Marcus Dudley. Marcus Dudley.

Marcus Dudley, Moevenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach

About Marcus
Marcus Dudley joined the Mövenpick Jumeirah Beach as Director of F&B in January 2011. He has been in the hotel F&B industry for the last 21 years, firstly as a Chef before crossing over into front-of-house F&B operations in 2008 as the Pre-opening Director of F&B at the Zabeel Saray Hotel on Dubai’s Palm. Prior to this appointment, Marcus was the Executive Chef at The Ritz Carlton, Dubai, from 2006 -2008. He had worked his way through the ranks to become the youngest Executive Chef in The Ritz-Carlton Company worldwide at that time. A passion for travel as well as Food & Beverage has brought Marcus to work throughout Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, gaining extensive knowledge and skills in his field. Before coming to Dubai, he spent two years as Executive Sous Chef at The Ritz-Carlton, Doha, where he was responsible for 10 food and beverage outlets and 14 kitchens. His previous working experience includes time with Mandarin Oriental in Thailand. He then joined the Mandarin Oriental London property as a member of the refurbishment team and was a key member who took the Hotel to a Michelin star and five AA rosettes; he was a member of the team that received the Conde Nast award for the best deluxe hotel in the United Kingdom. He has also worked for The Orient Express Hotel group, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Starwood Luxury collection and the world-famous Hayman resort, where he was the hotel’s fine dining Chef de Cuisine. Marcus is affiliated with a number of trade associations including Les Toques Blanche and the UK’s Craft Guild of Chefs, and is regularly consulted for specialised advice.

Above and beyond the call of duty…
Over the last 12 months, Marcus has had many successes in the enhancement, running and profitability of the hotel’s F&B operations. In addition to the successful implementation of HACCP standards and accreditation, he has increased year-to-date departmental profit from -17% to +41% in 2012 versus the opening year, reduced departmental staff turnover from 48% to 12% and improved the departmental employee satisfaction survey score from 34% in 2010 to 86% at the end of 2011. He has seen the hotel make the Time Out Brunch ‘Hot List’, be named in the Top 5 Brunches in the UAE and Top 10 Bars in Dubai listings by ‘What’s On Dubai’. His implementation of the West Beach Bistro design and concept change led to an increase in AED 3.7 million turnover and taking the outlet to a 54% profit in 2011 and a 36% increase year to date in 2012 on turnover. Under his direction, the West Beach Bistro was shortlisted for Best New Outlet in the Hotelier Middle East Awards 2011 and Best Bar in the Time Out Nightlife awards, while Marcus himself was shortlisted for ‘F&B Manager of the Year 2011’ in the Hotelier Middle East awards. He has demonstrated a great commitment to growing talent from within and recognising fine performance with the promotion of four supervisors in the F&B team to Managers, promoting the Meeting and Events Manager to F&B Operations Manager, and delivering 25 other line-level promotions in F&B service and Culinary/Stewarding within the last six months. Under the direction of the VP F&B Middle East & Asia, Marcus has also been responsible for F&B promotions for the corporate loyalty programme across Mövenpick Hotels (Middle East & North Africa); for the re-concept and roll-out of the Mövenpick ‘Meet & Dine’ Events standards for Middle East collection hotels; and for the re-concept and roll-out of the Mövenpick ‘Food for Life’ Project for Middle East & Asia. Over the last 12 months, he has also been a key member of the Mövenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach Executive Team that achieved four major awards: the 7th MENA Champions of Service Quality Award, the Silver Award as Best Five-Star Business / Corporate Hotel in North Africa and the Middle East - the highest honor the industry can grant – and the Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence award, given only to establishments that consistently achieve outstanding traveller reviews on Trip Advisor. Marcus’s strong Food and Beverage background and commitment to his role have helped in placing the outlets at the Mövenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach at the top of the market. The Jazz & Bubbles Friday Brunch has been continuously voted one of the top 10 Friday Brunches in Dubai (Hot List What’s On Magazine, Time Out Dubai, Time Out Dubai Kids, Ahlan Hot 100 Restaurants and many more). He devised along with the hotel General Manager an extension concept for the pool bar, converting it into a modern shisha lounge in the evenings. With minimal investment, guests and local residents have been given a choice of more than 30 different shisha flavors, an à la carte mezze menu, live charcoal BBQ and Saj bread stations, complemented by oriental music. The Layali Shisha Pool Lounge concept has increased revenues for the outlet by 44%. Marcus’s outdoor extension of the lobby lounge terrace is another success story. He managed to create a street café on The Walk - the only property with such a facility - serving Mövenpick Coffee, house-made patisserie products and Swiss Mövenpick Ice Cream. Supported by smart creative outdoor guerilla marketing activities, the outlet has increased revenues by 55% year on year. He has introduced a range of other improvements, including introducing Mövenpick Coffee and Swiss Mövenpick Ice Cream, the in-house design of the sports bar concept West Beach Bistro & Sports Lounge, introducing ‘An Evening With’ ex-football players and English Premier League managers for a Q&A in the West Beach Bistro on a monthly basis, building the Talk Bar Salsa night each Friday to the most successful regular Salsa evening in Dubai with a regular following of 250+ guests, and revamping the Conference and Events line-up of themed coffee breaks to bring new offerings for guests, including the sports bar themed meeting package.

