Hospitality Folks

Day two of a five-day event. 150,000 visitors. 200 of your 600 staff are no-shows. Wolfgang Schürmann has been there. He restructured the menu, reassigned every manager, got on the radio, and delivered anyway — because he's spent two decades learning every role from the ground up. In this episode: what high-pressure event operations teach you about leadership, why you cannot lead a team you ha...

Most hotels have an extraordinary story. Most never tell it. Regitze Cecilie Rosenvinge is the founder of Rose PR Agency — one of Scandinavia's leading hotel PR agencies, specializing in experience-led, remote, and wellness properties across the Nordics and Germany. She's also Hotel Editor at Falstaff Nordics and a professional affiliate of Les Clefs d'Or Denmark. In this episode, Regi...

What does hospitality look like when you strip away the buzzwords and start with people? In this episode of Hospitality Folks, Alicia talks with Melanie Chinwe, an operator who owned and ran S'MUVE ME Café in Nigeria before moving into Oenotourism at Château Dauzac in Bordeaux. She brings a grounded, intentional view of an industry that too often chases scale over connection. In this episode:W...

What does it actually mean to slow down and why are the most intentional hospitality experiences being built not in hotel lobbies, but in forests? Katarina Alič Čretnik spent more than 15 years in digital marketing before following a deeper pull toward nature. She is an ANFT-certified forest therapy guide and NLP trainer based in Slovenia, running Melisa Holiday, a nature retreat where guests arri...

What would you do if you applied for a job you knew nothing about and told them exactly that? For Annemarie, that moment changed everything. She moved from the Netherlands to Sweden for love, stumbled into revenue management at Radisson with zero experience, and spent the next 26 years building one of Scandinavia's most respected consultancies. Today she runs Taktikon , organizes the Global Re...

What separates a truly great kitchen from a toxic one? According to internationally experienced culinary leader Adam Mali, it comes down to one choice every leader has to make: do you lead with fear, or do you lead with humanity? Adam has spent decades at the highest levels of hospitality across Europe and North America — working alongside multiple Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire, shaping fi...

What does a national swimmer, a bouncer in Zurich, and a personal trainer in Singapore have in common? A masterclass in people, performance, and showing up under pressure. In this episode, Alicia sits down with Lali Jochmann, a Swiss operations and commercial leader with 15+ years building premium, service-driven businesses across Asia and Europe. Lali is currently completing his MBA while running...

Julius Anders has done it the hard way and the smart way. From hotel management school to Mandarin Oriental and Corinthia, through the lifestyle world of Mondrian London, and then six years at Numa scaling a digital-first, remote-operated hotel brand from zero to 160+ properties across Europe. He built the operational structure from the ground floor, led the European operations team, and eventuall...

From sleeping in a lobby chair as a night porter to managing luxury five-star hotel openings in Stockholm—Kim Spolén's hospitality journey is the masterclass in customer relationships and authentic selling. Now Regional Director of Sales at StayNTouch, Kim joins Alicia to expose the biggest problem in hospitality tech: buzzword inflation. We talk: 🏨 The career path that shaped his philosophy:...

S1E09: From Self-Taught to Confident—How Teams Master French Pastry in Remote African Lodges When self-taught chefs in remote safari lodges discover they can master French pastry techniques—pâte sucrée, choux, ganache, mousseline—everything changes. Confidence shifts. Retention improves. Guest experience transforms. In this episode, Alicia talks with Charlotte Desamais, a French pastry consultant...

What does it take to leave a decade in finance and technology behind — and build something entirely new in one of the world's most challenging markets? In this episode, Alicia Dick Wahlberg (CEO & Founder of Folksnest) sits down with Einars Garoza , Founder of Conserve Safari Camps & Lodges, a high-end luxury hospitality operation developing properties across Tanzania's national parks. Ein...

What if venture capital is the wrong model for hospitality? In this episode, we sit down with Magnus, co-founder of Nook Society, to unpack a bold idea: 👉 Hospitality isn’t software — and shouldn’t be funded like it. Instead of chasing aggressive VC growth, Nook Society is building a community-driven investment model, where guests can become investors through tokenized profit-sharing. We dive dee...

What does it really take to build a workplace where people feel heard, supported, and motivated to grow? In this episode, we sit down with Nicki Boone, Talent Development Manager/Executive Navigator at Marriott Tulsa Southern Hills, to explore how intentional culture-building can transform hospitality teams from the inside out. Nicki shares how breaking down silos, encouraging open communication,...

What does mentorship really look like in luxury hospitality, and why has it quietly disappeared for the next generation? In this episode, Alicia Dick Wahlberg speaks with Daryl Kornelsen, a Canadian-born senior hospitality executive who has spent decades building sales, marketing, and leadership teams across Germany's finest luxury hotels. From his first shift in the stewarding department at t...

Analice Martinsson speaks with Folksnest's Alicia Dick Wahlberg about the intersection of diplomacy, international relations, and luxury hospitality. Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, Analice shares her journey from dreaming of a career as an elegant Air France flight attendant to earning a Master’s degree in International Relations, only to find her true calling in the "human-centered&q...

In this episode of Hospitality Folks, Alicia speaks with Alexander Kanonovich, Front Office Team Leader, about the global experiences that shaped his hospitality career and leadership style. Alexander shares insights from more than 15 years in customer service across luxury hospitality and premium travel, reflecting on intercultural service, guest experience, operational excellence, and the realit...

What does effective leadership look like in high-pressure hotel environments? In this episode, Julia Silvia Brost shares practical insights on hotel leadership, quality assurance, and hospitality training. Drawing from frontline experience at Hyatt and corporate-level quality implementation at The Social Hub, she explains how psychological safety, empathy, and clarity improve audit performance, re...

In the first episode of Hospitality Folks, Alicia Dick Wahlberg speaks with Magnus Busch, Co-Founder of nook society , about redefining upscale and luxury hospitality through human-centric experience, community building, and values-driven hiring. Magnus shares how nook emerged from strong personal values before evolving into a brand and how that authenticity attracts both talent and like-minded gu...

Welcome to Hospitality Folks, a video podcast hosted by Alicia Dick Wahlberg, CEO and Founder of Folksnest. We explore the future of upscale and luxury hospitality, hiring strategy, leadership, service quality, and team culture. Through conversations with hotel founders and industry leaders, this podcast examines how modern hospitality is being redefined through human connection and meaningful wor...