Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Hospitality Folks

Day two of a five-day event. 150,000 visitors. 200 of your 600 staff are no-shows.

Wolfgang Schürmann has been there. He restructured the menu, reassigned every manager, got on the radio, and delivered anyway — because he's spent two decades learning every role from the ground up.

In this episode: what high-pressure event operations teach you about leadership, why you cannot lead a team you haven't worked alongside, and the story of a Michelin star chef who threw a frying pan — and then did something that Wolfgang still thinks about 30 years later.

🔗 Connect with Wolfgang on LinkedIn: ⁠linkedin.com/in/wolfgang-schuermann-🇩🇪-🇪🇺-🇲🇽-9a8b5b32⁠🌐 Gastro 2.0: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/gastro2-0/about/⁠🎙️ Alicia Dick Wahlberg: ⁠linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg⁠

#HospitalityLeadership #HospitalityFolks #EventManagement #HotelTech #HighPerformanceTeams

Most hotels have an extraordinary story. Most never tell it.

Regitze Cecilie Rosenvinge is the founder of Rose PR Agency — one of Scandinavia's leading hotel PR agencies, specializing in experience-led, remote, and wellness properties across the Nordics and Germany. She's also Hotel Editor at Falstaff Nordics and a professional affiliate of Les Clefs d'Or Denmark.

In this episode, Regitze and host Alicia Dick Wahlberg explore:

→ Why hospitality and storytelling are the same thing — and always have been
→ The real definition of personal branding (it's not about visibility — it's about perception)
→ What hotels get completely wrong when they try to enter Nordic and German markets
→ Why failure is not the opposite of success — it's the cost of getting there
→ What Norway's most remote hotel taught her about the future of hospitality

If you lead a hotel, a brand, or a career in this industry — this one stays with you.

🎙️ Connect with Regitze:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/regitze-cecilie-rosenvinge-4b375b39/
Rose PR Agency: https://www.rose-pr.com/

🎙️ Connect with Alicia:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlber

What does hospitality look like when you strip away the buzzwords and start with people?In this episode of Hospitality Folks, Alicia talks with Melanie Chinwe, an operator who owned and ran S'MUVE ME Café in Nigeria before moving into Oenotourism at Château Dauzac in Bordeaux. She brings a grounded, intentional view of an industry that too often chases scale over connection.In this episode:Why hospitality, at its root, is always about peopleBuilding service design and systems that actually serve guestsWhat running her own café taught her about leadershipThe move from restaurant operations into wine tourismStorytelling and environment as tools for shaping guest journeysThe strategic role of service in driving long-term valueMelanie is currently an MSc Hospitality and Tourism Management student at Paris School of Business, with over six years in restaurant operations and guest experience.Hospitality Folks is a weekly show to showcase the wonderful and many career paths within hospitality and tourism. Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniechinwe/Follow along with Alicia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg/

What does it actually mean to slow down and why are the most intentional hospitality experiences being built not in hotel lobbies, but in forests?

Katarina Alič Čretnik spent more than 15 years in digital marketing before following a deeper pull toward nature. She is an ANFT-certified forest therapy guide and NLP trainer based in Slovenia, running Melisa Holiday, a nature retreat where guests arrive stressed and distracted and leave feeling something they had not felt in years.

In this conversation, Katarina and Alicia get into what forest therapy actually is and why guests who walk through trees every day still feel the forest completely differently when guided. They talk about the emotional weight of nature, what it takes to leave a corporate career for something slower, and why the hospitality industry is sitting on a wellness offering it has not recognized yet.

This one is for hospitality owners and operators who want to understand what nature-based guest experiences actually look like in practice.

🔗 Connect with Katarina Alič Čretnik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katarina-alic-cretnik/🌿 Melisa Holiday: https://melisa.si/🔗 Connect with Alicia Dick Wahlberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg📸 Instagram: @alicia_dickwahlberg

What would you do if you applied for a job you knew nothing about and told them exactly that?

For Annemarie, that moment changed everything.

She moved from the Netherlands to Sweden for love, stumbled into revenue management at Radisson with zero experience, and spent the next 26 years building one of Scandinavia's most respected consultancies. Today she runs Taktikon, organizes the Global Revenue Forum across multiple European cities, and teaches the next generation of revenue managers that you don't have to be a mathematician to be great with data.

