Inspiring Women in Hospitality

On this episode we hear from Melissa. Her love of event planning took her to a career in hospitality. After graduating from EHL she went to work from Quintessentially in Singapore. It was here she identified a gap in the market, to connect brides with vendors from the wedding industry via a market place. So together with her co-founder at the age of 25, she started her own business - Delegate. Upo...

On this episode we hear from Daphne. Being the eldest of four from an African family there was a lot of expectations from her, like going to medical school. Which she did not do, but she has successful career in hospitality which started with Disney and most of her working career in the US. She then moved back home to Ghana to start a new chapter in consulting, educating, training, advocating for...

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 wa...

On this episode we hear from Sophie. She grew up and started her career in Argentina before moving to Europe. After a few years in operations she did an MBA to change the direction of her career and that is when she started her professional life at HVS. First in the Madrid based office before moving to London where she has been for the past 16 years. We both agreed that we appreciated the diversit...

On this episode we hear from Victoria. She had guidance early on her life to direct her towards a career in hospitality. She greatly values her experience to study abroad as it opened her world view and pushed her outside of her comfort zone. She was inspired to go into consulting as she wanted to work in hospitality real estate. Real estate being a very valued commodity to every Singaporean. She...

On this episode we hear from Jane. The root of her career is in real estate and valuation. At that start of her career she spent some time in Hong Kong, where she grew up, before coming back to the UK, where she spent the remainder of her profession. She has worked across different sectors in real estate, but its the operational business such as healthcare and eventually hospitality that she stuck...

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 ed...

On this episode we hear from Gosia. She started her career in banking, but then quickly realised that she is more of a customer centric service orientated person and would prefer to be in hospitality. This took her from your five star hotels, to coworking and now coliving. She has worked in organisations with an established structure in place, high growth company and also start ups. She shares her...

On this episode we hear from Sara. She came into hospitality because of love, whilst the romance fizzled out, her relationship with hospitality stayed. She has worked in sales in the middle east and now in Denmark with CitizenM. We talked about the culture differences of working in the middle east vs Denmark, what had to be learnt and unlearnt each time she moved. ME is very fast paced, whereas in...

On this episode we hear from Sumi. Her skill sets are in marketing and business management, which are highly transferable and she has taken it with her to every industry she has worked in. Such as publishing, telecommunication, international education and now tourism and hospitality. Needless to say she has a favourite and said she has met the best people in tourism and hospitality, and had the mo...

On this episode we hear from Virginie. Throughout this conversation she shared her learnings from each stage of her career and there is a lot we can be inspired from this conversation. A chance prize win for a holiday at club med, introduced her to the world of hospitality and she never looked back. Throughout her education she worked part time, like an apprenticeship, which meant she had a good a...

On this episode we hear from Leah. She is one person who has truly done every role possible in hospitality. Like me she thought she would have a career for life in F&B, like me also discovered revenue management and never went back. After her masters she got into consulting and was with HVS for 14 years. Now she has started her own business as hotel owner. We talked about the lack of female ow...

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...

On this episode we hear from Sima. She married into hospitality and never looked back. The most heart warming theme throughout this episode is the support she had from her husband and his family, especially her father-in-law, to have a career, grow, learn, develop herself and most importantly believe in herself. They were the ones who encouraged her to take the board positions, when she first said...

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 e...

On this episode we hear from Arlett. It was an elective that she took in university in Germany that brought her into hospitality and tourism. After a few work experiences she realised she did not want to be a GM, but did find herself in London and was exposed to another side of the industry in development and investment. Which is where she started her 16 year career with HVS. This role took her to...

On this episode we hear from MariaPia. From a small town in Italy, it was her early age of summer camps in England that gave her a taste for travel and how she choose tourism and hospitality as her career. She started her career in an architectural firm in London where she discovered her passion lies in hotels specifically. Through her networking she wanted to be a developer for hotels and then re...

On this episode we hear from Ishwariya. She is the founder of 'Love letters to chefs' a platform to educate and to create social change in hospitality. She started her career as an architect, then her love of baking drew her to a second career as a pastry chef in London and now she is working on education and changing our mindsets of work life balance in the industry. She is also working as a coac...

On this episode we hear from Maria Navarro. Born and raised in Mexico, she decided to go to Montreal at 18 to study french, when she didn't know what she wanted to do next. It was during her time there she discovered she wanted to be in hospitality and went back home to start her programme at a local hotel school. From a young age, she always knew she was meant for more than just studies and e...

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 u...

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. Originiall...

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 surro...

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 giv...

On this episode we hear from Cristina. She was attracted to languages from a young age and she thought the best place she could put her language skills to good use was in hospitality. Which took her to Boston, London and back in Florence, where she has now been for the past 15 years. We discussed what the Italian job market is like and the impact of its history and politics. She was very open abou...

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...