“Accor decided to take on Sofitel and make it a luxury brand in the region,” Nasser explains. “I was with them for four years and we brought Sofitel to where it is today.” Having worked across all Accor brands in operations and distribution among other disciplines, Nasser brings experience of mid-scale hotels, and how to optimise costs and spend to achieve good investments.

In terms of leadership and management, the key philosophy he advocates is being ready to move fast: “I’m quite clear on what I’m doing and saying. I go fast, and maybe too fast for some people but I really like challenging them because we need to be one of the best performing chains.” Nasser adds that his pet peeve is time-wasting and spending hours in meetings, asserting “I like when people move fast.”

Getting the right staff around him then is key to being able to drive forward the region’s growth plans and implement the quick decisions he holds dear. When recruiting, Nasser says that the right people should be “completely different [to him]”, adding that having a team of staff that complement each other is vital.

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“I take the best experts in terms of finance, HR, etc., but we have to work together as a team and understand what it means to operate a hotel.”

Having been a GM for several years and coming from a sales and marketing background, Nasser believes the key challenges in a GM’s role are pushing a hotel’s central reservation system rather than relying on third party booking systems.

“We have to develop our own booking systems,” Nasser asserts. “They are important for the future. In addition to this, he says that loyalty programmes are a crucial aspect of operations for the brands, and something “the GM has to push”.

Working closely with the GMs and knowing the hotels well is important to Nasser who claims: “I visit the hotels very often, I know the GMs — now we have great leaders, FRHI has a good selection process.”

Part of the success of leadership in the company, according to Nasser, is having the SVPs in place regionally in Toronto, Singapore and Zurich covering their own respective regions — to make sure decisions are made quickly and acted upon.

“I will focus this year on gathering my team together,” says Nasser. “We have to be really professional in each department so the focus will be close to hotel operations to see them growing,” he comments, adding that a key concern will be maximising the currently operating properties to ensure they are as efficient as possible.

Commenting on his own appointment, Nasser tentatively admits that he thinks there has been a positive impact already.

“I think the company brought in someone who understands the company and who comes from a sales and marketing background. I think they did the selection so that they can grow very fast and be close to the staff so that decisions can be taken quickly,” he comments.

“We don’t want the decisions to go to Toronto, so all the SVPs are now based in the regions. You have to be part of it to understand it.”

Ultimately, it’s Nasser’s goal for FRHI to be “recognised as the preferred hotel operator in the region by owners”.

He comments that another opportunity and sometimes a challenge is that news travels fast: “In this region, people talk and it can go very fast so word of mouth is very important. They come to your hotel, they like your lobby, they like your food and beverage and word travels.”

And so the race is on for Sami Nasser and FRHI Hotels & Resorts, with rooms and staff doubling, a centralisation of management for the company’s three brands and implementation of the ‘integration team’. However, one thing Nasser is confident of is that if he, and the company are quick off the mark, success will come at every level of operations.