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“When you're an entrepreneur, and you're not successful with your first shot, bouncing back from failure is probably the most difficult.”
155 Plays1 year ago
20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE:
I told myself I'm going to be a hotelier. Okay so how do I become a hotelier? Well, no hotel owner in their right mind will ask me to run their hotel. So I guess I need to be a hotel owner myself.
In my thirties I was kind of a Parisian nightlife kingpin and had a lot of fun, a lot of fun. I probably had a little bit of a delayed teenage crisis and threw my career out the window and decided to go into nightlife.
Money came and then went even faster, but I definitely checked a lot of marks in the bucket list and so I enjoyed myself greatly. I decided maybe it was time to get a grip and do something more serious with my life.
I'm the son of an architect, I love good design, I love hanging out with people, I love creating things that last;
I am about to develop the most beautiful hotel of the Italian riviera, the Grand Miramare Castiglioncello.
Seeing my kids grow and being able to impact them and the way they're going to impact the world is something that I derive a lot of happiness from.
ON TOPIC: HOSPITALITY, HOTELS, LUXURY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
My project for the hotel is to make it the Italian Riviera's most beautiful hotel.
The hotel industry: there's an underlying real estate element that makes it easier to finance
A checklist for what an asset should look like - location, location, location, architecturally interesting, a straightforward storytelling, etc.
Of course, you need to have a good bed, and it needs to be great design, etc., but very difficult to compete on that, because everybody knows how to buy a good bed and hire a good interior designer. It's not that complicated and you see there's a proliferation of luxury hotels.
Exceptional service is difficult to achieve. I think it's about making people feel welcomed.
You don't go to a luxury hotel to feel at home. You go for something exceptional, you want to feel exceptional. You want to feel like you've been expected to that place for all of your life and when you leave you can’t wait to come back.
70% repeat rate on clients - when you can achieve that, that I think is true luxury. That you can give people such an experience, that they feel amazing, that everything around makes them feel good and makes them feel exceptional. So much so, that they love to talk about it and word of mouth is the best.
ON TOPIC: ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Reinventing yourself permanently is pretty difficult and it is challenging.
You have to be a little bit full of yourself and believe that you're made for being a successful entrepreneur and that if you failed before it's not your fault and you've learned from that and that you have to try again.
The reason why I love being an entrepreneur is being able to have an impact.
it's the journey more than the goal that matters and then you just do it.
I like to put problems in a box and open them when I have to.
You can't be good at everything and you should keep a focus on what you are good at.
You need to hire people who are smarter than you and better than you.
ON GIVING BACK
Education is probably the best way to help the world become a more civilized place and to lift people from poverty.
There's some material success of course, but the yield curve on material happiness flattens very quickly.
References, mentions:
modern luxury, magazine Monocle, How to spend it, Hotel Il Pelicano, Orient Express, Belmond group, humane management, Dead Poets Society, Dino Buzzati, Space invaders, Pirandello, Toscanini, Mastroiani, Visconti, Rossellini, Churchill, Tuscany, Corsica, Elba, Florence, Pisa, San Gimignano, Bolghera, Italian riviera, “wine concierge”, truffle hunting, Relais et Chateaux
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Series
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Republic of Insead, the 20 years later O3D podcast edition. I am Milena Ivanova and will be your host in this limited series. So, here we are, 20 years later, hopefully all the wiser, naturally smarter and as charming as ever. There were 432 of us in the O3D vintage.
00:00:25
Speaker
And certainly there are 432 unique and very interesting personal and professional stories to tell. While I cannot physically cover all, I have tried to make a selection of stories that will keep you interested and curious and will hopefully convince you to join us on campus for reunion.
Milena's Reflections on Reconnection
00:00:44
Speaker
Welcome to the Republic of Insead Podcast Edition and enjoy the show.
00:00:50
Speaker
Alrighty, here we are. Good morning, good afternoon, greetings to all spread across the globe. It's been a rainy spring and so today is another rainy day here in Sofia, Bulgaria. But who cares about the rain when I'm having so much fun talking to so many inside friends spread all over the world. I didn't quite realize how much fun this was going to be actually until I started reconnecting and chatting with people near and far in the last few weeks.
