Inspiring Women in Hospitality

On this episode we hear from Emily. She calls herself a connector. Love of languages and travel eventually got her a role in travel. She started her career with Travco and whilst initially based in London, she did eventually start travelling with her job. She credits learning to 'speak up' from her mum, who taught that you have to 'squeeze all the juice out of life'. She moved across several wholesaler companies as she progressed in her career and what she also wanted to share was the failed interviews that she also had along the way. She spent a few years in Singapore where she also had her first experiences of managing a team and explains what went well and what didn’t, and what she learnt along the way. Upon returning to the UK she started the next phase of her career, where she is working with people in commercial roles in hotels who feel stuck at work.

On this episode we hear from Frauke. Her opening included 'living out my passion in hospitality' and she shares with us how. Educated in Germany she worked in Switzerland and then London, where she met someone working in Bahrain. And that conversation initiated her career in the Middle East, which included Bahrain, Qatar and now in the UAE. She shares with us the culture shock she experiences when she first arrived from shared accommodation, where she can walk, how to dress and the transientness of the destination. She has spent most of her career in operations, spent some time in learning and development, owner relations, even EXPO 2020 but her heart is in operations. She took on her first GM role when she moved to Dubai. Throughout her career she has been motivated by how she can learn more and develop further, and saying yes to the opportunities that came her way. She talks about finding her tribe, support network for your career and especially for women struggling with imposter syndrome.

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 Michaela. She believes that the school of life is travelling and as soon as she could, that is exactly what she did. She worked to travel and eventually she made travel her career as well. She stared this career with the Flight Centre and found something that was aligned with what she was passionate about and help people explore the world. This then transitioned to helping people in her team to succeed when she moved into learning and development. In 2018 she moved to Asia and is now based in Phuket with Discova as People and Culture Leader. She shared her journey to becoming a leader and how she progressed in her career, learning new skills along the way such as adapting your communication style in different cultures. She shares a beautiful and vulnerable story of finding herself outside of her roles of leader, mother, wife during what she calls her midlife crisis. It was in Laos that helped her find herself, find her feet and find her passion again.

On this episode we hear from Marta. She calls herself a career expat and a digerati. The original digital nomad from the late 90s. She has made her career in corporate communications and brand strategist. While she has worked across 15 industry, travel and hospitality was a theme throughout her career, along with luxury and tech. She talks about how she was managing teams in the late 90s remotely and learnt early on the skills of remote working. Her career expat life has moved her 16 different times, either for love or career. She is unique in the sense that she has transitioned both between corporate and entrepreneurial roles, taking up the opportunities that presented themselves to her or she created for herself. From her lessons she shares not to limit yourself

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 [email protected]

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 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 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 Eve. Founder of Brand Journey working with SMEs to build their brand and customer experience in service businesses. She is also educating young marketers to develop their knowledge and skillset in branding through Meraki Marketing Learning Studio. When she was 10 years old, her parents took the family on around the world tour for three months and that instilled in her a passion for travel. And she carried this on into her career travelling and living in multiple countries around the world, which became more important as she came into marketing and needed to understand the customers in the different markets she was working in. She took a career break to pursue a doctorate and it was during that time she decided that she wanted to start her own business. And the people who inspire her the most are the young professionals who have the courage to start their own business right out of uni or even on the side while they are studying.