events and sales and then she made a move towards hospitality technology and did not look back. She feels that still today there is a disconnect between hotels and technology companies and more needs to be done to bridge the gap. Two important learnings she shared with us. First be ready to speak up and ask for what you want. Just working hard and delivering good results will not get you noticed or get you that promotion you want. You have to express what you want from your career. Second is not to judge others by your own standards. Everyone has their own life experiences that makes them unique and bring their own perspectives with them.

On this episode we hear from Caroline. What an impressive career and its good thing she answered that phone call every time it rang, as you will hear that it’s a running theme throughout her career. She once wanted to be an air traffic controller, but her first role in hospitality was as a cocktail waitress and she shares her career journey in HR that took her to Chief People Officer at Minor International. She has worked in Australia, Dubai and most recently in Bangkok, before taking a sabbatical. Why she chose to follow her career in HR was the ability to change people's lives that inspired her. 'People, power, profit' is the magic formula to make any organisation soar. Two gender differences she has noticed in her career is that men network better than women, and men also negotiate better than woman. Actually, men negotiate, women do not do it at all. How do we work together to change this?

Laura shared how she translated her love of hosting into her professional life by focusing on a career in hospitality. Joining her husband in their landscape business means that she is still taking care of the people around her with plants and greenery, which is ever so important in our lives. As she made her transition, she went through a period of imposter syndrome, which she then overcome by recognising that being the 'newbie' has its advantages as well. She enjoys being a full time entrepreneur, as she has always had that independent mindset.

website: https://www.clgardening.co.uk

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clgardeningco/

My favourite on their instagram account is their nursery visit with Frankie :)

On this episode we hear from Apichaya. Her love of backpacking led her to open her own hostel in Koh Tao. She loved the community, the people and identified a gap for a nice hostel in Koh Tao and with the support of her family she just went for it. Along her travels she would always ask to speak to the managers to learn more about the operations and the rest she learnt along the way. After two years of operations, she decided to do her masters in hospitality and when she returned to Thailand, she took on corporate roles, first in HVS and then JLL. During the time she was away, she had a great team and manager to run the operations. Her advice to everyone is to do one solo trip in your life, you learn so much about yourself and how big the world is. She herself learnt to be a lot more independent. Together with her friend she has learnt that there is no such thing as something bad happening to you. #anotherdayanothertradegy It does not have to ruin your day, but can become a funny story to share.

On this episode we hear from Bettina. She just knew that she was meant to be in hospitality, no question about it. She was also very single minded about going to hotel school in Lausanne. She shares her career journey that started in operations, some time in London before moving into consulting in the search of more "normal" working hours. Then returning home to Switzerland she joined PWC for 8 years. After which she took a sabbatical, spent some time with Migros before starting her own consultancy with her business partner. Some of the learnings she has shared were about learning to trust the process, not put too much pressure on herself and have a better balance between achieving and kindness to herself.

On this episode we hear from Alexandra. She is the founder of Velvenoir, an international art consultancy which she started 10 years ago specialising in private and hospitality collections. She started her career in hospitality in London and worked across several properties. It was during this time she realised that she was always inspired by art. She pursued further studies in Sydney while working at the same time, she noticed as I did, that women are more empowered there. When she returned to Austria, she decided to follow her dream of starting her own business as an art consultant, she started with getting to know the artists, networking with different business until she started landing projects with hotels. Latest project she has worked on was the Mandarin Oriental, which has 90% female artists works on display now. From her career learnings she says that do not let the business/company become your identity.

Link to her website: https://velvenoir.com/

On this episode we hear from Celine. She has been an inspiration to me from the moment I met her. When it came to networking, she worked the room like a pro. When I complimented her on this, it turns out it's the thing she likes the least. She shares how she finds the motivation to network. Her journey into hospitality started with an interest in tourism and how it can help the economy of a destination. She went into consulting, then a stint in STR with me, then in development and hotel operations for pre-openings. She has now started her own consultant focusing on wellness and sustainability. It is her interest in constant learning and asking questions, that helped expand her knowledge and experience. One of her biggest learnings has been that no matter the situation, it is so important to stay true to yourself and not give up on your values. Even when it comes to dressing, ditch the black suit if it is not your style. And did i mention she managed to have her career while being a single mom. She says she is inspired by her daughter, but I think it is her daughter, myself and others who are inspired by Celine.

https://www.wei-think.com

On this episode we hear from Fiona. We both agreed that the travelling we did in our early years helped us to be adaptable and she is now doing the same with her children. They live between Berlin, South Africa, and Italy. She has had a varied career journey across various industries and countries, but she always came back to wine. Wine being in her family for three generations and now she is running the Saxenburg Wine Estate. We talked about what is like to be a woman in wine and how its slowly starting to change. She also shared while her branding and messaging stays on point, her packaging will change in different parts of the world. Which is also something she learnt from her previous career experiences. No matter what we do in life, we are learning, and we take that with us forward.

https://saxenburg.co.za/

On this episode we hear from Lucie. She knew from the age of 15 that she wanted to be in hospitality and tourism. An Erasmus in Barcelona meant that she never wanted to return to the Czech Republic and has been on the move ever since across three continents. Lucie knows herself well and describes herself as someone who never likes to stay still. With the help of a very supportive partner, she has been able to change jobs and move countries every few years when she knew it was time for her next challenge. She is very creative, likes asking questions, coming up with new ideas and solutions. She also shared with us her journey and learnings to becoming a leader, being a team players and letting your team shine.

