Growing up in a family very involved in the entertainment management business, this could have been the natural path of my career, but I decided to explore new territories.

First, I started studying Economics after the Baccalaureate, but I soon realised that I could not imagine myself as a banker or economist....... I then changed path to pursue a career which could combine my different passions: travel, food, and photography, and I joined the International Hospitality Management School of Glion in Switzerland.

After graduating from Glion, I joined IMHI Cornell Essec to get a master’s degree, and this was one of the best decisions I made since - on top of my learning experience: 

• I learned how to work in a cross-culture environment
• I gained a group of friends for life
• I owe the first part of my career to the school management Mr Guibilato, Mr Nowlis, Professor Arbel and Professor Kastner.

During my studies at IMHI, I did my internship with Mr Nicolas Meylan (IMHI 1986). He was then the F&B Director of the Intercontinental Grand Hotel in Paris and gave me the great opportunity to spend my internship as an F&B assistant. It was such a great experience that I decided to continue as a part time employee for the rest of the second year at IMHI. This experience made me pledge that any “intern” I would have in my future teams should be involved in working with the same approach.

After graduating from IMHI, I applied at Disneyland Paris for a job in F&B. At the same time, Professor Arbel who was teaching Finance and Yield Management at IMHI recommended me for a Yield Management position at Disneyland Paris. I really wanted to work in F&B so when Disney offered me the Yield Management position, I almost refused it.

And that's how my career in Revenue Management started, by seizing an opportunity and trusting my professor’s judgment. And I was at the right place at the right time since Yield Management was only starting to be applied to hotels in France and around the word.

I enjoyed Yield Management immediately as I understood its strategic importance to optimise the revenue of the hotels. I liked the daily optimisation challenges when you try new strategic or tactical approaches. Yield management is a science, but it is also a daily gamble where we take measured risks. We are fortunate to have 365 days to “experiment”.

After 2 years, I had the opportunity to join the Concorde La Fayette Hôtel in Paris - a 1000 room hotel - where I applied the Yield management  principles I learned at Disney. The revenue growth came quite quickly and for the first time, the Concorde La Fayette was doing better than Le Meridien Etoile. A few months after, Michael Nowlis and Bob Kastner were animating a workshop for Le Meridien Europe GMs. The Managing Director - Europe started talking about the exceptional results of the Concorde Lafayette. That's how Yield Management and my name came into the conversation.

Le Meridien offered me the position of Revenue Management Director – Europe to implement Revenue Management strategy, team, processes, and systems in 42 luxury hotels and resorts.

It was my first important international role, and I was still a young woman giving advice to GMs -  100% male at the time &  10-20 years older than me. Fortunately, the Managing Director Europe became my mentor and gave me full support. He gave me great advice through the years, and particularly these 2:

"You are a consultant to the GMs- not their boss. You have to convince them."

“No PEE – No Politics No Emotion No Ego”

After 3 years at Le Meridien Europe successfully implementing revenue management, I was promoted to the Global RM Director Position in London. One of the greatest learning and biggest challenges at Le Meridien was managing cultural diversity and adapting our communication and methods. Le Meridien had a very strong and supportive company culture. The management were able to keep the “family atmosphere'' over the years "allowing the work hard, play hard mentality" striving to reach excellence at work. This created a very strong professional and personal bond and with many colleagues we are still good friends to this day. 

I was not born and raised with technology and before my first job, I only had a course at IMHI on Lotus 123. We were still using Floppy Disks at the time. Very quickly, I realised that I needed to talk the same language as the IT Team, if I wanted to change some processes and systems. I invested a lot of hours catching up on my lack of knowledge, attending conferences, reading through entire software manuals, or reading books such as Excel Macro for dummies.

Throughout my time at Disneyland Paris, Concorde Hotels or Le Meridien Hotels, I also continuously learned from my peers by working very closely with the distribution department and with the technology department. This 360° knowledge and collaborative approach allowed me to provide a solid base to all my projects and positively impact the evolution of Revenue Management for the chains I worked for.

When Le Meridien was taken over by Starwood Hotels and Resort, I stayed on during the transition to help convert Le Meridien hotels to Starwood Pricing, RM and Distribution platforms and it reinforced my distribution and IT knowledge.

After the transition, I joined Concorde Hotels (owned by Starwood Capital) as VP RM, Pricing and Distribution to define the strategy and create a new distribution platform, a cluster revenue management team, a central reservation office and a Cluster Group Desk. We created everything from scratch: the team, the processes, and the platforms. It was a great team experience with immediate success in revenue. Then, the 2008 subprime crisis took place and Starwood Capital started selling some of the hotels instead of adding to the portfolio as previously planned. 

Therefore, after 14 years working for International Groups, travelling the world and working very hard, I had the opportunity to take a break. I had planned to travel for a year before looking for another opportunity. Early on during that break, a friend - DOSM at an Italian company - asked me to visit and audit their company website. After the feedback meeting, the president of the company offered me my first consulting job auditing their hotel in New York. I never planned to work as a consultant, particularly as an independent one. However, this opportunity was the start of the second part of my career.

Being a consultant has many advantages: on the professional side, I have regularly new and different projects without having to handle politics, and on the personal side I gained the freedom to organise my life and to take care of my son.

As a consultant, I have worked for various companies around the world. The missions are very diverse and depend on each company's needs.

They vary: 

* Scope wise:  Digital Transformation, Revenue management, Pricing, Software and RFP Implementation, Operation Processes, Hotel Migration between International Hotel Brands, Training, Coaching…

* Support wise: Audit, One off Mission, Regular support, Full time Chief Digital Officer

* Customer types: independent hotels, international hotel groups, cruise company, campsites, cabaret, tour operator, medical clinic, schools, etc.

For one of my clients, Louvre Hotels Group, I initially took an interim management position as VP Consultant, that turned into a full time Chief Digital Officer position in charge of RM, Distribution and E-commerce and IT for 2 years. I conducted for them the entire Digital plan redeveloping all their distribution platforms. 

The success of my consulting career is due to the expertise I gained over the years, but also to the network I built in the first half of my career working for Disney, Concorde and Le Meridien.

My first mission came from my network and the newest one also. 

Here are the key learnings from my experience: 

• Seize the opportunity – (sometimes it is just to be at the right place at the right time)

• Have a mentor 

• Surround yourself with a strong team and grow your teammates

• Convince people instead of enforcing

• Nurture your network

• Keep learning (stay humble with your knowledge)

• Balanced life (hardest for me, but I keep trying…)

After working 14 years in International Groups and 13 years as a consultant! What's next? I look forward to seizing new opportunities, learning, keeping in touch with my co-graduates at IMHI and friends I made over the world, and  meeting new people…

PS: Special thoughts for our co-graduates IMHI 1995 who are no longer with us - Grete Helen,, Michel, Olivier, and Vinay.