00:01:19
Speaker
So, energizing and firing, a kick in the behind if I have a needed one.
Meet Today's Charismatic Guest
00:01:24
Speaker
My guest today is one that knows a thing or two about fun, but let's start with the Republic of Inseat 03D entry for him from 20 years ago. Opening quotations. In life, there are those who stand out as giants among men, larger than life, charisma oozing out of their pores and drenching the rest of us in ambrosial bliss.
00:01:48
Speaker
For us, he was one of these people. Going out in Paris with him was like walking on water. All of a sudden, we were the coolest hipsters that La Maison Blanche had ever seen. Not being turned away at the velvet rope because we happened to be wearing dockers. We were whisked into the VIP lounge. Heads turned, drinks appeared, beauties hovered, and we basked in the reflected glory of the light that was him.
00:02:18
Speaker
Whatever joy we may know in the life post him, surely it will be only a faint echo of the resounding bliss that we were privileged to know as friends. Well, there you go. Before I introduce him, let me tell you
00:02:33
Speaker
I had a story of my own, not with him, and probably that was the problem. We went, a bunch of friends from inside, in front of Annabelle's in London, but we were definitely with the wrong person, because they didn't let us in, we were wearing jeans. The biggest sin of private clubs in London, so, shame, shame. Anyhow, welcome to you, and first off, tell me, where do I find you today? Oh, I'm still stuck in Paris, what can I say?
00:02:59
Speaker
All right, there you go, Paris. But is it just Paris or the world is now your oyster? I guess that's what graduates are about, you know. But yeah, Paris is home. And I guess the rest of the world as
Career Journey: From L'Oreal to Nightlife
00:03:15
Speaker
well. I stopped going to nightclubs. All right. Oh, no, not entirely. That's not true, actually. Well, on a more serious note, let's start by
00:03:29
Speaker
I let you speak. Give us the last 20 years of your life in a nutshell, the five minutes of the last 20 years. I graduated from INSAAD and then I didn't stop enjoying life because I graduated from INSAAD and I went to work at L'Oreal and find fragrances and marketing because I
00:03:55
Speaker
At the time, I thought that fine fragrances was the ultimate marketing experience. I wanted to learn that. I spent three and a half years there, and then I probably had a little bit of a delayed teenage crisis. And threw my career out the window and decided to go into nightlife. Because indeed, that was what I was enjoying the most. And actually, the guy sitting next to me in my office at L'Oreal, I'd love L'Oreal to pursue his passion in photography. I was like, well, you know what?
00:04:25
Speaker
I like a good party. And I was flat made with a party promoter and he was like, okay, let's do something together. And we launched a pretty successful nightlife operation in Paris in Bonne Boulogne in a place called Begetel. So that was a lot of fun. And I did that for eight
Entrepreneurship: Startups and Co-working Spaces
00:04:43
Speaker
years. But of course, you know, when you know a little bit about marketing,
00:04:48
Speaker
And you have an insane background, of course. You don't stop with one party, so we went from Beggotel, which was Paris' first and biggest outdoor nightlife operation, to doing a big one next to the Champs-Élysées, with 1,500 people capacity every Friday, Saturday, a couple of restaurants, a bar, an event agency, a magazine.
00:05:16
Speaker
In my 30s, I was my Parisian nightlife kingpin and I had a lot of fun. I wasn't as reasonable as I should have. Money came and then went even faster.
00:05:30
Speaker
You know, I definitely checked a lot of marks in the bucket list, so I enjoyed myself greatly. And then, well, I met the love of my life, the mother of my children, Maria, and we got married when I was 37.
00:05:49
Speaker
And then I decided maybe it was time to get a grip and do something more serious with my life. So I tried to double a little bit in startups. I tried to do one called Bonjour Bonjour, which was supposed to be a French WeChat. Never really worked. But then we did one called Mabouté, which was an Airbnb for home beauty that we sold to Rocket Internet. And at the time, our friends Paris Korsenas was
00:06:15
Speaker
working there and nicely signed a check for the few shares that I left. And then I went on to found a co-working company called the Bureau, which was Paris First.
