CEO INTERVIEW: Four Seasons' Kathleen Taylor

Kathleen Taylor’s journey to find the ‘perfect work-life imbalance’ has taken her from first woman on Four Seasons’ executive team to one of the industry’s first female CEOs. Hotelier finds out how she made it to the top

It wasn’t Kathleen Taylor’s aspiration to rise to the top of a hotel firm, yet in 2010 she was handpicked by Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts founder and chairman Isadore Sharp to continue his legacy.

Today, as the only female CEO in the top 10 hotel companies (based on revenue, according to Bloomberg data) she is using her experiences to help other women progress in the hotel industry.

Where it all began
“It was never my ambition to work in the hospitality industry,” Taylor says during a fly-in visit to Dubai for the launch of the Toronto-based operator’s first hotel in the emirate.

Having studied a combined law degree from Osgood Hall Law School and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Schulich School of business, Canada-born Taylor’s journey started in corporate securities and competition law at Goodmans LLP.

Here, Taylor’s mentor was a man called David Mongeau. He left the law firm shortly after Taylor’s arrival to take up the role of general counsel at Four Seasons.

“About three years later [in 1989] — I was still employed by Goodmans — he phoned and said ‘I’m looking for a number two, are you interested’?” she recalls.

“I thought this was a great opportunity to transition from the practice of law to a business, working with the person I really enjoyed working with. I have a theory of people and jobs and think most people work for a boss that they like.”

But Taylor couldn’t have foreseen that accepting the job of corporate counsellor at Four Seasons would lead to a 23-year career and a string of hotel industry achievements.

“We had a lot of fun together — and I learnt a lot — and then he left to become a very successful investment banker,” she remembers.

At the time of Mongeau’s exit from Four Seasons in 1992, Taylor had been working at Four Seasons for three years.

“It was one of those great Four Seasons moments. Issy and Roger were my bosses. I was young, I’d just had my first child, but they took a big leap and said they’d give me a chance and they gave me David’s job, which was putting a lot of trust in me.”

And so Taylor was appointed vice president — general counsel, signalling the start of her professional relationship with Isadore Sharp or ‘Issy’ as she fondly refers to him.

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Balancing act
Taylor’s seniors weren’t the only ones taking a leap.

“Starting as number two in the law firm I immediately started to travel. So I had to figure out how I was going to raise a child — have a family, a husband and do this job — so ultimately I was forced to make a lot of choices really early in my career.

“The one thing in life that is non-negotiable is 24 hours in a day and you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to spend those. I’m a person who needs a lot of sleep — that’s how I recharge my batteries — so with the hours left over I had to decide how much would be for work, how much for children, how much for my husband [Neil Harris].

The thing I think we forget is we have to make conscious choices about the allocation of our most scarce resource — time,” continues Taylor.

“I had to decide quite early on just to take childcare — that I was okay with someone raising my son, then my daughter and on and on, and that’s a tough choice for a lot of women to make.”

Decisions like these are one of the reasons Taylor believes there are few women in senior management positions in the hotel business worldwide today.

“Part of it is generational. It takes a long time for these industries to change over. People who are in leadership positions in lodging tend to be in them for a long time. A lot of the senior GMs in the industry who were men 10 years ago are still in those jobs and will continue.

“There’s no question it’s a tough industry. It’s a 24/7 industry — which for some women makes it difficult to manage along with a husband and a family. It’s an industry that promotes mobility — a lot of managers you meet will have worked in five-, six-, seven hotels sometimes in the same amount of countries,” she adds.

For Taylor though, it was a “given” that she would go back to work after the birth of her first child: “I had piles of student loans that needed to be repaid so not working was not an option for me”.

Instead, she focused on finding her work-life balance, or rather the “perfect imbalance”.“There isn’t any true sense of the words ‘work-life balance’, there’s just the journey to finding your perfect imbalance. If you have a busy life, you’re always going to be juggling different aspects. Making choices that aren’t conflicting is very important.”

Taylor’s decisions to accept forthcoming promotions would be easy —as long as her “stars were aligned”.

“I know the industry is a very difficult place for women, but I can’t really highlight any unique struggles or incredible challenges I’ve had along the way. Part of it is just the way I look at life. I don’t view things so much as obstacles, but as opportunities and I’m a very optimistic person. I would just see challenges as something to conquer.

“Because I didn’t start out with aspirations to be in the hospitality industry, a lot of my very early career achievements were just that. They were huge achievements that I was very proud of. It looks on paper like a great career progression, but it did take me 23 years — which is a significant part of somebody’s life.”

In 1997, Taylor was promoted to executive vice president, corporate planning and development and became the first female on Four Seasons’ management committee. Today, she is the longest-serving member of the committee.

“In the early years I didn’t spend huge amounts of time with Issy, but the more I got involved in the business side, the more exposure I had to him. When we first brought investor HRH Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal into the company that was the transaction for a whole variety of reasons I spearheaded on behalf of Issy. We started working extremely closely together then and it was around that time when he started to think that he wanted to groom me for different things,” recalls Taylor.

