The Boardroom Reboot

Federico González has turned around three major European hotel companies, sat on the board of Louvre, and currently runs Radisson Hotel Group. He’s also spent two decades writing down every cultural mistake he’s made along the way, which is how a CEO ended up publishing three books on multicultural leadership.

In this episode of The Boardroom Reboot, recorded in person in Dubai, host Floor Bleeker gets González to explain why the real skill was never collecting passport stamps. It’s learning to separate what someone says from how they say it, a lesson that cost him an entire ad campaign in Sweden and nearly cost him again in Portugal, a country close enough to Spain that he stopped being careful. He also walks through why the turnaround playbook that worked at NH Hotel Group, which owned nearly all its properties, would have failed completely at Radisson, which owns almost none. Along the way: the P&G habit that makes him allergic to vague strategy documents, the unwritten company rule he enforces without exception, and a closing prediction that has nothing to do with AI or robots.

In this episode

• Why the cultural gap he worries about most isn’t Sweden versus Spain, it’s P&G versus Disney versus Carlson
• The one Swedish business rule that sank an entire ad campaign
• Why NH’s turnaround playbook would have failed completely at Radisson
• The “one-page memo” discipline from P&G and why he still can’t stand “poetry” in a strategy document
• His zero-tolerance rule for people who make others afraid to come to work
• His closing wish for how cities could plan tourism the way theme parks plan crowds

A few lines from Federico

• “There are more differences between someone in Minneapolis and someone in Florida than a Frenchman and a Spaniard.”
• “If I ever discover someone is an asshole, I will fire them on the spot.”
• “This business will become much more boring if it’s made by robots.”

Guest: Federico J. González, CEO of Radisson Hotel Group, former turnaround CEO of NH Hotel Group and Carlson, and author of three books on multicultural leadership.

Host: Floor Bleeker has led technology transformations across hospitality for more than twenty years, most recently as Group Chief Technology Officer at Accor.

The Boardroom Reboot is a Hospitality Net original. Open, honest conversations with the CEOs, founders and challengers reshaping hospitality, travel and technology. 

Visit Hospitality Net: www.hospitalitynet.org

Explore the latest Hotel Yearbook: www.hotelyearbook.com

Follow Us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/hospitality-net/

Harman Singh Narula came into hospitality tech from the outside; his family is in medicine, and hospitality wasn't on the map until a summer at Cornell's hotel school. What stuck with him was how little of the industry's technology was actually built around the guest. Every property management system was named for the asset it managed, not the person staying in it.

Canary was his answer. In this episode of The Boardroom Reboot, host Floor Bleeker sits down remotely with the Canary Technologies founder and CEO to trace that idea from a hundred cold calls a day to a company now among the fastest-growing in the United States, hospitality or otherwise. Narula explains why Canary earned its way into the industry through a narrow, unglamorous product before pushing its bigger guest-first thesis, why the company is named after a coal mine safety measure, and how a McDonald's run became a company tradition. He also takes on AI directly: what "workflows managed fully autonomously" looks like today, whether the general manager's job survives the next five years, and what happens to the physical shape of a hotel once robotics catches up.

In this episode

• Why Canary built its database around the guest instead of the room
• The unglamorous product Canary used to earn credibility before pitching its real idea
• Why Harman made a hundred cold calls a day in Canary's first years
• The coal-mine story behind the name Canary
• Why so few hospitality tech companies crack the list of America's fastest-growing companies
• Whether the general manager, and the director of finance, still exist in five years

A few lines from Harman

• "Everything that happens at a property revolves around the guest. It's the revenue, the loyalty, the brand equity. It's all focused around the guest."
• "There's a difference between replacement and repositioning."
• "Any problem is solvable at the end of the day."

Guest: Harman Singh Narula, co-founder and CEO of Canary Technologies, the guest management platform he started with SJ Sidhu.

Host: Floor Bleeker has led technology transformations across hospitality for more than twenty years, most recently as Group Chief Technology Officer at Accor.

The Boardroom Reboot is a Hospitality Net original. Open, honest conversations with the CEOs, founders and challengers reshaping hospitality, travel and technology.

Visit Hospitality Net: www.hospitalitynet.org

Explore the latest Hotel Yearbook: www.hotelyearbook.com

Follow Us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/hospitality-net/

Before he built one of the industry's few tech unicorns, Richard Valtr worked the night shift at his family's hotels in Prague. He worked out early that only the first three hours of the shift mattered, when late guests checked in and someone actually spoke to them. The rest, he says, he spent sitting there as a glorified security camera.

Mews was born out of that frustration. If the useful part of hospitality is the human part, why is so much of the technology built around everything else?

In the first episode of The Boardroom Reboot, Mews founder Richard Valtr sits down with host Floor Bleeker at HITEC in San Antonio. He traces the line from that reception desk to the cloud platform he started in 2012 with two other programmers, and later built with his business partner Matthijs Welle. He talks about growing up between London and Prague, studying philosophy against his father's wishes, and why he will disagree with an idea on purpose to force a better one. He also takes the uncomfortable questions, from whether a valuation in the billions is stressful to what AI really means for the people who work in hotels. He closes on a prediction most people in the industry have not seen coming: that within ten years, hospitality could employ half the working world.

In this episode

• Why Mews has never had a night audit
• The reception desk idea that made people laugh in 2012
• What Matt said about an 800-room hotel that convinced Richard to go all in
• Why Richard disagrees with people on purpose, sometimes even customers
• The one move he is almost disappointed a credit card company has not made yet
• Why he thinks hospitality could become the biggest industry on earth

A few lines from Richard

• "It was born out of frustration."
• "A credit card company should buy one of the hotel brands. I am almost disappointed it hasn't happened already."
• "In ten years, hospitality will be the biggest industry in the world. It already employs 10% of people on the planet. I think it will be 50%."

Guest: Richard Valtr, founder of Mews, the cloud hospitality platform he started in 2012 and one of the industry's first tech unicorns. mews.com

Host: Floor Bleeker has led technology transformations across hospitality for more than twenty years, most recently as Group Chief Technology Officer at Accor.

The Boardroom Reboot is a Hospitality Net original. Open, honest conversations with the CEOs, founders and challengers reshaping hospitality, travel and technology. New episode monthly.

Visit Hospitality Net: www.hospitalitynet.org

Explore the latest Hotel Yearbook: www.hotelyearbook.com

Follow Us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/hospitality-net/