00:06:32
Speaker
a high-end co-working space. Today, it's 12,000 square meters in Paris CBD, 13 million turnover, a bit of a positive, a nice company.
New Ventures in Hospitality: Acquiring a Hotel
00:06:45
Speaker
But right before COVID, I had to fall out with my investor. And so I left the presence of the company and not operationally involved anymore.
00:06:56
Speaker
I needed to figure out what to do next. And I figured that with the events and the co-working, basically, I'm the son of an architect. I love good design. I love hanging out with people. I love creating things. I love creating things at last. And so I will probably actually go into the hospitality industry and the hotel industry more particularly, because there's an underlying real estate element that makes it easier to finance.
00:07:23
Speaker
some kind of strange startup. I figured I probably had a CV that I could sell to investors. Lo and behold, I managed to find a hotel in Italy that I bought last year. I am about to develop the most beautiful hotel of the Italian Riviera.
00:07:44
Speaker
Grano tel mira mare di Castellon cello, 70 rooms, role chateau, that I hope will open next spring. Maybe everything goes well, but construction is definitely not an exact science, so you never know. But it looks good, I managed to
00:08:02
Speaker
to raise money to buy the property and finance the beginning of the works. I'm in the midst of closing a second round of financing to finish the works. Of course, in the macro environment right now, it's not easy, but we'll get there. I'm having fun with that. In the meantime, I've managed to
00:08:19
Speaker
I have two children with my wife, so I have Magnus and Baldur who are six and four, growing up to be healthy, amazing boys with whom I have a lot of fun because I'm literally three, four days a week and the rest of the time in Paris and I enjoy taking time off to spend time with them.
00:08:38
Speaker
Paris is a great place. We just invented a new game. We just downloaded a new app called Space Invader. And in Paris, there's 1,500 Space Invaders, which is like a graffiti mosaic all over the walls in Paris. And so we go hunting for Space Invaders all over Paris. And it's a great way to rediscover the scene with my kids. I just did that at LAN yesterday afternoon. I had a lot of fun doing that. So I enjoy having fun. And I try to organize my life to be able to have that.
00:09:08
Speaker
That's the last 20 years in a nutshell. All right, so what did you say has been the
Challenges and Resilience in Entrepreneurship
00:09:13
Speaker
biggest challenge of those 20 years for you? Professionally, well, personally, it was finding a wife who was ready to put up with me. But I managed to find her, and we've been married for over 10 years now, so I can't... That was a challenge, and I'm very happy I managed to overcome that, or she overcame that. Let's put it like that.
00:09:35
Speaker
Well, professionally, when you're an entrepreneur and you're not successful with your first shot and you're a little bit of an airhead as I might be.
00:09:44
Speaker
You know, bouncing back from failure is probably the most difficult. Reinventing yourself permanently is pretty difficult and it is challenging, but it's a challenge that I enjoy actually. And I think, you know, I was a consultant before going to INSEAD and you learned to work on all sorts of different issues.
00:10:05
Speaker
And I think the consulting years have definitely taught me how to bounce back and also, you know, the resilience you get from an inside education as well. Do you have any secret to the sauce? Secret to what? In terms of how you bounce back.
00:10:27
Speaker
Oh, well, you have to be a little bit full of yourself and believe that you're made for being a successful entrepreneur and that if you fail before, it's not your fault and you've learned from that and that you have to try again. It's like a boxer who gets hit in the face. You don't want just, you bounce back. And if you believe in yourself and you believe that the world is full of opportunities,
00:10:57
Speaker
And then actually it's the journey more than the goal that matters and then you just do it. I was looking at your LinkedIn and you actually are teaching as well. I stopped teaching because I don't have to anymore. I did it for eight years. It was a lot of fun. And you were teaching entrepreneurship. Exactly. A bunch of people know it from you.
