Briefing
We spend time on the property before we spend it on the role: the ownership, the operator relationship, the market, and what the appointment actually has to survive. A brief taken in an hour produces a shortlist that looks right and is not.
Search Practice
What a branded luxury mandate
actually requires
Four things, none of which a generalist search firm holds by default.
Brand-standard fluency
Knowing how a brand actually operates, not how its brand book reads. Knowing which candidates have carried a standard rather than merely worked beneath one. The difference is invisible on a curriculum vitae and obvious within ten minutes of a properly conducted conversation.
Owner and operator dynamics
Most branded luxury properties answer to two masters. The operator sets the standard and the owner carries the asset, and their interests converge less often than either would like. A leader who cannot hold both relationships fails in the role regardless of operating capability, and that failure is expensive in a way the search fee never is.
Pre-opening
A pre-opening is not a search with a later start date. The decisive hires are made twelve to twenty-four months before the doors open, against a construction programme that will move, for a property that cannot be visited because it does not yet exist. The candidate is being asked to leave a running hotel for a building site.
Cross-jurisdiction mobility
Visas, family, tax and cultural fit decide more senior hospitality appointments than capability does, and they decide them late. A shortlist that has not been tested against all four is a shortlist that will lose its first choice in the final fortnight.
The retained process
How a mandate runs
Search
Mapped rather than advertised. The role is not listed anywhere, and the people we approach are usually not looking. That is the point of a retained engagement and the reason it takes longer than the alternative.
Assessment
Candidates are tested against the standard the property has to hold, not against a generic competency framework. Brand history, owner exposure, pre-opening record and mobility are assessed explicitly.
Shortlist
A small number, each of whom could do the job. We do not pad a shortlist to demonstrate effort.
Close
Offer, notice, relocation, family, visa and start date. Most senior appointments are lost here rather than at interview, and this is the stage a contingency firm is least equipped to hold.
Role levels
Where we are engaged
01
Board and ownership representation.
02
Corporate and regional office.
03
General Manager and Hotel Manager.
04
Executive Committee: commercial, finance, rooms, and people and culture.
05
Culinary leadership.
06
Specialist: spa and wellness, revenue, development and pre-opening.
Next step