50 Shades of Hospitality – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this podcast, Victor Mogilev speaks to our audience about Hospitality HR recruitment in South East Asia and explains how this region has its unique challenges and opportunities.  Victor traces his educational and career path to explain how his Swiss hospitality management background allowed him to pursue a global career and landed him today in Bangkok working as a partner for LHC International.  LHC is an international hospitality and operating real estate executive search firm with a core team of professionals focusing on recruitment of senior management roles. 

 He also shares his insight into key trends for management positions in the South East Asia region and what kind of profiles HR recruitment businesses are looking for.  Additionally, he describes how technology and digitalization have impacted the recruitment process for hospitality roles and provides valuable advice on how to navigate working in this region for young talents looking to expand their horizons.

 Victor Mogilev is a seasoned professional with over 15 years of experience in the travel and hospitality industry. Originally from Russia, Victor has immersed himself in diverse cultures, having lived and worked in Asia for more than a decade.

 A graduate in Hospitality Management from the esteemed Glion Institute of Higher Education, Victor's journey in the industry has been marked by significant contributions. He has held number of roles in the Corporate Office of a well-established regional hotel brand and spent several years with a leading Inbound Destination Management company in Asia.

 For the past 5 years, Victor has joined forces with a close friend and business partner, Garry Levin (another graduate of Glion Institute of Higher Education) to spearhead the development and growth of LHC International. This hospitality-focused executive search firm operates across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, reflecting Victor's commitment to shaping the future of the industry through talent acquisition and strategic leadership. LHC International has established itself as one of the leading recruitment firms across the hospitality industry with offices in Berlin, Singapore, Bangkok and Palma de Mallorca.

In this podcast, Chris Horn who is currently the General Manager at Gold Key Media, discusses his career path and answers our questions about the synergies between the Media and Hospitality.  Gold Key Media has a hard earned and formidable reputation for quality and credibility in the industry for providing a reliable, competitive service and consequently represent all of the world’s leading hospitality brands with the world’s most respected and trusted publications.  In addition to supplying some of the finest hotels in the world, the company now also supplies airlines, private jets, superyachts, private medical, Corporate HQ’s, UK Armed Forces, Embassies, Private Clubs etc.

We ask Chris pertinent questions about how and why he created Gold Key Media and what are its vision, values and objectives. Chris also discusses the decline of media advertising and how this is affecting current media outlets. He shares his impressions and predictions of how media outlets will continue to evolve and change.

Finally, Chris discusses his involvement with AICR and his personal ties to the hospitality industry and why young people should embrace careers in this ever-changing, ever-growing field.

Chris Horn began his career in the media industry back in 1991 when he joined America’s largest newspaper, USA Today as Circulation Manager for Europe, before going on to become Circulation Director Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong.

He returned to the UK in 1996 to become Managing Director of Johnsons Inflight News, responsible for the distribution of international media to the world’s leading airlines, including global brands such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Cathay Pacific and others.  Chris set up Gold Key Media in 2020. Using the same “one stop shop” media distribution solution he’d successfully provided to the airline industry, Chris’s vision was to create a similar business model for the hotel industry.

In his previous role at USA Today, Chris had established strong links with many of the world’s finest hotel concierges and had become an associate member of the prestigious and globally renowned Les Clefs d’Or, otherwise known as The Golden Keys Association. In his desire to forge a new working relationship with his new company, Chris asked the Golden Keys Association if he could call his new company Gold Key Media in recognition of the key role these individuals would play in the success of the new business.

Since those early days, Gold Key Media has thrived and evolved into becoming the world’s largest provider of media to the hotel industry. Supplying over 4,000 hotels globally with print and digital media solutions for their guests. Chris’s first publishing client was world renowned National Geographic magazine, and his first hotel clients were Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Cliveden Hotel and The Waterside Inn. They all remain as clients today, 24 years later. A testament to the quality of service provided.

Gold Key Media is proudly associated with organisations such as The Master Inn Holders, The AICR Association, Institute of Hospitality and Chris is also a proud Ambassador for the industry charity, Hospitality Action.

In this episode, we speak to Geoffrey Toffetti, who is the CEO of Frontline Performance Group and a veteran in the hospitality field. We talk to Geoffrey about Discretionary Effort and why it is so important for hospitality businesses to encourage, motivate and engage their teams.  Geoffrey explains what discretionary effort is and how it can be the link between excellent service, motivated staff and revenue increases.  

