Aman IGNITE Management Development Program: how it works and what a general manager who rose through Aman says about the first years

IGNITE is Aman Group’s management development program for recent graduates, based at one Aman property and run in five stages in either a Rooms or a Food & Beverage pathway, with the participant employed from the first day and the group’s future leadership as the stated aim. This page describes the program as Aman presents it and then turns to something the careers page cannot offer, which is what a general manager in my books who held her first leadership post at Aman says about the first years there, the mentor she found and what she now tells people who want in.

The program, as Aman describes it

Aman structures IGNITE in five stages: Arrival, Immersion, Specialisation, Acceleration and Graduation. The careers page describes Arrival in the most detail, with the property’s local human resources team welcoming participants and helping them settle in, and leaves the later stages to the brochure and the interview. Participants choose between the Rooms pathway and the Food & Beverage pathway, and the page presents the whole as the way to “pursue an international career as a future leader of Aman Group.” The participants Aman quotes describe gaining “hands-on experience across every department,” mentors who involve them in “real decision-making,” and being “hired as a full-time employee from day one,” which is the practical difference between IGNITE and an internship.

The program is for recent graduates who are operationally focused and curious, open minded and willing to take responsibility. Applications go through the “Discover Vacancies” link on the IGNITE page of Aman’s careers site, which opens the group’s Workday careers portal; the program is recruited property by property, so the vacancies list is the program. The length of the program, pay, eligibility windows and intake dates change from year to year, so I have left them out; Aman’s page carries them.

What a general manager who rose through Aman says about the first years

One person in my books came up through Aman, and her account covers the ground the IGNITE page leaves blank. Anneke Brown, then general manager of COMO The Treasury in Perth, held her first leadership post with Amanresorts in Indonesia, and the lesson she took from it was about the people she led rather than the guests she served.

“My first leadership position was serving as the reservation manager for Amanresorts, Indonesia. This was a dream role, and I was responsible for seven staffers. I was based at Amanusa in Bali, and all my staff were Balinese and Indonesian. Because I spoke Indonesian, I was able to quickly build rapport with my team and earn their respect. However, I was young and had yet to earn their trust. I quickly learned the cultural specifics of both Balinese and Indonesian staff. It was in this role that I learned the importance of “face” in Asian cultures, and the need to discipline in private.” Anneke Brown, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

For an IGNITE participant arriving at an Aman in Asia, Bhutan, the Middle East or anywhere the staff are mostly local, that paragraph is the first year in miniature: respect comes quickly if you make the effort, trust takes longer, and the way you correct someone matters as much as what you correct. Brown had come to it from the floor. “At age eighteen, my first position in hospitality was as a waitress. I still today believe the best hospitality people start in food and beverage.” Her case for the Food & Beverage pathway is the pressure it puts you under: “You are forced to handle stressful situations that need immediate responses.”

The second half of her Aman years is the mentor, and it reads like the program’s promise of “real decision-making” made personal.

“I had one primary mentor who played a significant role in my career. His name was Guy Heywood, and at the time he was the general manager of Amankila in Indonesia. He taught me everything he knew about the luxury guest experience, supported my growth through the ranks, and even gave me my first general manager role. He saw the talent within me early on and nurtured it over many years, introducing me to key management personnel for Aman Resorts. I thrived on the trust he placed in me, and I learned everything I could from him. The main lesson he taught me about the luxury market was never to cut corners on the guest experience when looking for efficiencies in the business.” Anneke Brown, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

A graduate program can assign a mentor; it cannot make one. What Brown describes is a general manager who noticed her, introduced her around the company and eventually promoted her, over years, and the only way to get that is to be worth noticing in the first stages.

Aman as a training ground

Aman appears once more in my books, from the outside. James Low, then leading COMO’s two resorts in Bhutan, spent his first leadership years in sales and marketing, and what it taught him was brand: “this role taught me why guests loyal to Aman will always prefer them, why guests loyal to Mandarin Oriental will always prefer them, and how COMO Hotels & Resorts distinguishes itself, too, with a loyal following.” For a trainee the point is that at this end of the market the brand is a promise kept by people, and a program like IGNITE exists to produce the people. Low’s own method for new recruits is the one Aman’s participants describe: “a new waiter will be attached to an experienced waiter who teaches and coaches the newcomer about their role and responsibilities from scratch.”

Beyond these two, the books hold no Aman general managers, so the fuller pattern is on the page about how the world’s best hoteliers and chefs got there, where nearly everyone starts low. Patrizio Cipollini, who later opened Four Seasons Hotel Firenze: “My first job was as a dishwasher in Versilia on the Tuscan coast.”

What to take from it

Brown’s advice to anyone who wants into a company like Aman is specific. “Put yourself in the industry while you’re learning it.” Work while studying, and before you apply, “do your homework and learn as much about the company as you can in advance, including experiencing their product.” Choose the pathway you can be excellent in under pressure, since the first stages are where someone like Guy Heywood decides whether you are worth the years. And treat the property’s culture as the first subject of the program; her Amanusa year was a lesson in how to lead Balinese staff before it was anything else. Chapter 2 of The Luxury of Attention, The Apprenticeship, is about exactly these years.