“As my career progressed and my job and responsibilities continued to escalate, every time I took on a new role in the company, Issy would — quite delicately and sensitively — sit me down and say ‘right, are you sure this is something you want to take on? It’s a lot more work with a husband and children, are you confident’?” recalls Taylor.

“I used to say the same thing to him every single time we had the conversation, which was ‘yes, for so long as my stars continue to be aligned’. And what I meant by that was as long as my kids were healthy and happy, I had caregivers for the children that were unchanging and solid, I had a really supportive, wonderful relationship with my husband and my own health and happiness.

“There were a lot of things that have gone into making my life and my work a good fit, but it was important that he and I always had that conversation and took stock of the perfect imbalance issue,” she says.

In September, Taylor will have had the same nanny to her children for 21 years.

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On the up
In 1999, Taylor was appointed president worldwide business operations — followed eight years later by her promotion to president and chief operating officer.

She refers to this eight-year period as a “wonderful time” in Four Seasons. The company focused on expanding its portfolio of resorts through the 90s and introduced the brand to a number of new destinations in Europe and Asia. By the turn of the century, the operator had 50 properties and was present on every continent except Antarctica.

“Issy often referred to the role of COO as ‘the CEO in training’ — it was a new position the company had never had before and he viewed it precisely as an opportunity to continue to develop my leadership skills.

“As COO, the entire company reported to me and I reported to Issy — so it really was [CEO in training]. I was doing a lot of that role, we shared a lot of CEO duties in the period leading up to my formal appointment.

“He saw very clearly that I was a culture carrier and cut from the cloth — the golden roll — that’s how I was raised as a child,” she says.

So it didn’t come as a surprise to Taylor when in 2010 she was appointed president and chief executive officer effective August 1. However, she didn’t underestimate the task she was undertaking either; her job would be to oversee 50 new projects within seven years — the most aggressive expansion in Four Seasons’ history.

“I’m the first CEO after the founder — this is not the same as any old CEO — the first CEO after the founder in any organisation has a huge responsibility, not only to ensure that the company continues to fulfill its founder’s vision, but also to figure out how to continue to evolve and improve the business going forward.”

Evolution
In addition to expansion, part of that evolution has been to help to encourage and develop women to excel within the business. Today, half of the corporate senior management team is female, a long way from the days when Taylor was the only woman. However, on the operational front — counting hotel general managers — the story is a different one.

“It’s an area we have major focus on at the moment. We’ve done a couple of things — the first was to try and educate ourselves around the source and root causes of the problem. So we engaged with a number of key academic experts in this area — women who are writing and learning about the advancement of women, not just in the hospitality industry, in general,” explains Taylor.

“We’ve learnt a few lessons. One of the main teachings beyond what women themselves happen to do differently is what the company needs to do differently. This is what I’m focused on.”

Taylor and her team have devised a sponsorship programme to nurture women through the ranks.

“It seemed clear that sponsorship needed some focus so we have taken a number of our top female leaders and instituted a quite formal sponsorship programme with a signed sponsor and sponsorship agreements being put in place. So we’re going to pilot this and see if we can gain some traction moving their careers along,” she reveals.

“We’ve picked sponsors who are highly successful leaders within the company, have great networks of influence and who will take responsibility for the careers of these young women,” Taylor says of the initiative.

Globally, she says around 20 women are currently on the pilot scheme which is being headed up by the group’s executive vice president, human resources and administration Nick Mutton. Industry-wide, Taylor believes a “dynamic change” will come from an “attitude shift”.

“There needs to be an attitude shift that this is not a place that is the exclusive arena of men.

“You can see there are all kinds of successful female general managers today and many companies like us are promoting from within, so it will just be a short while before we see some of these women reaching the top. Fairmont president Jennifer Fox is a great example,” says Taylor.

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New chapter
As the interview draws to a close, Taylor — glowing with pride — tells me about her three children, who all have unisex names. Her stepdaughter Robin is “all grown up” and working as an investment banker in New York while her son Taylor is soon to start his final year of university.

“My youngest girl Kevan has just finished — what we call in Toronto — high school. She graduated just a few weeks ago, she was the Valedictorian; I was so excited and proud. She did a lovely job. She’s off to university in the fall to study arts so we’re about to become empty nesters. Which is a new chapter in our life for sure — it will be fun.”

While all the kids may have flown the nest, Taylor has no plans for early retirement: “I just got here, I’m just getting started,” she says.

With that, Taylor is left to continue on her travels — in which she’ll be travelling every week during the busiest summer months — meeting hotel owners and keeping in touch with the group’s 86 global properties and 34,000 employees.

Career timeline
1989: Joined Four Seasons as corporate counsel
1992: Appointed vice president, general counsel
1997: Promoted to executive vice president, corporate planning and development
1999: Appointed president worldwide business operations
2007: Appointed president and chief operating officer
2010: Became president and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts