MD Interview: Ron Hilvert

After 18 years of working with the Jumeirah Group and The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (EAHM), its founding managing director Ron Hilvert will be bidding adieu to the UAE on January 2, 2016.

It is a bittersweet ending for Hilvert, who leaves just as EAHM is ready to celebrate its 15th anniversary of operations.

The inimitable Hilvert first arrived in the UAE in 1978 to open Dubai International (now Le Méridien Dubai Hotel & Conference Centre) as director of manpower development. Later on in his career, he was involved in the UAE again with the opening of the Hyatt Regency in Deira, as worldwide vice president of Hyatt Hotels. He then returned to Dubai two months before the opening of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in 1997 — the year when Chicago Beach Hotel was lost to the annals of time. When he joined Jumeirah, he was principally involved in recruiting the first 5,000 employees as a human resources consultant. Six months later, he joined the company as corporate director of human resources.

The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management was born from a conversation Hilvert had with Jumeirah president and CEO Gerald Lawless in 1999. They discussed the potential of the UAE launching a college specialising in hospitality and tourism, because, according to the owning company there was a feeling that these would be one of the future critical industries for the country.

Hilvert then set about writing a concept paper — and didn’t hear anything for several months. And then one day, Lawless told Hilvert the project was confirmed. “I became the managing director of this college before we even had a stone in the ground here,” he says.

Things started moving quickly for the fledgling team. Ready to operate by mid-2001, the Academy accepted its first undergraduate student in September 2001. At the time, only about 25% of colleges were accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education, so one of the major decisions was whether to become federally accredited, or join the hordes of colleges in Knowledge Village which were satellite campuses of international schools.

Hilvert reveals to Hotelier: “The recommendation I made was that if we don’t do it ourselves, we cannot ever get our own reputation. We will always be thought of as some branch campus of an international university. We made what was a very courageous decision to go our own way — which has proven to be a good decision.”

However, that did not mean there would be no collaboration. Another recommendation by Hilvert was to work with one of the world’s top hospitality schools. The team spoke to the names everyone would expect, and then started working with Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, which, Lausanne alumni Hilvert says is arguably the most famous hotel school in the world along with Cornell in the US. The relationship is purely an academic association.

He says: “We are not what Lausanne calls a certified school. Lausanne is a good advisor to us, they conduct an academic review every couple of years. They have no direct authority over us. The relationship has been excellent, and what Lausanne has done has given us a quality message.

“When you talk to prospective students and parents and industry and say that you’re the only hotel school in the world that has that tagline ‘in academic association’, then they know that quality is here. That also was a good decision.”

Once the classes began, EAHM faced a fairly unique situation with 15 students and 13 faculty members. “I don’t think any college has experienced this, and that ratio is unheard of! But what is interesting is that we’re still in touch with those 15 students. They have excellent positions all over the world. One is a vice president of a major hotel company, one is working for Ernst & Young in US, and another is a hotel manager in Indonesia. This exemplifies the culture that we have here,” says Hilvert, with a touch of nostalgia.

Currently, The Academy has 333 students across its degree programmes, and Hilvert is confident that number will rise to 400 in the next few years. The nationality mix is varied, reflective of the multi-cultural atmosphere of its resident city, and was a conscious decision taken by the founding members of the college.

Hilvert continues: “Looking back, another achievement was that we made the decision that unless we become international we cannot succeed here. We were the first UAE university that went around the world promoting ourselves. We were creative; we went to Scandinavia and got accredited by the government there which meant that we could take students from Norway and Sweden; we went to trade shows in Germany and got lots of German students. All through these years, we have always taken a lead in looking at markets all over the world.”

While developing its reputation internationally, the school also grew its local market. Currently, 10% of EAHM’s students are Emiratis. Hilvert says: “From the very beginning I always knew that we had a responsibility here to develop Emiratis. Because the industry is small, I didn’t know how that would go. I’m proud that we’re getting to those objectives. The quality of our Emirati students who are graduating has grown and grown and grown, and is getting stronger.”

“It’s a very healthy mix and you have to carry on doing that because history has shown in the bad economic times that when Europe falls, which it did, we will lose Europeans but we will get Chinese. The key thing is never to allow one nationality to dominate the college. The highest percentage is about 13% at the moment,” explains Hilvert.

And to market itself around the world, Hilvert makes no apologies for the price tag associated with becoming a student at The Academy. To join as an MBA student, for example, will set prospective graduates back around US $ 27,250 (AED 100,000). Hilvert says confidently: “We don’t make an excuse, we don’t have a problem telling everybody that we’re the most expensive college in the country because we believe we should be, but you have to be confident about your product.”