00:11:22
Speaker
Well, you know, I was not teaching per se. Basically, it was a module for eight years at Seattle School, which is my alma mater, your parents' name. Every class I'd invite an entrepreneur that I knew from most works of life, from finance to cosmetics, to hotels, et cetera, startups, and who would talk about their entrepreneurial journey.
00:11:50
Speaker
That was one hour, and then we spent one hour with the students trying to understand who that entrepreneur was, the psychology of entrepreneurship.
00:11:59
Speaker
key success factors, why they might, you know, the key to their success as a result of their personal or their personality or, or, or, or history of personal history, etc. So I thought it was very interesting. But I mean, I wasn't teaching per se, I was just invited people to talk about themselves. And then I was facilitating a discussion. What's one trait that if, if one has it, they should not be an entrepreneur?
00:12:29
Speaker
If they're risk averse, it's difficult to be an entrepreneur. So hospitality, let's talk hospitality. And you did mention why you went or why it's maybe easier with the underlying real estate to at least start the financing part. But what, how are you thinking about this hotel? You described it to us in the WhatsApp group, the one that's coming up next year. And it sounds like very
00:12:58
Speaker
There is a story to tell there, right? With the church or when I forget what else. But how do you find the place? How do you decide to go? So basically, when I decided, okay, I'm going to be a hotelier, you know, I haven't told myself, you know, I'm going to be a hotelier. Okay, so how do I become a hotelier? Well, no hotel owner in the right mind will ask me to run the hotel. So I guess I need to be a hotel owner myself.
00:13:28
Speaker
And so, okay, it's COVID. I guess when after COVID, there's going to be a lot of opportunities. So let me start and call them poll brokers and see if there are any hotels for sale. The problem is they ask for proof of funds and the money needed to buy a proper hotel. I didn't have that lying around on my bank account. So you fake it till you make it.
00:13:54
Speaker
And you call brokers and you tell brokers you're working with a group of family offices. We're keen to get into the space. And then, you know, I had a checklist of what an asset should look like, you know, location, location, location, architectural interest, straightforward storytelling. And I think I probably visited, I sifted through 200 PDF files and visited 50 assets.
00:14:25
Speaker
Only Italy or France as well? No, I started with France, but in France, post-COVID, there was a lot of programs to actually help entrepreneurs get through. Even companies that should have gone bankrupt survived thanks to state guarantee loans. I extended the scope to the rest of Europe. In Italy, in fact, it hadn't been the case. Now they're finally getting their act together.
00:14:49
Speaker
But during COVID, there was a lot of people who actually had to chip in to help their operation survive. And I was fortunate to come across this opportunity. There was a family owned hotels with 10 cousins who weren't exactly on the best terms. They were happy to take some dividends every year. But when they suddenly had to chip in, they decided to sell. There was one family member who didn't want to sell. So I had to go see that family member.
00:15:19
Speaker
and charm away and reassure her that I was going to honor the legacy of a grandfather and that my project for the hotel was to make it the Italian Riviera's most
00:15:32
Speaker
beautiful hotel. She bought into that vision. Ten cousins to convince, financing that had to be put together, which had been put together and then Vladimir Putin got the great idea to make Ukraine and then suddenly the financing fell apart. I had to go and find other sources of financing and
00:15:56
Speaker
Then at that point, the Italian government started putting together state-backed loans for initiatives in tourism, so I had the chance to
00:16:12
Speaker
tap into that kind of opportunity. And then I found some friends and family equity, plus a little bit of crowdfunding maintenance and managed to structure the finance to buy the properties and finance the initial works. So yeah, it was a probably from discovering the asset to finalizing the transaction. It probably took me eight months, I think. Well, still pretty good. Such a roundabout deal.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, but now I'm very happy. I mean, it's a historical hotel in Italy.
00:16:48
Speaker
Everybody from Pirandello, to Tuscany, to Mastriare, to Visconti, to Rossellini, even Churchill stayed there. It's on a beautiful little bay in Tuscany. The water is crystal clear. You can see Corsica, Elba. It's half an hour from Pisa Airport. It's very easily accessible.