 Geoffrey also gives some very clear advice on how managers can improve organizational excellence and he shares some personal stories on how implementing discretionary effort has resulted in better staff morale, engagement and professionalism. “Over the past two decades, we experienced firsthand the influence an engaged team (led by engaged leadership) has on performance, job satisfaction, and ultimately the success of our program.”

 Geoffrey Toffetti is a hospitality industry veteran and the CEO of Frontline Performance Group, where he leads the charge in transforming frontline teams into powerful drivers of revenue and guest satisfaction. With over two decades of leadership experience across operations, customer experience, and strategic innovation, Geoffrey brings a uniquely practical lens to building high-performance cultures in hospitality, dining, and travel.

Having worked his way up from the front desk to the boardroom, Geoffrey has a deep understanding of what it takes to engage teams, elevate service, and drive consistent, measurable results. He’s passionate about bridging the gap between service and sales—helping organizations empower their frontline staff to create standout guest experiences that also move the bottom line. At FPG, he has guided the development of IN-Gauge, the company’s data-driven platform that brings 30 years of frontline performance expertise to life.

A trusted partner to global hospitality brands like Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt, Geoffrey is now sharing the insights he’s gathered from decades in the field—helping business leaders rethink how they train, motivate, and mobilize their people at the point of service.

 Vadim Bekker is currently the Managing Partner at Vibe Hospitality in Bangkok, Thailand.  In this podcast, Vadim talks about his experience in the Thai hospitality field and why he has no plans to leave this beautiful country.  After working in the Maldives as a Guest Relations Officer, Vadim chose Thailand to pursue his career path and has been working there for over 10 years.  He describes the hospitality scene in Thailand and why the country continues to attract tourists from all over the world.

Vadim also explains the reasons for creating his own company and pursuing his entrepreneurial goals with the creation of Vibe Hospitality, a service provider and advisory specialised in food and beverage for new and existing businesses in South East Asia.  Vibe Hospitality offers practical solutions based on a company’s needs, budget, expectations and objectives. The company’s core value is to create strong concepts, competitive business models and genuine success.

Finally, Vadim talks about the importance of maintaining his alumni connections in Thailand and why he still enjoys frequent get-togethers with his former classmates.  In addition, Vadim gives our listeners advice on pursuing a global career in hospitality and the many reasons why he is happy to have embraced this career path.

Vadim Bekker is a graduate of Glion Institute of Hospitality in Switzerland and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Administration.  He has worked in Food and Beverage in The Maldives and Thailand and has held several management positions.  In 2020, Vadim became a managing partner at Vibe Hospitality.

Andrew Parshukov is currently the Head of Business Growth at JetRockets, a forward-thinking company specializing in custom web and mobile application development across various industries.  In this podcast, Andrew talks about his career path from studying hospitality in Switzerland and working in the hospitality field to teaching in Vietnam and developing his passion for technology and AI.  

Andrew gives our listeners some insight into how AI is revolutionizing the hospitality field and what to expect in the coming years.  Andrew assures our listeners that AI will never replace the “human touch” that so many customers value but instead will improve customer service and make travel and tourism more appealing.

Andrew is a versatile professional known for his determination and commitment to finding solutions. With a unique approach to problem-solving, he embraces challenges head-on, vowing to find answers when faced with uncertainty. Currently, Andrey serves as the Head of Business Growth at JetRockets.  In this role, he dedicates his efforts to elevating business processes, assisting clients in launching new projects, and contributing to the company's overall growth. 

His enthusiasm for his work is palpable, and he enjoys surrounding himself with like-minded tech enthusiasts. Andrey's professional journey has been marked by significant achievements and diverse experiences: 10 years in hospitality worldwide, English teaching in Vietnam, and Business Development in the Tech industry.

Ursula Connolly is the founder and Managing Director of People Skills Business. She has more than 30 years experience in developing and motivating individuals and companies to achieve successful results.  In this podcast, Ursula tells our listeners about how she works with internationally respected organisations to help them align the development of their employees with their brand and strategic business objectives. She describes how her main focus is to help organisations engage and develop their people so that they in turn deliver great customer service and achieve desired business results.

In 2004, Ursula established People Skills Business.  People Skills Business partners with companies in the hospitality, tourism and leisure industry who are passionate about equipping and enabling their people to deliver great work and exceptional service to customers. Their mission is to put learning at the heart of the business by providing bespoke leadership and executive coaching programmes that are easily accessible to all and encourage a culture of continuous learning.

