A luxury hotel general manager is the person responsible for the whole property: the guests, the team, the owners’ money and the standard the hotel is known for. Every department head reports to the general manager, and the general manager answers for all of them. At the level of the actual work, the job is to select and protect a team, build a culture out of a thousand small choices, and catch what the department heads are too close to see.
A day in the role at the highest level
The general managers I interviewed describe a day that starts on the floor and keeps returning to it. Luc Delafosse, then managing director of Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills and now managing director of The Peninsula Paris, gave me the plainest account. He walks the floor daily and speaks to colleagues in every position. He eats lunch in the employee restaurant. He spends part of each morning in the lineup meetings where staff gather before a shift, and two hours every evening in the lobby. His view is that a general manager should be on the frontlines supporting the team rather than in a back office at a computer.
Susanne Hatje, who ran Mandarin Oriental, New York for many years and is now general manager of Mandarin Oriental Conservatorium in Amsterdam, described the breadth that sits around that floor time. The general manager has to be part of every facet of the business, from finance and marketing to rooms, while balancing operational needs against the expectation of financial performance and managing the key relationships across the property. She makes a point of being present in the heart of house as well as the front of house, whether greeting staff in the morning or discussing menus.
Torsten van Dullemen, then general manager of The Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, told me how much the role has widened. Twenty years ago a general manager focused on service. Today the job also requires an understanding of the legal side, the pace of technology, digital marketing, public affairs and how to work with owners and shareholders.
The rest of the day is the small gestures the team watches for. Aaron Kaupp, then general manager of Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris, told me that a general manager who picks up an empty coffee cup on the way through the lobby has shown the whole team what dedication looks like. Marc von Arnim, then general manager of Park Hyatt Sydney, attends the orientation of every new recruit on their first day.
What the people in the book say
“As the general manager, you set the tone for everything that goes on. If you walk by a problem, then you are the problem.” Philip Barnes, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)
“I walk the floor daily and speak to colleagues across the property in all positions. I always eat lunch at the employee restaurant, and spend two hours every evening in the lobby.” Luc Delafosse, then managing director of Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills
“I tell my team that if they want to become a general manager, then they need to think like one today and act like one today.” Pedro Dias, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)
Barnes, then general manager of The Savoy in London and now CEO of Rotana Hotels, also told me what the scrutiny feels like. When he stays in his own hotel, everybody knows when he goes for breakfast and who he is having dinner with. Anyone who dislikes that attention, he said, is in the wrong role.
The path to it
Almost nobody in the book started anywhere near the top. George Cozonis, then general manager of The Plaza Hotel in New York, grew up in the back of his parents’ restaurant in Chicago and moved from picking up trash in the parking lot to dishwashing, food prep, busboy and cook before his first role at The Ritz-Carlton, Phoenix. Ayman Gharib, then general manager of Raffles Dubai and Sofitel Dubai Wafi, began as a steward in a restaurant chain in Lebanon, washing dishes and polishing champagne glasses. Krister Svensson, then general manager of The St. Regis Bangkok, began as a steward in a Stockholm restaurant.
Several came through the kitchen or the bar. Mahmoud Skaf, then general manager of The Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur, worked in the kitchen of a small family hotel restaurant at fourteen and was a certified professional chef by eighteen. Damien Bastiat, then general manager of Ballyfin Demesne in Ireland and now general manager of Domaine des Étangs in France, cooked under Denis Moureau at a one-star Michelin restaurant while studying hotel management, and found his direction behind the bar at the Savoy in London, watching the general manager Willy Bauer walk the floor and speak with guests and staff. Delafosse was a bartender at the same hotel under the same general manager, and later led its stewarding department.
Mentors gave many of them their first general manager role. Anneke Brown, then general manager of COMO The Treasury in Perth, came up under Guy Heywood at Amankila in Indonesia, who gave her that first appointment. Bastiat credits Sue Williams and the executive head chef Michael Caines at Gidleigh Park in the UK with coaching him into the general manager’s chair.
The role is also a step toward larger ones. Barnes now runs a hotel company. Tom Roelens, then general manager of Four Seasons Resort Lanaʻi, is Chief Operating Officer of Wynn Al Marjan Island. For the practical questions about degrees, timing and the first rungs, see the question on how to become a hotel general manager, the question on how long it takes, and the question on whether you need a degree.
What it asks of you
It asks you to be visible, because the team reads the general manager’s presence on the floor as the real statement of the standard. It asks you to trust people once you have trained them. Alexander Pichel, then general manager of Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta, told me that the team serves on the frontlines and interacts with guests far more than a general manager with thirty years of experience, so the job is to empower them to adapt and decide. It asks for a stomach for complaints. Gerrit Graef, then general manager of The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh, calls negative feedback the breakfast of champions. And it asks you to accept being watched, every hour you are in the building, as the price of setting the tone.