00:17:13
Speaker
a cute little train station so you can come directly by train from Florence or Rome. It's a pretty amazing place and I thought I was going to buy it and hire somebody to develop it for me but I started to enjoy it so much that I go now two, three days a week.
00:17:29
Speaker
And you're working with local architects and designers?
The Vision for Luxury and Sustainability in Hospitality
00:17:35
Speaker
Interior design, of course, is a very strong element of the USP. I asked a friend of mine who has a company where they manufacture bespoke furniture by architects. Who's an up-and-coming Italian or French Italian designer?
00:17:57
Speaker
He introduced me to three, plus I met another one. I did a little RFP, and found a young guy who was pretty cool, George Poggioni. He's early 30s. He's one of Architectural Digest's 100 designers to follow. He also just signed as Art Director for Restoration Hardware, which is a big gift for an interchange in America. So he's doing all the art direction and the design.
00:18:24
Speaker
Well, the graphic design, the art direction. I work with an old friend called Jorga Tuplas who redesigned the MS logo but who's also the art director of Vanity for France. And who's a great guy who's also done the Hotel du Quixote and a lot of hospitality ventures in Paris. A great graphic designer and art director. And then I
00:18:42
Speaker
worked with an architect from Rome who specialized in historical monuments because of course to get building permits for a building like that if you want to strip it out inside and rebuild it can be a nightmare so I spent a lot of money getting somebody who could actually speed that up and we started the process in September and now we've gotten all the permits so that was pretty amazing seeing the famous Italian bureaucracy.
00:19:10
Speaker
It also helps that the first person I went to see in the village was the mayor and I told him I was going to boost high-end tourism in his village. Even though he's a communist, he understood the value of that. I love how Tuscany is the most communist. It is the most anarchist place in Italy. Anyways, they're very pragmatic and they like the fact that he's a solo entrepreneur.
00:19:36
Speaker
who's put his guts on the table to make this project happen. I think probably if it had been a big conglomerate, I wouldn't have had the same kind of goodwill from the local authorities. And in terms of economics, can you give us the, and we understand you are new to the industry, like I'm new to the industry, I share it, I have a tiny title in comparison, one tenth of yours, but yes. But the economics, how do you think about the economics,
00:20:04
Speaker
at the moment before you're open to them. How worried are you about risk? Because COVID was a big event. So how worried are you about this happening again? You know, I live with risk. And you know, it's like one thing is like you evaluate the risk, you say, fine, I'm willing to take the risk. And then you put it in a little box somewhere. And then basically, there's two kinds of economics. There's the economics of the real estate developer, where you say, okay, let's not
00:20:33
Speaker
I buy the asset, I develop it, and then I try to develop a yield through great operations, and I sell that yield to an institutional investor. Right now, tourism is booming. In Italy, average daily rates per room are increasing 20% per year.
00:20:56
Speaker
I remember Rahima was like, what's happened to hotel prices? And so, you know, hotel prices are going through the roof, especially in desirable places like Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast, Paris, Florence, et cetera. So, I mean, right now from a P&L point of view, I think it looks pretty good. I don't know if it will continue, but I think, I mean,
00:21:18
Speaker
disposal of income and despite inflation, you know, people are making more and more money and people want to travel. Tuscany is, you know, top tennis of the places people want to go to. When they go to Tuscany, they go to Rolling Hills in countryside and suddenly I'm going to make them discover that there's also a beautiful seaside. And if they stay in my hotel, it's perfect place to go and discover Florence, which is an hour away, Pisa, San Gimignano,
00:21:45
Speaker
Altera, a great wine region like Bologhetti, just next door, et cetera. And they don't need to have to enjoy the sweltering heat of Tuscany in the summer. So I think it's going to work well and all the numbers and the benchmarks I can do on comparable operations. I mean, if you see average daily rates of luxury hotels on the Italian Riviera, if you're a customer, you're like,
00:22:12
Speaker
I can't afford this, but if you're an operator, that's pretty cool. I think I'll be able to honor the yield that's in my business plan and probably some more. Then when I look at prices, from a real estate point of view,
00:22:33
Speaker
Hospitality or what they call managed real estate, so everything from student housing to hotels, is the most resilient asset class in real estate because it follows inflation. If you have a fixed lease of an office building in the outskirts of Paris, it's pretty difficult because people don't want to go to the office in a dire suburb anymore. So there is a downward pressure on the rent. Or if you're in high street retail, it's complicated as well post COVID.