Ursula comments on what makes a great hospitality leader, the role of women in the current hospitality field, the challenges facing hospitality in the future and how businesses can attract and retain young people by providing more learning and development and not shying away from hard truths. 

Ursula has led multi-cultural teams and managed large-scale projects across Europe, Middle East, Asia and North America. Her breadth of knowledge of Human Resources and the international service industry make her well equipped to work with senior management to help them recognise and solve key business issues.

She has been recognised and won awards for her work with Maybourne Hotel Group, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and InterContinental Hotel Group from Personnel Today and World of Learning Awards.

Ursula has a Masters in Human Resource Strategy from London Metropolitan University, a Diploma in Hotel Management and Business from Technological University Dublin and is a qualified Time to Think Coach. She is also highly experienced as a programme manager, designer, facilitator  and presenter.

To learn more about People Skills Business click here: https://www.peopleskillsbusiness.com and here: https://vimeo.com/739985876

Vanessa Kellerhals currently works in Iraq for the UNDP (United Nation Development Programme) but little in her career path would hint at her one day working in peacebuilding and development. 

 In this podcast, Vanessa explains how she went from working at the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich, winning the AICR world’s best receptionist in 2010 and then onto Lebanon to learn Arabic.  From there, she moved back to Switzerland to pursue her studies in Social Sciences.  After finishing her Master’s degree and trying to gain a foothold in peacebuilding and development during the pandemic, she was thrilled to learn that she was chosen to work for the UNDP in Iraq.

 Vanessa’s credo of “embrace the chaos” has been useful while working in the hospitality field and most certainly in her current position as the Programme Officer of the UNDP Social Cohesion Team in Baghdad.  Iraq’s recent history has been marked by many devastating conflicts and much of the UNDP’s work revolves around working with international partners as well as the government of Iraq to rebuild destroyed infrastructure, bring back displaced people to their homes, and support in laying the foundation for development in the country.  “Social Cohesion work” includes all projects aiming to support people from different backgrounds to live together peacefully and to be accepting of each other.

 Vanessa describes how her hospitality career prepared her for her current profession.  She describes some of the hospitality transferable skills such as customer care and service, interpersonal communication, teamwork, decision making and crisis management that are skills she can use in her daily development and peacebuilding work.

In this podcast we speak to Aoife McArdle, an Innovation & Disruption Expert. Aoife was an early leader in the most disruptive industries the world has seen in the last 20 years. She was a key initiator and driver of rapid growth at Airbnb (travel and hospitality), Skype (telecommunications) and Apple (music, e-commerce). 

 Aoife shares her personal stories as a host on Airbnb before she began working there and how the company’s mission and values won her over. It’s hard to think of a more quintessential story in disruption than Airbnb — the global platform that changed the way we think about staying in other people’s homes, which disrupted an incumbent industry. It pivoted and thrived during the pandemic and floated 3 years ago with a market cap of over $80bn. 

 At Airbnb, Aoife pioneered and expanded regulations for home sharing and spearheaded cross-functional efforts that resulted in the implementation of some of the first ever home-sharing laws in the world. She shares some remarkable anecdotes with our listeners and describes some unforeseen experiences in meetings she had with city officials who were concerned with how Airbnb would change the local tourism scene. 

 After 4 years as General Counsel EMEA, Aoife became a founding leader of Airbnb’s Experiences business, leading Business Affairs, Social Impact and Diversity & Inclusion. She also initiated, led and closed Airbnb’s largest global partnership, a 10-year landmark deal with the International Olympic Committee, which will drive economic empowerment opportunities for millions of hosts, athletes and local communities during the next 4 Olympic and Paralympic Games. 

She is an expert at navigating complex policy and risk for disruptive companies that are expanding globally and will share her take on what companies need to consider when they have to make difficult trade-offs between scale and risk. Aoife previously worked as European Legal Counsel at Apple and as Global Head of Commercial & Regulatory Affairs at Skype. During her time at Apple and at Skype, Aoife also saw huge growth and scale in her role including the launch of the iPod and the first partnership that enabled Skype on mobile. 

 Aoife is an Advisor and Board Member in the USA and Europe, as well as an angel investor. She coaches entrepreneurs and founders, prioritizing female and minority founded companies.

In this podcast, Brigitte Lawler from Swiss4Africa describes the work that their non-profit organization, registered in Bern, Switzerland, is currently doing in South Africa. They work with small NPO’s in South Africa to break the cycle of poverty,addressing four of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

They were founded by 5 members a year ago and at the time of founding, three of its members were based in Switzerland while the other two are on the ground in South Africa. 

