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.
Beyond the finish line
Having successfully crossed the bridge from general manager to vice president, Jagersbacher went onto a number of other VP roles, including in the Middle East which involved setting up Hilton’s Dubai office.
He says many of the relationships cemented during that first period in the Middle East have led to a number of the firm’s most recent signings in the region. After Dubai, he was appointed VP in Europe, based in Brussels, before accepting his current role of area president, Middle East and Africa in January 2011.
“There were two jobs available, one was a very senior job in Europe, but I discussed it with my partner and this is quite a unique and addictive area in the way you do business and have the opportunity to drive growth. Europe is more confined,” he says.
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“I recognised the opportunity in terms of what we could grow and I was right, that was three years ago. Look at the development pipeline today.”
The group currently operates 57 properties in the region and has an impressive 52 signed hotels in the pipeline. One of Jagersbacher’s main priorities alongside this expansion is to fulfil Hilton’s “responsibility to the communities” in which it operates.
“I would like to see local general managers in a lot of properties, this is my mission. If I have properties in Saudi, wouldn’t it be great to have some Saudi general managers? The same goes for our African portfolio. There’s a challenge in these places but we already have a third line of senior people who we’ve identified that we want to train. We would like to have local people running our business.
“We’ve partnered with 13 colleges in Saudi Arabia whereby our people go and we teach, we recruit, we develop, and that is the way we’re able to fulfill the quota of team members,” he reveals.
This “soft spot” for CSR goes back to Jagersbacher’s earlier years with Hilton, when he became a founding member of the Hilton in the Community Foundation — a grant-making organisation that fundraises throughout properties in Europe to support disadvantaged young people.
“I always felt we have to have this type of responsibility,” Jagersbacher tells Hotelier, and expresses a desire to focus on the CSR side of the business in the future.
Asked what comes after area president, he says: “I could probably see myself going more towards that area of challenges. CSR is honestly where I think I can add value, commitment and expertise. It’s not just about how great we are and how many hotels we have… we need to be far more transparent and committed towards that cause.”
FAST FACTS: Hilton Vital Statistics
Operating hotels: 57 under six brands
Pipeline hotels: 52 in the MEA region
Recent openings: Four hotels since January 2012: Hilton Beirut Habtoor Grand and Hilton Beirut Metropolitan Palace in Lebanon; Hilton Doha in Qatar and the Conrad Pezula Resort and Spa in South Africa
Recent signings: 13 including DoubleTree Resort by Hilton Marjan Island; Hilton Riyadh King Fahd Road; DoubleTree by Hilton Bur Dubai; DoubleTree by Hilton Doha — Al Sadd; Hilton Erbil Hotel & Spa; Hilton Giza Pyramids; Hilton Alexandria King’s Ranch Resort; Hilton Tanger City Center Hotel & Residences; Hilton Garden Inn Tanger City Center; DoubleTree by Hilton Seychelles-Allamanda Resort & Spa; DoubleTree by Hilton Upper Eastside, Cape Town, South Africa; Hilton Garden Inn Tabuk; DoubleTree by Hilton Bujumbura
Expected openings by end-2013: Nine in UAE, Jordan, Qatar, Seychelles, South Africa
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