00:23:00
Speaker
However, with people's appetite for travel and the fact that people don't mind price hikes in hotel rooms, it's an asset class that follows a vision. So from that point of view, it's pretty resilient. And the market for seaside first row luxury hotels in Italy doesn't exist. So if you have one for sale, you're pretty much the market maker. And occupancy, seasonality there?
00:23:30
Speaker
Of course, that's something we'll have to deal with. For four months, it's not a problem to fill up a hotel and then the rest of the time. Many of these hotels only stay open six months a year, but then you don't get very good staff because of seasonal staff.
00:23:47
Speaker
So, if you want to create a great corporate culture and retain the best people, it's better to stay open all year. And so, to compensate for the seasonality of a seaside hotel, we're going to be very strong on wine. So, I'm hiring, not a sommelier, but what I call a wine culture because some of Italy's best vineyards are literally 20 minutes away from the hotel.
00:24:12
Speaker
The idea is that we want to appeal to wine enthusiasts and they come all the way along. And then you have to create programs like Truffle Hunting in October and November, Yoga Retreats. And also, you know, we're going to be very sustainable, we're going to be zero impact.
00:24:30
Speaker
I'm buying a hectare of lead to put solar panels, et cetera. So the fact that we're zero impact and very keen on being exemplary from an ESG point of view, I think we'll be able to appeal to corporates who want to do off-sites at least during the week.
00:24:46
Speaker
and the proximity to Pisa Airport, the fact that you can come by train. I think there was a great way to fill up the hotel of season. And then we have an amazing spa that we're developing, a sustainable spa. We're going to have a great gym that overlooks the ocean.
00:25:07
Speaker
and stuff. So I think we can do health programs as well, off season. So you can come and for two weeks learn how to eat better and then do a cleanse and do yoga in the morning, do hikes in the mountains and so on. So the possibilities are endless for how you can be creative about filling up a hotel the rest of the year. And if you have a great restaurant, people will come also for that. So in terms of numbers, because I'm a numbers person, can you
00:25:36
Speaker
And if it's a secret, it's a secret that ballpark, what's the total investment size? So the total investment I think will end up at
00:25:46
Speaker
So right now I'm buying actually a building next door. So if it hasn't been done yet, but if I include the investment with the building next door, we probably landed 35 million euros for 72 rooms and 150 cover restaurant, spa, et cetera. So from a real estate point of view, that is very reasonable.
00:26:13
Speaker
And in terms of yield, in what range are you looking? So basically, I mean, I think that if I have 70 rooms, maybe, you know, my wildest dreams, I do 10 million euros a year in sales, I probably do eight or nine.
00:26:33
Speaker
with a 35% EBITDA. So, say it's a 35 million investment with a 8% to 10% yield supply.
00:26:45
Speaker
All right. And in terms of not a number, but I was interviewing a friend for a, for a podcast here in Bulgaria who has been running properties for the Sheraton group for the last 30 years. And basically at some point she told me in the future, there would be two types of hotels, hotels with people and hotels without people stuff. Why she was talking about. So first
00:27:10
Speaker
there, what do you think, in your view, makes a five-star property a five-star property or however many stars? I mean, what defines a great property? I think, you know, a lot of people talk about modern luxury, you know, how do you appeal to the modern high net worth individual, et cetera.
00:27:36
Speaker
It's one star to five star. I don't know. If you look at Burning Man, it's a very expensive experience and people stay in RVs and accept dust and dirty toilets. They probably spent $10,000 to spend a week. People go to Burning Man, not for the comfort, but for the experience.