One of the most common questions the Academy faces is parents asking why send their children to a college in Dubai over Switzerland, Holland or the US.

“Our answer always is: the quality is no better than here. But look at Dubai, if your child wants to study hospitality and tourism, look what’s outside the door here. The most advanced hospitality and tourism industry in the world, the most successful airline in the world. Here, the industry is growing and all the young students get a chance to go into internships, to graduate into these companies.”

While EAHM was continuing its stellar growth, Hilvert says the team did not expect the financial challenges of 2008. “We may not have progressed a lot in those days but we did not go backwards,” he says philosophically.

He reflects further on the confident buy-in of the regional industry, the presidents and CEOs of which sit on the industry advisory board. There were some disappointments for Hilvert, but he deals with that with equanimity. He says: “When I look back now and see the fantastic industry advisory board I have — presidents of nearly all of these companies — it is no surprise. When you list the most successful companies in the world, they’re the ones who bought into the Academy. The companies that believe in developing and educating and training young people are the companies that lead.

“Overall our relationship with the industry has been fantastic. It has all gone to plan —maybe I would have liked to be at this point three or four years earlier but I think that’s because of what happened several years ago when one had to steady the ship.”

And now it’s time for Hilvert to move on. While a successor has not been announced, Hilvert is confident the foundations are truly laid, which will make his/her job easier. What advice or observations would Hilvert like to share with whoever steps into his big shoes? “When you have a college such as this, the first objective must be that you improve the academic reputation of the college every year,” he says.

The Academy conducts surveys every year asking why students chose to join the college, and the trends have gone exactly the way he expected. In the early years, the answers ranged from: ‘because it’s part of Jumeirah’, ‘because it’s in Dubai’, or ‘because it’s linked to Lausanne’. The most recent survey has put ‘academic reputation’ in second place. Hilvert says with pride: “That shows the direction of the college is absolutely correct. So that must be the obsession of whoever comes in here after me, so that when people think in five years’ time, ‘where am I going to study hospitality in the world?’ and when they think of Cornell and Lausanne, they will think of The Emirates Academy in the same breath. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re well on that path.”

He also advises in favour of growing the alumni association of EAHM, as well as developing and improving relationships with the hospitality industry — especially in the lead-up to Expo 2020.

Hilvert muses: “The Academy has to think, ‘ok we’re 20 in five years, is it possible to have our name associated with another college in another country, as Lausanne has done?’ For example, there would be a lot of logic in looking at colleges that are natural feeders to the Gulf — the Philippines, India, and the countries that bring us thousands and thousands of human resources.

“Could we in some way get involved there at the roots? On the academic side, who knows — should we consider a tourism degree? Why not, it’s possible. Should we consider a degree in retail goods? Maybe. Should we consider a degree in event management? Maybe.

“But above all, I would hate it if — it won’t be my decision of course — the culture of this academy would go. Because that is the strength of this college.”

Hilvert is clearly passionate about what he has built; leaving is hard. The hotelier has the opportunity, again in collaboration with Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, to be the MD of a new hotel school — linked to 120 hotel rooms and 120 apartments in Manila, Philippines.

“That was an opportunity that I could not not consider. Because I was so transparent and advised Jumeirah many months ago that these negotiations were taking place, Jumeirah has been fantastic. It’s an exciting opportunity, the project is under construction. Because we are with Lausanne, it will be a sister school to this. So my relationship with EAHM will not change, and there’s a very strong chance that once we open there, the students from my new school will come here.

“From a personal point of view, it gives me a chance, on the basis that I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished here, to accomplish the same in Asia. A formal media launch is expected in March, at which time more information will be revealed.”

Now with nearly 50 years in the industry, Hilvert cannot recommend it enough. “Where else are you going to travel the world from the time you’re 18? In most industries, you have to work for a company for 10 years before you travel. I went to Lausanne at 18, lived in 15 countries, and travelled to 120 countries — which other industry can you do that in? Not many. And where do you meet people like in this industry?

“It’s been a fantastic journey. I’ve been truly privileged to have worked with Gerald Lawless — we’re the only two left of the original team — on the launch of what became Jumeirah, and particularly 15 years ago when I got the go-ahead to be the founding managing director of the Academy. It’s been an interesting journey, and I leave with a lot of sadness, but I also leave with tremendous satisfaction because I know that we’re now firmly established as one of the world’s leading free-standing hotel schools.”

Goodbye Ron Hilvert, and thank you.