St. Regis Doha F&B venues manager Ksenia Novikova walked away with the F&B Manager of the Year title at last night's Hotelier Middle East Awards. She received the award from San Pellegrino director Middle East & Africa Zone Sandra Husseini Norberg.
Novikova, who joined the team in 2012 as restaurant manager, has been with the hotel since the pre-opening phase.
St. Regis Abu Dhabi Italian chef de cuisine Stefano Viola, who accepted the award on Novikova's behalf commented: "She’s a hard worker and she deserves this award. She pushes herself to reach all the goals for the hotel. She’d be very excited to win, and I’m very proud to accept this award on her behalf."
In her role as F&B venues manager, Novikova is in charge of 52 team members, and has had the lowest turn over in any department and the highest scores in Starwood’s staff survey engagement index.
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At the hotel, Novikova has implemented a number of cost-saving and employee moral boosting initiatives, including cross training and quarterly team brunches in the staff accommodation.
Having been recently offered a promotion, Ksenia instead opted for a lateral move to the banqueting team so she could become a more rounded F&B manager, and incorporated Starwood's Menupedia project at the hotel, working with different teams on re-creating all the menus, content, layout, and pricing.
Novikova beat stiff competition from Doha Marriott Hotel's Dietmar Platz. Other shortlisted nominees included Ibis Al Barsha Dubai F&B manager Ahmad Riad Taher Saleh; Hilton Dubai Jumeirah Resort & Hilton Dubai The Walk cluster F&B manager Julien Besancon; InterContinental Jeddah F&B manager Baris Altinkok.
The Hotelier Middle East Awards were held at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City. The event was supported by Du, A. Ronai, Restonic, MLA, Diversey, Arecont Vision, Canon, MMI, TCL, Horeca, Patchi, Pulsar Foodstuff Trading, Amir, and Julius Meinl.
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