 They work with local communities to identify their greatest needs and implement a 2-pronged approach by fixing the most urgent short-term needs and building sustainable models for the long term to get them to a point of being self-sustainable. 

 Their self-sustainable model depends on what best suits a particular community. Swiss4Afrika has realised that these models need to have certain elements: 

1. Create an ability to generate income / provide resources to the community so they are not reliant on donations. 
2. Develops skills for members of the community that they can apply to contribute to their community well-being. These skills should be transferable so that it enables them to be employable outside of the community. 
3. Creates employment opportunities and experience building for members while they are living in the community. 

 One of their communities is called Soli Deo Gloria Care Centre (Soli), based in Lydenburg. Swiss4Afrika formed an alliance with a global organisation called Meals on Wheels, a type of soup kitchen for the frail and poor in the area. With this alliance, they will be able to train people in kitchen skills and provide a much needed service to the local population.

 Randel van Heerden, Director of Swiss4Afrika: 

Randel has volunteered in some interesting places around the world. In South Africa he volunteered as a policeman to assist investigations in crimes committed against children. Randel moved to the Philippines with his wife and volunteered to build a school for the poor on a garbage dump in Manila. 

With others, he assisted in delivering aid to affected people each time a typhoon blew through Manila.  In Guatemala he assisted an NGO called Constru Casa to build homes for the poor.  In the Ivory Coast, Randel headed up a team of volunteers who helped to renovate the Abidjan zoo. He was sponsored by the Swiss and German embassies as well as the Calao Foundation in Luxembourg, the San Diego Zoo in the USA and private donors. In 2022, Randel and his wife moved to Switzerland and started Swiss4Afrika.

 Brigitte Lawler, Director of Swiss4Afrika: 

Brigitte Lawler is the founder of Legenda solutions-focused consultancy specializing in business growth, scaling tech companies and transforming business for the digital world. Having worked in more than 30 countries and lived in 4, Brigitte has developed a global perspective to business in different markets. Brigitte is able to draw on experience as a Global Transformation Manager across several business and functional areas, as well as adapting those skills and competencies in the world of Entrepreneurs and Start-Ups. As a founding member and director of a Non-Profit Organisation, Brigitte equally applies her expertise on organizational, process and people development in an effort to alleviate poverty. Key-note speaker and author. 

In this podcast, João de Saldanha describes his path from hospitality to the world of finance and investment.  Despite some early disappointments, João was able to move forward and he shares his insights into how difficulties can be turned into opportunities for growth and success.  He also explains how his hospitality training was a powerful tool for his future career and how a hospitality education gives you the transferable skills that can be used in many industries and fields.  In addition, João describes the common characteristics between hospitality and finance.

 João also speaks to our listeners about the importance of self-discovery, determination and resilience and how he was inspired to create a new project called "We Accelerate Prosperity" when COVID hit back in 2020.

 João de Saldanha is a Portuguese adventurer thriving in the vibrant streets of London.  He has always had an entrepreneurial spirit and he took the leap into starting his own business at the age of 27. Throughout his journey, he experienced the thrill of success, but also faced the bitter taste of failure. Not once, but twice, his businesses failed, testing his resilience and determination.
 
During those challenging times, he often daydreamed about a different path—a path where he could create a diverse investment portfolio that would provide him with a consistent income and occasional capital gains. The only problem was, he didn't know where to start or how to navigate this new territory.
 
 Thankfully, destiny intervened when a friend introduced him to a personal development program that resonated deeply with him. It was a moment of clarity and he realised that he had to embark on a journey of self-discovery, focusing on both his mindset and financial intelligence. He devoured books, watched enlightening videos, attended empowering conferences and seminars and sought guidance from coaches and mentors. With every step, he began constructing the blueprint for his dream—a portfolio of investments that would reward him with regular dividends.
 
 But he didn't want to keep this newfound knowledge and success to himself and he felt an overwhelming desire to share it with others.  Over the years, as he honed his skills and implemented effective strategies, he discovered his true calling—to empower and uplift others on their own financial journeys.
 
 Since 2012, he has been immersed in the world of business, investments and start-ups. Through his guidance, he has helped many individuals increase their wealth to over €1 million. Witnessing their transformations and witnessing their lives change for the better has been one of the most rewarding experiences of his life.