In this episode, Alicia and Annemarie talk about what it really means to bet on yourself before you feel ready, why revenue management is never a one-size-fits-all strategy, and how the best consultancy relationships feel less like business and more like family.

For GMs, revenue managers, and commercial leaders who know there's always more to learn.
🔗 Connect with Annemarie Gubanski: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemariegubanski
🔗 Global Revenue Forum Amsterdam — June 4th: https://www.globalrevenueforum.com/amsterdam-2026
🔗 Connect with Alicia Dick Wahlberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg
📸 Instagram: @alicia_dickwahlberg

What separates a truly great kitchen from a toxic one?

According to internationally experienced culinary leader Adam Mali, it comes down to one choice every leader has to make: do you lead with fear, or do you lead with humanity?

Adam has spent decades at the highest levels of hospitality across Europe and North America — working alongside multiple Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire, shaping fine dining concepts for luxury hotel groups, and quietly amassing the kind of knowledge that only comes from time spent in both palace kitchens and the unassuming neighbourhood restaurants he loves most.

A fluent French speaker with a deep affinity for European culinary culture, Adam brings a rare global perspective to a conversation the industry badly needs to have.

He speaks candidly about the "badass chef" culture he once participated in, the moment a frightened young stage knocked over a bread starter and changed his leadership philosophy forever, and why hospitality is failing its own people through ghosting, burnout, and a profound lack of mentorship.

This is a conversation about fine dining, kitchen culture, what great recruitment actually looks like — and the kind of leadership that builds teams worth staying for.

🔗 Adam Mali on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammalichef/

🔗 Alicia Dick Wahlberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg

What does a national swimmer, a bouncer in Zurich, and a personal trainer in Singapore have in common? A masterclass in people, performance, and showing up under pressure.

In this episode, Alicia sits down with Lali Jochmann, a Swiss operations and commercial leader with 15+ years building premium, service-driven businesses across Asia and Europe. Lali is currently completing his MBA while running Alchemy Personal Training and PEAK Gym in Singapore, and he is now setting his sights on bringing a new vision of wellness and longevity into European hospitality.

They talk about why athletes make exceptional hospitality professionals, what hotels are getting wrong about wellness, and why the gym in the basement with secondhand treadmills is no longer good enough. They also get into longevity, strength training as a leadership tool, and what a truly transformative guest experience could look like in the Swiss Alps.

Lali is actively looking to join the right team in a DACH-based wellness hospitality company. If that sounds like you, find him on LinkedIn or Instagram at liftwithlali.

Connect with Lali:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lali-jochmann-24678494Instagram: @liftwithlali

Follow Alicia on LinkedIn for more real conversations on culture, careers, and the people shaping hospitality, travel, tourism, and startups:linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg

Julius Anders has done it the hard way and the smart way.

From hotel management school to Mandarin Oriental and Corinthia, through the lifestyle world of Mondrian London, and then six years at Numa scaling a digital-first, remote-operated hotel brand from zero to 160+ properties across Europe. He built the operational structure from the ground floor, led the European operations team, and eventually took ownership of the DACH market before stepping out to found J.Anders Ventures.

Now he advises hospitality concepts, hospitality tech companies, and their service partners on unit economics, tech and AI integration, multi-site scaling, and remote operations — and he brings a point of view that is equal parts operator and builder.

In this episode, Julius and Alicia get into what it actually took to scale a VC backed hospitality company through COVID, why the 80/20 principle is beloved in startups and dreaded in hospitality, and how those two worlds collide when you are trying to grow fast without losing the service quality that made you worth growing in the first place.

They also go deep on careers. Julius's advice to anyone entering hospitality right now — whether you are 22 or 42 — is to ask why more often and take more risk than feels comfortable. Not because risk is glamorous, but because uncertainty, for those who believe in themselves, is always an opportunity before it is a threat.

And on hiring: as automation absorbs the repetitive work that used to fill a shift, the human moments that remain carry more weight than ever. The industry cannot keep recruiting for volume. The winners of the next decade will recruit for judgment, warmth, and the ability to read a situation no model can.

This is a conversation for operators, founders, career builders, and anyone who has ever wondered whether hospitality is still worth betting on.

It absolutely is.

Connect with Julius:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julius-a-anders-6517b318/

Connect with Alicia:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg/

Hospitality Folks is produced by Folksnest — the hospitality hiring platform built for the people who run hotels, not just the systems that track them.