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Testimonials for Marcus
“Since joining the Mövenpick at JBR ,Markus has turned around the f&b department into a very positive and consistent operation . A Food & Beverage Directors job is with a great certainty one of the most demanding of all hotel jobs , from Marketing , PR, Finance , Hiring & firing , being present in the operation during busy periods , being aware of staffing issues , over and above The F&B Director must at all times be approachable and must have good relationships with his peers , Markus does all this with a lot excellence ,great confidence and patience , over and above his regular duties , Marcus also assists me with certain projects and does so with a great deal of passion and reliability . Marcus is a great asset not only to the JBR operation but to MH&R as well!” Peter Drescher Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts VP food and beverage – Middle East and Asia.

“Marcus Dudley is a star hotelier and a true professional. He is self-motivated, a  kind person as well as being very passionate aboutv what he does. Marcus has a very clear vision of his goals and clearly understands all the aspects of achieving those goals. He has always achieved his targets and has gone beyond expectations. Marcus believes in his team and always ensures every member of the team is happy and get what they deserve. He never hesitates in appreciating and recognizing someone for their hard work done or someone needs to be told if they had done something wrong.

"His style of management makes the work place better and better every day. There’s always something new to learn from Marcus Dudley. One of the very few executive committee members I have worked with who truly believes in running hotel business as his own. He is a great leader and an excellent person to work with. Marcus joined this hotel in a very crucial stage where the department was very much under performing as being a new hotel and only 10 months in operation. Marcus’s first task in the hotel was to ensure that Service and Culinary departments performance improves every day and the department will run as a team. Very quickly he achieved this major and very challenging task and from there on department started showing great results through guest feedback and very productive figures in revenue. 2011 had been very successful with great results and so many new activities in the F&B division which made the place to be in, and all of the credit of this success goes to Marcus. One of the major successes of Marcus Dudley is the launch and great success of West Beach Bistro Sports Lounge & Bar.

"This outlet was originally designed and planned for an American style bistro restaurant with a fine dining menu. Since hotel opened in March 2010 outlet did not show any performance and was unsuccessful. Marcus looked at this outlet from a very different angle and very quickly he realized the demographic in JBR and what is missing in JBR when it comes to bars or let’s say a Sports bar where people can enjoy any sport they like! Marcus presented the new design and plan for the outlet which previously named as West Beach Bistro as a new outlet West Beach Bistro Sports Lounge & Bar. Everyone liked the idea and project started and without even closing the outlet for any kind of refurbishment WBB&SL was launched with media and some guests in March 2011. From there on this outlet started producing great results and started to get recognised as Best new Bar in JBR & Marina. Marcus also worked very hard in order to get the Talk Restaurant & Lounge recognized and once again with his great idea of Jazz & Bubbles our Friday Brunch took a completely different turn and became one of the best Brunches in the city. Being in Dubai we know how tight the brunch competition is! Marcus did not get too bothered with Big names who are already very popular in the city and believed that Jazz & Bubbles will be successful. And once again he was right! Jazz & Bubbles became a hit!” Mohammed Waseemuddin Mövenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach assistant F&B manager

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