On this episode we hear from Michelle. She shares with us her incredible journey in hospitality, from working in operations to starting her own business. She started her business, not only because she had a horrific interview, but also because she was looking for flexibility and to choose the kind of life she wanted to live and deserved. She did this during a time well before zoom and social media and worked hard to become and incredible role model for her children. She believes in intentional leadership, and she brings this heart centred approach to her training and business. She loves research and set up her own software and focuses on multi-generational data. We have four generations in the workforce and six generations as customers. Michelle shares how these various groups have been impacted by life and how they behave both in the workplace and as customers. Our shared interested in women in hospitality we discussed what was needed to close the leadership gap and how we can support one another on this journey.

https://www.michellepascoe.com/

On this episode we hear from Fatima. A queer mixed race migrant chef and sustainability & diversity champion. Before she became a chef, we was an occupational therapist with the NHS and it was her love of cooking that she later turned into a career. Before she made it a career, cooking has always been a big part of life, from helping her with her depression to working with her patients in the kitchen during her time at the NHS. She is also a champion of fermentation and zero waste in our personal and professional lives. She has produced two cookbooks one called 'Kitchen Cultures' and the other 'Kinspiration' where she explores how different cultures, stories, people influence our food and with a focus on waste minimisation. She shares a lot of personal experiences that gives us a real insight into her life.

@foodventures_with_fatti

On this episode Cyndy shares with us her experiences from hospitality. For her going into hospitality was like a vocation, a calling, she just knew she wanted to be in this industry. And it was also a way to make a name for herself, outside of the family who were in construction. Started her career in Cebu in sales and moved around a lot to various properties in various positions. Every time she moved to a new hotel, she would reach out to all her clients personally with handwritten postcards to inform them of her move. The art of building your network and contacts before Linkedin. She then decided to start a business with her brother in consulting for hotels and also developing hotels within the Philippines. With his background in construction and hers in hospitality they made a great team. Cyndy always recognised the importance of learning about your clients, your markets, speaking to the local, building relationships and understanding the wider economic implications and how it may affect the development of hotels. Alongside her hotels career, Cyndy had a passion to support women's health in the Philippines and is part of several non-profits. During the pandemic she started a support group for hotel owners in the Phillpines with an effort to focus on sustainable practises. She is constantly learning, evolving and changing the work that she does. At the same time recognising that change doesnt happen overnight and if you want change to happen, you need to be the one to plant that seed.

Juriana shared her journey and career in hospitality. Having always worked in hotels and restaurants from a young age she knew she didn't want a desk job, however her parents wanted to ensure she got a good business degree as well and thats how she ended up in Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne. After graduating her first role took her to Miami where she learnt how not to handle a crisis, this was around 2008/9 and then she moved to Malaysia where she learnt the better way of handing a crisis is through transparency and honesty. She shared the importance of knowing your values and that it lines with the company that you are working with. And more than just the company, you have to be aligned with the people you are working with, rather than just the company. My favourite part of her story was that from the very beginning she always made it a point to have lunch with different people everyday to get to know them and learn their jobs. She is the kind of leader that we should all aspire to be like. She kept a flexible and open approach to her career development that led her to work across four different continents. She reminded me the importance of our own inspiration and how we inspire others around us.

On this episode we hear from Sue. With a passion for hospitality, during her career she at one point spent 29 years with Marriott. She then moved over to the convention centre industry where she applied her hospitality experience. And then she went onto start her own business consulting with hospitality professionals to help modernise, streamline, identify more streams of revenue and improve the guest experience. She has an employee first approach, which I can get on board with. Take care of your staff first, and they will deliver a great customer experience. She shares that by stepping up and working at a higher level, allowed her to be viewed as a leader, at a time was a mostly male dominated environment. There were also moments in her career that she did not always grow vertically, she also chose strategic horizontal moves. She has a wealth of knowledge to share from her experience and would love to connect with other female leaders in the industry, please do not hesitate to reach out to her.

On this episode we hear from Cindy. She always knew that she wanted to work in the aviation industry and one of her dream roles was to be a flight attendant. Shortly after starting her career, she also began training and this is where her love of learning and development started. 10 years into her career she moved back to Belgium for her kid’s education. That only lasted a year and then they came back with the family to Hong Kong, which is the place that has her heart. She has worked for some very big commercial airlines throughout her career and now she is in the private jet industry. Besides her day job on the weekends, she conducts butler and etiquette trainings at universities and for young people. This has also expanded to business etiquette training from meet and greets to public speaking. Two learnings that she shares is that of resilience and to take every opportunity with both hands.

