It's absolutely okay to gatekeep
+ the many definitions of "luxury hospitality"
Hi everyone,
Happy Friday. Today’s newsletter includes a long personal section in which I answer a couple career advice questions and some observations on the current state of Eurosummer. It also includes a list of deals closed and announced this week, along with some recommendations for enjoyable beachside reading.
Most readers of The Stanza are in their 30s and 40s (with readers in their 50s as the next largest category), but there are a few precocious readers in the early years of their careers. A couple of you wrote to me this week with good questions and I thought I would share in today’s newsletter in case it may be helpful for others:
If you were early into your career with a background in M&A but a keen interest in Operations and hospitality and luxury, where would you work?
The benefit of being early in your career is that you have very low opportunity costs. In your case, even though an entry level job at a hotel is a pay cut to your M&A job, it doesn’t matter because you’re likely not having to support a certain lifestyle or a young family. In other words, take advantage of the fact that you’re untethered. If your goal is to understand how to operate a luxury hotel, there isn’t a better way to do that than to start from the bottom and work your way up. Get exposure to everything - from the housekeeping department, to back of house at the restaurant, to front desk, etc. My best advice here is to avoid working in the corporate office of a hotel company because the experience and insights gained from “rolling up your sleeves” will be invaluable if your primary interest is in operations.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in hospitality/RE with entrepreneurial ambitions?