#034 - Hospitality Meets Anne Golden - The World Class General Manager

Hospitality never stands still, there's always something new on the horizon. This week, we've got an amazing chat with the Opening General Manager Anne Golden who has the not insignificant task of leading one of the most exciting projects on the horizon in Europe, the Pan Pacific London (https://www.panpacific.com/en/hotels-and-resorts/pp-london.html)In addition to Anne's amazing journey, we chat about Lockdown fatigue, learning from mistakes, emotional intelligence, training & development, check in and check out, overbooking, The Pan Pacific London (Naturally), making your own Olympics, gnomes, Jurgen Klopp and so much more.Anne speaks with such humour and humility, it's not to be missed.EnjoyRecorded on 29th July 2020Show transcriptionSUMMARY KEYWORDShotel, people, pan pacific, hospitality, london, singapore, world, realise, moment, lots, industry, floor, sales, guests, experience, incredible, teamSPEAKERSAnne, PhilPhil 00:01Welcome to hospitality meets with me Phil street where we take a light hearted look into the stories and individuals that make up the wonderful world of hospitality. Today's guest is Anne Golden, General Manager for the spectacular upcoming Pan Pacific London. Coming up on today's show. Anne pitches a new movie franchise idea...Anne 00:21The rise of the online travel agents and thingsPhil 00:24Phil lets out a Freudian slip live on the show... And of course you're getting rid of 1000 passengers, Getting rid, that's a bit harsh And we learn that both and Phil might be Jurgen Klopp fans. Yeah, I think Jurgen Klopp needs to write a book on leadership.Anne 00:37No, I think he needs to run the country Phil.Phil 00:40All that and so much more as Anne walks us through her story and journey to date. As well as giving us some wonderful insight into the magic we can expect at the upcoming Pan Pacific London. Don't forget to give us a like and a share across your favourite social channels. Enjoy. Hello and welcome to the next edition of hospitality meets with me Phil Street. Today, we're Back in London, and well, we welcome someone who has been tasked with leading one of the city's highest profile openings for 2021. delighted to welcome to the show, the general manager of the Pan Pacific London, Anne Golden. Anne welcome to the show.Anne 01:15Thanks, Phil. Good morning, really, really happy and honoured to be here. So looking forward to the chat,Phil 01:22Oh you're very, very welcome. How are you doing?01:24Doing really well, actually. Yes, we've had a good week had some wins this week. So it's exciting.01:30Great. I think we'll, we'll take wins in any form at the momentAnne 01:35(Laughs) at the moment, Yes.Phil 01:38Yeah, I had a really great Friday, last week where I ended the week on a on a major high and then on Monday, I had to have a conversation with HMRC which was a real law. And I think that's just the way the world at the moment. Some highs, some lows.Anne 01:54Absolutely, absolutely. Definitely. I agree. As long as we're fit and healthy then I think everything else just is a bonus, isn't it?Phil 02:01Absolutely. So where in the world are you at the moment?Anne 02:05I'm at home in Finchley. And as you can probably tell from my accent I'm originally from the northeast of England, Middlesbrough. Yeah. So, yep. And for my sins follow the football team.Phil 02:20How have they done this year?Anne 02:22Not that greatPhil 02:23Okay, we can move on.Anne 02:25We can move on. We can move on. But my second team did considerably better because they're Liverpool.Phil 02:31And that's my team, as well as you can probably tell from my accent.Anne 02:35There we go. 45 minutes of football coming up now. So yeah, so back at home, we decided about 10 days before the official government's announcement to work from home if you can move to everybody to a remote environment. I think it's fair to say that you can't really class it as working from home because you have as have young children know me? Mine mines grown but dogs, Amazon parcels you name it. So I think you deal with a lot in this current situation.Phil 03:13Yeah.Anne 03:13Oh, I think everyone's done incredibly well. I have a team of 21 who are little superstars for what we've achieved during this period.Phil 03:23Yeah, well, there's no playbook is there?Anne 03:26There really isn't.Phil 03:27It's a purely reactive solution driven environment that we're in at the moment. And I think you'll well, you'll probably you'll be one of a handful of GMs in the world who can add preopening and COVID at the same time experience on your CV?Anne 03:45Well, hopefully we all get together and have a party on it. And yeah, yeah, that would be quite something. I think some of the sad things for me are that you know that the 21 of us have never been in the same room. Really. We had a number of people that actually came on board. We didn't interview anyone during this period we had interviewed previously but the timing of their you know, working notice etc. Yeah, timing of their appointments met that they've they've come on board during this time. So I think that's quite alienating, isn't it? You know, some people live on their own in. So you're staring at a screen of what is largely strangers on your first day. No one's made you a cup of tea and all the awkward introductions and you're just there. I think these these guys are rock stars, aren't they? You know, they've really got their heads down and we've we've done the archetypal drinks sessions on zoom. We've even played games on zoom with you know, mixed success. We've done wine tasting, chocolate tasting, but it gets old after a while really you do you just want to in the same room, I just got together to start building that that team, that team spirit reallyPhil 05:05I don't think I mean, I don't care what anybody says. I think that the actual face to face goes beyond the screen. I think the human contact. I think we were all realising, though, I hope that, you know, it just can't replace it. It's it's functional, but it's nothing more than that.Anne 05:25Agreed. I think, again, I'm sure lots of people will agree that you know, everyone has really knuckle down and I've just started reading on LinkedIn actually articles saying that fatigue setting in which I actually think promoting fatigue started setting in about three or four weeks ago, right. Where it was almost like this great adventure wasn't shared adventure in the beginning, and we were all doing it for the greater good. Yeah, and high level of motivation. And I think we're all still motivated, but you can see the A bit of fatigue. Now, you know, we just want to get back on site. So we are starting to, we've got a couple of the team are on site this afternoon got some of the guys are on there now just looking around. And this is that can you imagine you've accepted a role to open a hotel that you've never even set foot in? So, you know, I'm just really happy that they've gotten to do that today. Yeah. So we're going to start moving a couple of people into the office on a rotation basis. We've made it safe now. But we're, it's been really, really cautious about that. Yeah. But underneath, if you need to, if you need to meet someone, or whatever we're saying, you know, Yep, sure work out of the office. ButPhil 06:46yeah, but yeah, you have to respect everybody is on a very different path in terms of safety perception, that there's something I mean, some people are very relaxed and probably by day become more relaxed, and I probably class myself and in that category, but at the same time, I respect anybody's wishes, who is still facing a little bit of paranoia with the, your the virus situation. I think you've got to respect everybody's wishes on that front.Anne 07:17Yeah, absolutely. And I think people calculate risk in different ways that I mean, it does run broadly along gender lines, but also outside of that, you know, there's people who have a sheltering people at home that perhaps, you know, so nobody really understands everybody's circumstances completely. So. No, I agree on that.Phil 07:38Yep, indeed. Well, I'm going to move on because I don't want to make this about that. That nasty little virus. So yeah, well, we'll come on to the Pan Pacific, London and a lot more detail as we get through the chat. But before we do that, I'd love you to kind of go all the way back to the beginning of your career and kind of just just walk us through your your life and journey.Anne 08:00Okay, thank you. It's a little unconventional and in an attempt to make it sound more...