From sleeping in a lobby chair as a night porter to managing luxury five-star hotel openings in Stockholm—Kim Spolén's hospitality journey is the masterclass in customer relationships and authentic selling.
Now Regional Director of Sales at StayNTouch, Kim joins Alicia to expose the biggest problem in hospitality tech: buzzword inflation.

We talk:
🏨 The career path that shaped his philosophy: Long-term relationships > quick closes

🏨 How hotel managers get burned by overhyped AI and "solutions"

🏨 The transition from frontline to tech ("the dark side")

🏨 Why DACH region hospitality tech is booming right now
Kim's perspective? "Find what customers actually want and need. Don't be the used car salesman of tech."
Listen in for candid stories from Strand Hotel, Sheraton, and Sergel Plaza—and why his approach to tech sales is changing the industry playbook.

For job seekers: Regional Director of Sales role (DACH) is hiring now.

Want to get in touch?
Kim Spolén
* LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kimspolen/
Alicia Dick Wahlberg (Hospitality Folks Host)* LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg/
* Instagram: @alicia_dickwahlberg
StayNTouch* LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/stayntouch — @Stayntouch
* Twitter/X: @StayNTouchInc (https://x.com/StayNTouchInc)
* Facebook: facebook.com/stayntouch
* YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCG2FdsPmZjRzPh_ofRi2lYQ
* Website: www.stayntouch.com
What do you think? Does hospitality tech really have "the cookies"?
#HospitalityTech #HospitalityLeadership #HotelManagement #CareerGrowth #StayNTouch #DACH #Nordics #HotelsOfStockholm #HospitalityFolks #PodcastForHospitality #TechVsHospitality #OperationsLeadership #EmployerBranding#HospitalityPodcast #HospitalityLeadership #HotelTech #CommunicationSkills #HospitalityJobs #StayNTouch #DACH

S1E09: From Self-Taught to Confident—How Teams Master French Pastry in Remote African Lodges

When self-taught chefs in remote safari lodges discover they can master French pastry techniques—pâte sucrée, choux, ganache, mousseline—everything changes. Confidence shifts. Retention improves. Guest experience transforms.

In this episode, Alicia talks with Charlotte Desamais, a French pastry consultant who works in some of the world's most logistically challenging kitchens: African safari camps, boutique lodges, and remote resorts where "impossible" constraints become creative opportunities.

Charlotte shares:

• Why that moment of realization—"I baked that"—drives her work

• How self-taught teams master refined techniques in weeks
• The confidence shift that changes retention and guest satisfaction
• Why remote environments create the most honest feedback loops
• How local ingredients + adaptation make excellence actually belong
  

Perfect for: Hospitality operators, hotel managers, people & culture leaders, luxury resort teams, anyone building staff development programs in challenging environments.
Listen if you care about: Hospitality excellence, staff retention, building confident teams, remote operations, luxury guest experience, African hospitality innovation.

Connect with Charlotte Desamais:
🌐 Website: https://www.frenchpastrysecrets.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frenchpastrysecrets/
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottedesamais/
📧 Email: hello@frenchpastrysecrets.com

Follow Alicia Dick Wahlberg & Hospitality Folks:
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alicia_dickwahlberg/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg/

Who is Charlotte?

Charlotte Desamais is a French pastry consultant working where pastry is not always expected: in remote safari lodges and bush kitchens. She thrives in environments that seem logistically impossible, helping hospitality teams transform constraints into creative opportunities.
From bush kitchens to off-grid camps, she supports teams in elevating their dessert and breakfast offerings by combining French pastry techniques with local flavours and the resources available on site.
For Charlotte, great baking is not about perfect equipment or shiny labs. It begins with understanding ingredients, environment, and people. Skills are the foundation, creativity and adaptation bring everything to life.
She doesn’t enter kitchens to replace teams or impose standards. Instead, she works alongside them, building trust, refining techniques, and strengthening organisation so that excellence remains long after she leaves.
Charlotte believes dessert is far more than a final course. In hospitality, it can shape the emotional memory of a stay. By investing in people and embracing real-world constraints, she helps lodges elevate their guest experience, proving that even in the bush, elegance is always possible.

What does it take to leave a decade in finance and technology behind — and build something entirely new in one of the world's most challenging markets?

In this episode, Alicia Dick Wahlberg (CEO & Founder of Folksnest) sits down with Einars Garoza, Founder of Conserve Safari Camps & Lodges, a high-end luxury hospitality operation developing properties across Tanzania's national parks.

Einars relocated to East Africa two years ago with a clear thesis: safari real estate can be a distinct asset class — one that delivers strong returns, meaningful impact, and access to extraordinary experiences.

They talk about the practical realities of building in frontier markets, what it means to align capital with purpose, and how nature itself — the Serengeti, Tarangire, Ngorongoro — becomes a vehicle for restoration and reconnection.
If you've ever thought about trading the expected path for one that actually means something, this one's for you.

🌍 Find Einars: conservesafari.com | @einars_garoza on Instagram

What if venture capital is the wrong model for hospitality?
In this episode, we sit down with Magnus, co-founder of Nook Society, to unpack a bold idea:
👉 Hospitality isn’t software — and shouldn’t be funded like it.
Instead of chasing aggressive VC growth, Nook Society is building a community-driven investment model, where guests can become investors through tokenized profit-sharing.
We dive deep into:
Why traditional VC can kill great hospitality brands
The rise of community-based financing
How transparency builds trust (and demand)
Turning customers into long-term stakeholders
What DACH investors are missing about hospitality innovation
Magnus also shares how they built a 4.9⭐ experience-led brand and why authenticity—not scale—is their real moat.
If you’re a founder, investor, or operator in hospitality, this episode will challenge how you think about growth, capital, and community.What if venture capital is the wrong model for hospitality?
In this episode, we sit down with Magnus, co-founder of Nook Society, to unpack a bold idea:
👉 Hospitality isn’t software — and shouldn’t be funded like it.
Instead of chasing aggressive VC growth, Nook Society is building a community-driven investment model, where guests can become investors through tokenized profit-sharing.
We dive deep into:
Why traditional VC can kill great hospitality brands
The rise of community-based financing
How transparency builds trust (and demand)
Turning customers into long-term stakeholders
What DACH investors are missing about hospitality innovation
Magnus also shares how they built a 4.9⭐ experience-led brand and why authenticity—not scale—is their real moat.
If you’re a founder, investor, or operator in hospitality, this episode will challenge how you think about growth, capital, and community.
Connect with Magnus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/magnusbusch
Invest with Nook Society: https://www.nooksociety.com/invest
Want to check out Nook Society's playlist? https://open.spotify.com/user/31e6weh35z4iizkoc4xxo7gokgme?si=0619cf01981a420b

What does it really take to build a workplace where people feel heard, supported, and motivated to grow?

In this episode, we sit down with Nicki Boone, Talent Development Manager/Executive Navigator at Marriott Tulsa Southern Hills, to explore how intentional culture-building can transform hospitality teams from the inside out.

Nicki shares how breaking down silos, encouraging open communication, and creating psychological safety around mistakes can unlock stronger collaboration and faster problem-solving. From hiring for values over skills to leading with vulnerability, she offers practical strategies that any hospitality leader can apply immediately.

Whether you’re managing a hotel team or building your first team culture, this conversation is packed with real-world insights on how to create an environment where people don’t just work—but thrive.

Do you want to connect with Alicia, Nicki or the rest of the team at Marriott Tulsa Southern Hills?

You can find links here:

Nicki's LinkedIn

Alicia's LinkedIn

LinkedIn:

•  https://www.linkedin.com/company/marriott-tulsa-hotel-southern-hills

YouTube: 

• https://www.youtube.com/@TheLobbyTalks

Instagram: 

• https://www.instagram.com/thelobbytalks
• https://www.instagram.com/tulsamarriott/

What does mentorship really look like in luxury hospitality, and why has it quietly disappeared for the next generation?

In this episode, Alicia Dick Wahlberg speaks with Daryl Kornelsen, a Canadian-born senior hospitality executive who has spent decades building sales, marketing, and leadership teams across Germany's finest luxury hotels. From his first shift in the stewarding department at the Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski in Munich to leading regional sales for global brands including Taj, Shangri-La, and IHG, Daryl brings a rare combination of commercial sharpness and deep human warmth to every conversation.

Daryl reflects on what it means to carry a torch of genuine hospitality across cultures, why the best mentors take their people for a walk around the block, and how the Pareto principle applies just as much to your energy as it does to your results.

