Chantel Moore, Debrah Dhugga, Anke Glaessing and Eleni Tsolakou Chantel Moore, Debrah Dhugga, Anke Glaessing and Eleni Tsolakou

Have you ever seen a female candidate being sidelined for a role because of her gender?

Chantel: I don’t think there’s been any gap where a man has been chosen over a woman, I’ve not experienced that in my 10 years of being here.

Anke: I’ve never had this either. I think also with women people think you have to be a nice person. You have to be a strong person to become a GM, because you have to do so many things. If someone had asked me 15 years ago if I wanted to be a GM I would have said no way! It just happened.

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Eleni: I have heard people saying ‘oh we need to check with the owner if they want a female GM’.

Anke: Yes that happens. My owners said: ‘ok we have a female GM and we have a male GM candidate’, but in the end they went for the female. It’s not that they wouldn’t consider the person.

Debrah: Certainly not from our family. They would hire the right person for the job. They would go on experience and qualities, but never ever on gender or whether they’re married or single.

Everyone can have an opinion about why there are so few female general managers, but I think it goes down to ‘what is a good general manager?’ I look at GM CVs when they come through and I say: ‘right should we shortlist this?’ ‘What should we do?’ and I never look to see whether they’re female, male, married, or single; I go straight down to what they have achieved.

Chantel: We all have to remember that this is not our country. If you go to a local wedding or anything like that there’s a female section and a male section, so we as mature adults and leaders have to respect that. This is their culture, so deep respect to them that they have taken on female GMs.

There are eight of us in Dubai and maybe in 10 years there will be 50 of us in Dubai. It’s not that they’re saying they don’t want us, but it’s a very new country, a lot of these people have never had hotels before, they’re moving into the hospitality industry. I think they’re getting there in the Middle East.

Anke: I’ve never had any barriers when I’ve been with my owners with Rotana, They’re the nicest people on earth.

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