The Corporate Management Trainee Programme, known inside The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels as the CMT Programme, is the group’s fast track route for recent graduates who want to lead at The Peninsula Hotels and HSH’s other operations: a corporate level scheme built on operational rotations, attachments at other operations in the group, mentorship and a management development curriculum. This page sets out the programme as HSH describes it and then turns to what the hoteliers in my books say about the first years that a programme like this is designed to compress.
The programme, as HSH describes it
I was not able to read the HSH careers page when I prepared this page, so what follows comes from my own research notes rather than from the company’s wording, and I have quoted nothing from the page. If you are applying, read the page itself first.
HSH presents the CMT Programme as a fast track scheme for future leaders. Trainees rotate in Food and Beverage or Rooms, take two attachments at other operations in the group, are given a mentor, and follow a management development curriculum alongside the operational work. The programme is aimed at recent graduates. It sits at corporate level, which separates it from the hotel level Management Trainee programme that HSH also runs, recruited by individual hotels; the careers page lists openings for both as Corporate Management Traineeships and Management in Training positions when they are open. HSH also lists an Accelerated Career Program for MBAs at corporate level, about which it publishes no detail.
The point that matters most for anyone weighing the programme is the one HSH makes about where its leaders come from: almost all of its hotel managing directors and hotel managers are promoted from within. A trainee scheme in a group that fills its top hotel posts from inside is a different proposition from one in a group that hires general managers from the market, and it is the main reason to read the rest of this page.
The programme’s length, pay, intake dates, cohort size and application deadlines change from year to year, so I have left them out; the HSH careers page carries them.
What the hoteliers in my books say about the first years
None of the seventy nine people in my books was working for The Peninsula Hotels when I interviewed them, so I cannot offer a Peninsula general manager’s account of rising there. What I can offer is the pattern across all of them, which I have set out on the page on how the world’s best hoteliers and chefs got there, and it bears directly on a programme whose first years are spent in Rooms and Food and Beverage.
Most of them started at the bottom, usually as teenagers, and most say those jobs made the manager. Patrizio Cipollini, who opened Four Seasons Hotel Firenze as its general manager and led it until his passing, put it in one line: “My first job was as a dishwasher in Versilia on the Tuscan coast.” He drew a direct line from that work to the way he ran a hotel.
“Early on in my career I experienced many humble jobs in hospitality and learned exactly how grueling they could be. This instilled in me the empathy and compassion required to truly acknowledge, appreciate, and respect all staff serving in those positions. In doing the work myself and working my way up, I now know exactly how much time you need to prepare a martini or to clean a pile of dishes, and this insight makes me more aware for when I ask my employees to do something. I believe all managers should expose themselves to as many roles as possible so that they too can support their colleagues in a meaningful and substantive way when needed.” Patrizio Cipollini, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)
Peter Hopgood, then general manager of Outrigger Fiji Beach Resort, says the same thing from the other side of the world.
“My first job in this industry was as a pot scrubber. My second job was a public area cleaner. I learned firsthand what these jobs entailed and how challenging they were to undertake day in and day out. I believe this lesson has been invaluable to my leadership and management style. I have undertaken every role in the hotel industry myself as I rose through the ranks, enabling me to be a strong but compassionate leader.” Peter Hopgood, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)
Read those two passages against the structure of the CMT Programme and the rotation looks like the point of it. A trainee in Rooms or Food and Beverage is being given, in a compressed and supervised form, the years Cipollini and Hopgood spent at the sink and in the public areas, and the lesson both men took from those years is the one the programme is trying to teach: a manager who has done the work can ask for it.
HSH as a training ground
The one fact about HSH that I can set beside those accounts is the one above, that almost all of its hotel managing directors and hotel managers are promoted from within. Cipollini describes the consequence of that kind of culture at Four Seasons: a general manager in such a company expects to develop people for posts elsewhere in the group and plans for it. For a trainee that means two things. The mentor and the managers you meet in the rotation are the people who will decide your next post, and the attachments at other operations are where the group gets to look at you.
What to take from it
Read the HSH careers page before anything else, since it carries the detail I have left out. Treat the rotation as Cipollini and Hopgood treated their first jobs, as the years that let you later ask people to do what you have done yourself. Take the attachments seriously, because in a group that promotes from within they are your introduction to the people who will run your career. And read the full profiles on the Voices pages above. Chapter 2 of The Luxury of Attention, The Apprenticeship, is about exactly these years.
Questions people also ask
What is the Peninsula Corporate Management Trainee Programme?
The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels’ fast track programme for future leaders of The Peninsula Hotels and the group’s other operations: a corporate level scheme for recent graduates built on rotations in Food and Beverage or Rooms, attachments at other operations in the group, mentorship and a management development curriculum. HSH runs a separate hotel level Management Trainee programme alongside it.
How do you apply to the Peninsula CMT Programme?
Through the careers section of the HSH Group website, which lists Corporate Management Traineeship and Management in Training openings when they are open. The programme is aimed at recent graduates. Intake dates, programme length and requirements change from year to year and are set out on the HSH careers page.
Which rotation should you choose in the Peninsula CMT Programme, Rooms or Food and Beverage?
Both lead to the same place. The hoteliers in my books who went on to run hotels came up through both sides, and several through the kitchen and the restaurant floor first. Patrizio Cipollini, who ran Four Seasons Hotel Firenze, believed every manager should expose themselves to as many roles as possible; the rotation and the attachments at other operations are the programme’s way of doing that.
Does the Peninsula CMT Programme lead to general manager?
It leads to a first management role, and HSH says that almost all its hotel managing directors and hotel managers are promoted from within, so the route to the top of a Peninsula hotel runs through the group’s own ranks. The years between are the career: the hoteliers in my books had been in the trade for around three decades when they reached the general manager’s office.