Inspiring Women in Hospitality

On this episode we hear from Melissa. She started in hospitality straight out of school and never left. She loved the buzz, enjoyed the work and the great people. Early on in her career she was encouraged to learn about revenue management, and she fell in love. After several years in hotel revenue management, she applied for a role at Qantas when they were hiring external candidates. When she star...

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...

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 cha...

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...

On this episode we hear from Isabell. Based in Munich, she is leading Ruby's expansion efforts. As you will hear from her story, she was destined to work in hospitality. She gravitated towards hospitality real estate because she wanted to be part of the space that is creating memories and moments for the guests. Her first role in hospitality after graduating was within development in Accor whe...

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 rest...

On this episode we hear from Federica. Her passion for hospitality started quite young being exposed to the various B&B's of her home country of Italy. What she experienced was feeling of home, belonging and warmth and she knew she wanted to re-create this for all her future guests. After graduating from EHL, she started an Airbnb business with her mother in Italy. It was right during the...

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 ha...

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...

On this episode we hear from Megan. She has a tour company for women with a sustainable and ethical lens on tourism and tells us the story of how she got started. When it comes to hospitality, she feels that this is all she has known, having started working in it from the age of 15. Throughout her hospitality career, she tried lots of different things, moved roles, moved to various parts of the in...

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 purpos...

On this episode we hear from Eliane. She has been in the industry for 20 years and loves this industry because of the different people she gets to meet. After education in Switzerland, she started her hospitality career in the US and then love brought her to France. Where in many ways she had to start her career over while she was learning the language. She speaks four languages and shares with us...

On this episode we hear from Lisa. Self-taught chef she is now the owner of six restaurants on Sedona and has been in the industry for 27 years. She started in the fashion industry, but after an unexpected tragedy in her life she found herself in hospitality with the opening of her first restaurant. Whilst it was not easy, she took a chance for herself and paved the path to freedom to be tje kind...

On this episode we hear from Karima. Through her desire to bridge industry and academia she has taken her 15 years of operational experience and taken it back to the classroom and is now a professor. My favourite part of this episode is that it was actually her husband who reached out and asked to have Karima on the show, so this is a shout out to all the 'hospitality husbands' out there a...

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...

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 tod...

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 fo...

On this episode we hear from Monika. She came into hospitality because of the people and wanting to know what makes them tick. The focus of her career has been to fee and anticipate her client needs and help them find a solution for them. When it comes to her journey, she has always followed her gut, without realising it was her strategy she chose and now she allows herself the luxury to follow he...

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 operat...

On this episode we hear from Naina. She is born and raised in Holland to Indian immigrant parents, who taught her and her three sisters to integrate. She went to the UK to study, but it wasn’t until she moved to New York that she found her vibe. She started her career in fashion, because she didn’t know what she wanted to do and just followed her father into the business. We both agreed that when...

On this episode we hear from Marion. She was born into hospitality, quite literally. Her earliest memories are from the restaurant her family ran and they used to live above. She went onto have an extensive career in hospitality at many of the brands that I have grown to love and admire - Relais Chateaux, Laduree, Ping Pong, Harvey Nichols, citizenM and more. Each time she took on a new role, the...

On this episode we hear from Carmen. She fell into hospitality accidentally, because one day she heard how much tips her friend was making working at the bar. She has worked in Australia, Croatia and now in Singapore. She always wanted to travel and knew that hospitality would be the avenue to this. She has had various roles and in different companies, but the one theme she has had throughout her...

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 PW...

On this episode we hear from Zoe. I do not know even where to begin, but probably the best place is enthusiasm, finding the gap in the market and doing something about it. She went into retail initially, but after attending 13 weddings in one year and many more after, including her own, she realised there was a gap in the market for good wedding planners in Wales offering a well-rounded service. S...

On this episode we hear from Heather. Passion for technology and diversity are the two themes that came out for me during this conversation. She has a background in management consulting in various other industries, first working for other firms and then starting her own consultancy. She is now in hospitality technology through an opportunity where the stars aligned. She sees technology as a way o...