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].
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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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