meet

meet

the

MD

This week: Brian Hladnik, The Lancaster Landmark Hotel Company

This week: Brian Hladnik, The Lancaster Landmark Hotel Company

Age: 48

I’ve always been surrounded by the hotel industry. As a child, I travelled extensively with my parents staying in and experiencing fine hotels.

At the age of 19, having gained my Higher National Diploma at hotel and catering management college, I became assistant manager at the Cunard International Hotel in London.

I started as a general trainee in different departments gaining experience in all areas. However, upon the resignation of the personnel manager, I took over for five to six months. It was a formative time at the beginning of my career development, being thrown in at the deep end running a personnel department and dealing with people twice my age.

From Cunard, I moved to the London Metropole as food and beverage manager where I gained experience of running restaurants and bars and learning food costs and menu planning. I also learnt the hard way about staff issues – if Manuel doesn’t turn up for his shift you have to find someone to fill his place or you end up having to do it yourself.

I then spent four years at the Gloucester Hotel where I really got into my role as rooms division manager. During my time there, I came up with an innovative style of presentation and organised a Scandinavian roadshow in five cities giving presentations to corporate bookers.

In 1979, I went on a round-the-world trip and fell in love with the Far East. I was lucky to find one of my former bosses based over there as a general manager for Mandarin Oriental, so I moved out to Jakarta to take on my first general manager post.

It was the first time I had my own ‘ship’ to run. When the buck stops with you, you have a heightened sense of responsibility. I wasn’t governed by policies as Mandarin wanted us to develop an entrepreneurial spirit with the freedom to do other things.

However, the most formative period of my time in the Far East was the six years I spent in Penang. I was given the job as group general manager looking after three hotels, with two general managers reporting into me. It was my first experience of unions that were flexing their muscles in Malaysia at the time. It was a tense period during which we renegotiated collective pay agreements resulting in six months of industrial challenges.

It was a huge learning curve. Because of the large numbers of staff employed within the hotels (I was responsible for over 1,600 staff in one hotel), a considerable amount of my work day was involved in motivating and providing the leadership for the various groups. I learnt a lot about communication on all levels. I remember one particular training session when the training manager started upon the topic of cleaning guestroom baths – at which point, one employee asked “What’s a bath?”

In 1996, I moved back to London when the owner of the Lancaster Landmark Hotel Company asked me to come back and help with the day-to-day running of two hotels – The Landmark London and sister property the Royal Lancaster Hotel. The Thai-registered company has a room count of over 723 and an annual turnover exceeding £60 million.

When you have had a background in resort hotels, city-centre hotels can be easier in some ways as someone else is usually paying so guests only have to sleep there and have breakfast. But the services that they do require have to be perfectly performed as corporate guests are generally less patient than their leisure counterparts.

Sales have always been a special area for me based upon my belief that you can have the most wonderful product in the world but without the guests in the rooms you are doomed to failure. As a result of this, I have developed close working relationships with all sales functions, frequently meeting my clients and major suppliers.

The hotel industry is an exciting business that is constantly changing. I’ve been lucky in not being restricted by a routine – this has allowed me to be creative in my approach to leading a large group of staff. I have been able to stamp my personal principles and ideas upon the business.

CURRICULUM VITAE

1974: assistant manager, Cunard International Hotel.

1975: assistant food and beverage manager, London Metropole Hotel.

1976: rooms division manager, Gloucester Hotel.

1980: resident manager, Mandarin Oriental, Jakarta.

1983: resident manager, Excelsior Hotel, Hong Kong.

1985: general manager, Golden Sands Hotel, Penang.

1987: group general manager, Shangri-La International Hotels, Penang.

1991: general manager, Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok.

1993: general manager, Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore.

1996: managing director, Lancaster Landmark Hotel Company, London.

MY TOP TIPS

&#8226 Know what you want and go for it.

&#8226 Be prepared to learn – continue learning every day.

&#8226 Never know everything so you can use the skills of your people.

&#8226 Find a mentor and mentor others.

&#8226 Motivate and learn.

&#8226 Focus on the basics.

&#8226 Fight to be the best in your market.

&#8226 Innovate.