Time for Naureen to put herself in the spotlight.

This new segment from the podcast Naureen will be sharing from her life experiences and learning, to inspire you to take action, as your 'Inspiring Activator'

Today she is talking about feeling unfulfilled. Something she keenly felt several years ago. She talks about what was happening for her then and what she did next. How she carved her own path to find her fulfillment.

It was not always easy and the journey will be different for all, but she hopes that you will be inspired by her story and be inspired to take action.

Link to TedTalk on the power of visualisation: https://www.ted.com/talks/ashanti_johnson_the_power_of_visualization?subtitle=en&geo=fr

Link to Naureen's website:

https://www.inspiringwomeninhospitality.com/

To book your 1-2-1 free session with Naureen, contact her on hello@inspiringwomeninhospitality.com

On this episode we hear from Sofia. It was a female alumnus from her hotel school that inspired her to get into hospitality, because she wanted to be just like her. Her education was impacted by covid and had an interesting time entering the workforce, but as we will hear in her story, it all worked out. What started as a LinkedIn reach out because she was curious about how you run a pop-up hotel ended up her becoming co-founder of this business. And as a young co-founder she has recognised that she will need help and so she has created her own advisory board, which now also includes that same alumnus who inspired her to get into hospitality int he first place. While it has been a steep learning curve, what she has learnt is to embrace the unknow and be proud of what you are already capable of.

Ali shares her hospitality journey. Starting with Hilton's Elevate program, which still runs today, she found hers expertise in sales and marketing roles, which eventually developed into what we now know as commercial roles. With an affinity for numbers, she focused on the data to take a customer centrice approach. She left hospitality briefly to work at the Royal Mail, experts in customer data, but missed the 'sexiness' of hospitality and came back. She now runs her own commercial consultancy where she helps business grow their profits. She shared with us the importance of continuous learning and to never stop, there is always something new to learn.

Ali's website: https://comaccel.co.uk/

On this episode we hear from Philippa. We bonded on our shared experiences of being a third culture kid, the highs and the lows. In some ways you do not belong anywhere, but then you are lucky to have many homes. Her first experiences in hospitality was when her parents bought a B&B in the english countryside and that became her home. She loved interacting with the guests and meeting new people. She went onto to study languages and her first job was in recruitment. But then she did find her way back into hospitality with a boutique consulting firm. Her advise was to find someone who you want to learn from and that is how she got her role. A common thread throughout her studies and career has been communication. Languages, communicating with clients and across different cultures. She shares how she has had to learn and adapt her communication style both personally and professionally.

On this episode we hear from Charline. She is the founder of Cote, inspired by her time living along the coast and which means coast in French. She helps SME hotel owners to do good or better for people and planet. She helps them look beyond the walls of their hotel to the surrounding communities, what their needs are and ensure the hospitality business serves their wellbeing. After her studies she worked in hospitality across various departments but found that none really resonated with her. She took a detour and studied fashion management in London. After spending a few years in London, she was still searching for her purpose. Missing travel and doing social work, she decided to set up her own business and eventually found her own path working in communications for a small artisan hotel in Sri Lanka. It took her a few years and one pivotal experience, that helped her to creating her own path and being comfortable with it, and not following the path that often is laid out for you.

On this episode we hear from Emily from Herterlier. She quickly changed her biology degree to hospitality after she started at Cornell. She then found her way into the PR side of things in hospitality, where her self proclaimed news junkie came into good use. She would watch the consumer trends and come up with ideas for hotel campaigns such as the pet programe, metrosexual program etc. Originially from New York, she shared that she moved to London with her family and we went off on a bit of a tangent of our shared love of London. We discussed her inspiration to start Herterlier, with a common purpose of wanting to amplifly the female voice. Trends she was noticing was women taken on bigger roles in the industry, more female GMs, invisible workload, a diverse workforce means a more profitable business, etc all playing towards the message of gender balance.

On this episode we hear from Meredith. Founder and CEO of Vegan Hospitality that helps hotels, restaurants and food service business caters to vegan guests. Lives on the island of Aruba with her family and is originally from New York. While she did not start in hospitality, after her masters in social work she worked in public health with a focus on food justice. It was when she went vegan herself is when she ran into issues when dining out, especially in Aruba. What started out as conversations with chefs and restaurants owners to try and get a decent meal, then eventually turned into a business where she was consulting with these establishments to cater to wider dietary needs. Which in reality often helped flex the creativity muscles of the chefs. She has continued to grow her business and now she trains other vegans on how to start their own consultancy business to have a global reach and impact. She sees the work that she is doing now as blending her experiences from social work and hospitality into her business.