In this episode:
🎵 Why hospitality has a musicality all of its own
🤝 What mentorship looks like in practice, and why it is disappearing
🌍 Moving from Canada to Germany and learning to read culture like a language
🏨 The emotional experience of opening a hotel and becoming part of its legacy
💡 The Pareto principle applied to team energy and leadership
🎶 Why resilience, not just ambition, is what sustains a long career

Connect with Daryl on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/darylkornelsen/

Analice Martinsson speaks with Folksnest's Alicia Dick Wahlberg about the intersection of diplomacy, international relations, and luxury hospitality. Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, Analice shares her journey from dreaming of a career as an elegant Air France flight attendant to earning a Master’s degree in International Relations, only to find her true calling in the "human-centered" world of luxury hotels in Stockholm.

Analice discusses the "Diplomacy of Service," explaining how active listening and consensus-building—the core of a diplomat's work—are the same skills required to welcome a global guest. We dive into the "soft skills" that are often underestimated in the Western world, the challenges of the Swedish labor union system, and why aesthetics and beauty are essential for both guest experience and employee well-being.

In this episode:

• The Diplomacy of Hospitality: How intercultural etiquette and "listening to the room" translate from the UN to the hotel lobby.

• Overcoming Limiting Beliefs: Navigating the academic and family pressure to choose "prestige" over a passion for service.

• Labor & Unions in Sweden: A candid look at why hospitality struggles to compete with retail in terms of wages and conditions in Stockholm.

• The Power of Aesthetics: Why working in a luxury environment provides the "peace" and inspiration needed to perform at a high level.

• Multilingualism in Service: The advantage of using five languages and cultural competence to make guests feel "home away from home

Analice Martinsson is a Guest Relations Supervisor and Concierge at Hôtel Reisen, part of The Unbound Collection by Hyatt in Stockholm. With an international background across hospitality and global organizations, she works at the intersection of guest experience, service excellence, and brand strategy. Her approach is shaped by a deep understanding of how attention to detail, cultural awareness, and personalization contribute to meaningful and memorable stays.

In this episode of Hospitality Folks, Alicia speaks with Alexander Kanonovich, Front Office Team Leader, about the global experiences that shaped his hospitality career and leadership style.Alexander shares insights from more than 15 years in customer service across luxury hospitality and premium travel, reflecting on intercultural service, guest experience, operational excellence, and the realities of leading at the front desk.

Topics in this episode:

🌍 Global hospitality careers

🤝 Intercultural service

🛎️ Front office leadership

🧳 Luxury guest experience

🧑‍🍳 Service culture in hotels

Connect with Alexander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-kanonovich/

What does effective leadership look like in high-pressure hotel environments?

In this episode, Julia Silvia Brost shares practical insights on hotel leadership, quality assurance, and hospitality training. Drawing from frontline experience at Hyatt and corporate-level quality implementation at The Social Hub, she explains how psychological safety, empathy, and clarity improve audit performance, reduce burnout, and strengthen guest experience.

We discuss leading hotel teams through audits, transforming brand standards into operational excellence, hiring for long-term leadership potential, and building resilient, guest-centric teams that thrive under pressure.

If you work in hotel management, hospitality leadership, quality management, or training and development, this episode offers actionable strategies to elevate team performance and deliver consistent, high-quality guest experiences.

In the first episode of Hospitality Folks, Alicia Dick Wahlberg speaks with Magnus Busch, Co-Founder of nook society, about redefining upscale and luxury hospitality through human-centric experience, community building, and values-driven hiring.

Magnus shares how nook emerged from strong personal values before evolving into a brand and how that authenticity attracts both talent and like-minded guests. They explore building hotel teams without rigid playbooks, creating meaningful guest experiences, and designing hospitality spaces that foster real connection in a digital world.

The conversation also dives into nook’s innovative crowd investment model, the nook investor society, where community members finance growth and participate in the company’s success. Through bonfires, retreats, and shared ownership, Nook is building more than a hotel, it is building a society.

In this episode:

• Hiring for values in boutique hospitality

• Designing experience-led hotels & properties

• Building community through shared values

• Aligning investors with brand philosophy

• Financing hospitality through a crowd investment model

Welcome to Hospitality Folks, a video podcast hosted by Alicia Dick Wahlberg, CEO and Founder of Folksnest. We explore the future of upscale and luxury hospitality, hiring strategy, leadership, service quality, and team culture. Through conversations with hotel founders and industry leaders, this podcast examines how modern hospitality is being redefined through human connection and meaningful work.