Inspiring Women in Hospitality

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 sh...

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...

On this episode we hear from Irene. The founder of a leadership development called Light Path Leadership based in Saigon, after a career in leadership development across four continents. And she has become known for women in leadership and even wrote a book about the stories of Vietnamese women in 2016. Going back to her origin story she is Austrian and because she loves the unknown, she decided t...

On this episode we hear from Debbie. She has been in the travel industry since she was 16 years old and that was with British Airways. In 1995 she started her own PR agency in hospitality and travel, which she then sold to FINN Partners six years ago. She now heads up the travel team for FINN Partners globally. Reflecting on her first business she started as a promotion’s agency, she recalls that...

On this episode we hear from Rosina. An intercultural trainer and DEI consultant with a focus on the hospitality industry. She started in hospitality at a young age and all throughout her uni years. She says that it taught her so much about problem solving, thinking on your feet and social skills which she then used later in her PR career. During this time, she worked at an agency where the CEO wa...

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...

On this episode we hear from Jeannette. She started her career as an economist for the government and then turned to the travel industry, where she spent 30 years of her career, which lead up to a CEO role with Saga. She now has her own portfolio of business advising travel leisure hospitality businesses and a podcast 'Brave, Bold, Brilliant'. She shares her experience and advise on growin...

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 ende...

On this episode we hear from Kseniia. She has made marketing her profession in hospitality and has worked across Fiji, Samoa and Australia. She studied law for her degree, but then got into hospitality as a student when they were recruiting for the big stadiums in Ukraine around the time of the Euro Cup. She saw this as an opportunity to practise her English and meet people from different countrie...

On this episode we hear from Heide. From a young age she always had the feeling of wanting to be a host and that is what then drew her into hospitality. I loved how she said that when she first went looking for some work experience, she applied to the five Michelin starred restaurants in Germany, and only them, because she wanted the best experience. She went onto to focus on marketing during her...

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 cou...

On this episode we hear from Cheila. My second back-to-back podcast episode with a Portuguese. Before she found herself in hospitality, she wanted to be a judge After completing her education in Switzerland and Austria, she moved to London and started her hospitality career with Firmdale Hotels and many others after. She talks about her mistakes as lessons learnt. She talks about the differences o...

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...

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. Wi...

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...

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. N...

On this episode we hear from Marion. Fourth generation hotelier, hospitality was in her veins but initially she thought it was too easy to follow the family. During her studies her first internship ended up being in hospitality and went on to becoming a full-time role in London after graduating. And she shares how she was able to progress her career from executive in marketing to being part of the...

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...

On this episode we hear from Jenn. My second guest from the short term rental space and she tells us of her experience coming into hospitality. She is focused on helping owners in this space to get direct bookings rather than relying on the large online travel agents. Her father was a hotel manager, so her first work experiences was in hotels and she learnt first-hand how hard the work can be, but...

On this episode we hear from Haley. Originally from the UK, she went on holiday to South Africa and fell in love and found her way back and has now been there for 15 years. She now lives in Kruger National Park, as part of the management team of a five star luxury lodge and that is only one of her jobs. She is also founder of Wild Dreams which focuses on recruiting and consulting for tourism and h...

On this episode we hear from Anita. I have admired Anita for many years and so I am honoured to be able to share her story with you all today. Thank you, Debbie, for the introduction. Like me, she was raised in an environment where she viewed the world without boundaries, not just geographically but also socially, culturally, and economically. She started her corporate career within FMCG and then...

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 g...

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...

On this episode we hear from Caitlin. Fourth generation hotelier, which is all we need to know about why she is in hospitality. Her first experience in hotels was the Steigenberger in Dusseldorf followed by an internship with the Starwood North American Operations. She then went to work at Montage a luxury hotel company which she got by calling everyone she knew at the organisation to pitch hersel...

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 accep...