Just over Hilton Worldwide area president Rudi Jagersbacher's left shoulder you can see the doubletree by Hilton Jumeirah, Dubai under construction. The hotel is slated to open next year.
He had wanted to become a motorsports racer but after nearly four decades in the hotel business, Hilton Worldwide area president - Middle East and Africa Rudi Jagersbacher’s career shows no signs of slowing as the group doubles its regional portfolio. Here, he reveals his proudest moments, the challenging transition from GM to VP, and mulls a future in CSR
A relaxed Rudi Jagersbacher sits back in his chair at Hilton Dubai Jumeirah’s BiCE Sky Bar overlooking the emirate — with several of the firm’s properties under development in view — having summed up the best part of 38 years in the hotel industry.
| Advertisement |
For Jagersbacher, it all began at the prestigious London Hilton on Park Lane in 1974 when he began a corporate traineeship as a steward. Today, he oversees 57 hotels across the Middle East and Africa, but becoming a hotel-industry veteran wasn’t always the plan, he tells Hotelier.
“I’m a car maniac and was already doing go-kart racing and wanted to become something to do with motors... but it didn’t happen because my family said ‘no way, you need a job’.”
Growing up in Austria, Jagersbacher was exposed to the tourism industry which formed a vital part of the country’s economy. His father ran a couple of small inns, which Jagersbacher “didn’t want anything to do with”, but when it came to the crunch he took his family’s advice and headed off to hotel school in Innsbrook, before completing military service.
“Despite having learnt English and French at school, when I talked nobody could understand me. So I also did one year in Trinity College Dublin and by the time I finished I had two offers; one was from Hilton,” recalls Jagersbacher.
“I moved to London and coming from a small town out of Innsbrook where there’s only skiing and mountaineering, I’d never seen a hotel of this size, it was enormous. We had about 1100 people employed and it was the place to be — the first American group that had come in — I was proud to be there.
“It was run like a military service, very exact, very senior managers, very structured and very little space for errors. Throughout that period I lost a lot of good friends who couldn’t stand the pace and decided that it wasn’t for them,” he says.
*CLICK THROUGH TO THE LAST PAGE TO REVEAL THE FIVE PEOPLE WHO HAVE DRIVEN RUDI JAGERSBACHER TO SUCCESS *
Over the years he worked his way up to the finance department, before being transferred to Hilton in Munich as F&B controller, which he describes as his first “responsible, standalone job”.
By this time he had slammed the brake on his race-track ambitions: “You really have to learn very quickly in an American company and you’re either in or you’re out, it’s very simple, and everybody wanted these types of jobs,” explains Jagersbacher.
Taking the lead
Jagersbacher’s commitment paid off when he returned to London Hilton to take up the sought-after GM role at the landmark property.
“The first thing I did was invite all the people who had worked with me [before] and were still there to a big welcome reception. Secondly, I invited all the retired people and their families to come to a dinner I’d organised just to say ‘thank you’.
“We became quite a tight-knit family. This was the proudest moment for me from a corporate trainee, going away and becoming general manager. That hotel was probably the most sought-after property of any GM. If you wanted to go somewhere and you got the London Hilton, you were in.”
During his time at the London Hilton, Jagersbacher introduced a number of significant initiatives, including a “first-name culture”.
“I became Rudi, and everybody addressed each other by first name at a time when most people were sir, madam or mr and mrs. It reduced barriers and we rolled it out throughout the UK and Europe. So that was important and a great achievement I must say.”
Many of Jagersbacher’s approaches to leadership were inspired by his experience at London’s Savoy and Claridge’s, which led up to his return to Hilton to open The Langham London on Portland Place as GM, before going on to accept the same role at London Hilton.
Jagersbacher says working under the late Sir Hugh Walter Kingwell Wontner, chairman of the Savoy Group from 1948 to 1984, was one of the most memorable times of his working life, and a turning point.
“He was probably the most elegant and articulated person I have ever met. He was really interested in service, style and the customer. I was with the Savoy as director of F&B and that was a very tough job,” he says.
“Then I became manager of Claridge’s, which was even more daunting because we did the wedding of Princess Diana, all the state banquets. The staff were running this hotel impeccably. So that particular experience, from a service and quality point of view, changed my attitude overall,” he continues.
“Hilton had all the efficiencies and productivity of a first-class American company, but from a quality and refined standards perspective, there was nothing better than the Savoy. That molded me because I felt I was not just a hotelier, but I was learning the ability – which was not easy – to provide service, and look at it from a different point of view.”
Article continues on next page ...
Search our database of more than 2,700 industry companies
