This week on Hospitality Meets, Phil sits down with another Phil, that being Phil Andreopoulos, CEO of YOTEL, for a conversation that starts with washing pots in restaurants… and somehow ends with power naps, gorilla trekking, hotel disruption and leadership philosophy.

Inspired by a first class airline cabin and created by the founder of YO! Sushi, YOTEL has always challenged the “that’s just how hotels work” mentality, and this episode dives into exactly why.

Along the way, the two Phils discuss:

• Why understanding your own energy patterns might be one of the most underrated leadership skills around
• The importance of healthy friction in teams
• Building cultures that aren’t just clones of the leader
• Why communication matters most when uncertainty is highest
• The reality of navigating major business change
• Why hospitality still offers one of the greatest careers in the world
• And why getting promoted from pots and pans to plates and glasses once felt like a massive career breakthrough 😂

There’s also loads of brilliant insight around leadership, culture, growth and vision, without ever disappearing too far up its own backside.

Phil Andreopoulos speaks openly about:

• Growing through the hospitality industry
• His journey from kitchen porter to CEO
• Building franchise growth across global hotel brands
• The recent Hilton partnership with YOTEL
• Why “fun at work” matters more than people think
• And the importance of creating environments where people actually want to be

Some standout quotes from the episode:

“Knowing yourself is a hugely underrated leadership skill”

“If you leave gaps in communication, people will fill them”

“We spend a huge amount of our lives at work. It should be successful… but it should also be fun”

“You don’t build great teams by hiring people exactly like you”

“Hospitality is one of the greatest industries in the world… and I still don’t think we tell that story well enough”

There’s wisdom in this one.

There’s humour in this one.

There’s also a genuinely fascinating story about how a first-class airline seat accidentally became a hotel concept.

Classic hospitality really. Somebody looked at a plane seat and thought:

“…yeah, but what if we put a shower next to it?” 😂

Enjoy.

Show Partners

A big shout out to the first of today’s show partner, RotaCloud, the people management platform for shift-based teams.

RotaCloud lets managers create and share rotas, record attendance, and manage annual leave in minutes — all from a single, web-based app.

It makes work simple for your team, too, allowing them to check their rotas, request holiday, and even pick up extra shifts straight from their phones.

Try RotaCloud’s time-saving tools today by heading to https://rotacloud.com

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