00:27:57
Speaker
So we're probably not going to be in that end of the experience spectrum. But I think people are willing to spend fortunes to go look at penguins in the Antarctic or stay in tents to look at lions or go and do amazing stuff. And so I think Instagram has changed a lot. People love to boast about all the amazing places they've been and all the cool places they've been.
00:28:26
Speaker
and restaurants take advantage of that. And then you see how influencers are important in creating hospitality destinations. So I think, yes, the amenities, of course, you need to have a good bed and it needs to be great design, etc. But it's very difficult to compete on that because everybody knows how to buy a good bed and I are a good interior designer. They might not have the taste
00:28:50
Speaker
to get it right in terms of interior design.
Importance of Service and Staff in Luxury Experiences
00:28:56
Speaker
When you travel, you definitely see a lot of mistakes in terms of taste and interiors. A lot of people don't have what it takes to make a beautiful place, but still, it's not that complicated.
00:29:13
Speaker
and you see me, there's a proliferation of luxury hotels, just open magazines like Monocle, how to spend it, and there's 10 amazing places that open every week. It's very difficult to compete on that, but you need it if you want to reach people who can spend 1,000 euros per night on the road. I think exceptional service, and that is difficult to achieve. You can script it. You can say,
00:29:39
Speaker
You can tell people to hold the door for you when you walk in. You know, you can have cleanliness standards, et cetera. I think it goes way beyond that. I think it's about making people feel welcomed. I don't like to say making people feel at home because you don't go to luxury hotels to feel at home. You go for something exceptional.
00:30:00
Speaker
But you want to feel exceptional. You want to feel like you've been expected to that place for all of your life. And when you leave, you can't wait to come back. And if you look at one of my benchmarks is a hotel called Il Penicano, which is close to Rome.
00:30:17
Speaker
you have 70% repeat rate on their clients. So when you can achieve that, that I think is true luxury. That you can give people such an experience that they feel amazing, that everything around them makes them feel good, makes them feel exceptional, so much so that they love to talk about it and word of mouth is the best. So yeah, you need the spa, you need
00:30:45
Speaker
You need the instant hot water coming out of the shower. You need some kind of room service. You need turn down service. You need all that. But that's easy to execute. To find the proper staff to actually feel like that they're part of something
00:31:04
Speaker
that is bigger than themselves. They have a passion for service. They have a passion for their clients. They're part of something that's truly amazing. When you have staff that feels that and transmit that to the clients, then I think you have a winning proposition in terms of luxury. How are you solving for this? Have you started hiring already?
00:31:27
Speaker
Of course, yeah. As important as it was to find the right property to open my first hotel, I probably interviewed 20 candidates for GM and I hired an amazing general manager who did not go to Hospitality Academy, who was a self-made man who started as a butler on the Orient Express and worked his way up through the Belmont Group and then launched two hotels without having formal experience. And I liked the fact that he had
00:31:55
Speaker
self-made can-do attitude, but very keen on humane management, the happiness of staff, you know, all the motor management methods that you can read about. It's very keen on that, very technologically savvy and the staff we have now, I mean, they all love working with him. I just went to Venice for the architecture of Biarale, where he's from, and he worked in several hotels. He recommended, oh, go there, my friend is managing that restaurant.
00:32:24
Speaker
I did the due diligence I should probably have done before hiring him, but everybody was like, wow, he's such an amazing guy. I really enjoyed working for him, et cetera. Can I come work in your hotel? Not for him, but with him. Yeah, sorry. If you can hire superstars, the idea is that's what we learned. I didn't say you need to hire people who are smarter than you and better than you, right? Right.
00:32:47
Speaker
Good, great.
Guest's Values: Education and Sustainability
00:32:49
Speaker
So we are waiting basically for, I already told you, what is it this year? It's the 20th reunion and next year the 21st, you know, like off season. Ready for the wild punch. So switching gears entirely.
00:33:06
Speaker
giving back, you know, I've been fundraising for the class and we've had a conversation with you, I know your view, but are there causes in general that excite you more than others as areas to give back? And of course, giving back can be in all sorts of forms, time and not just money, right? No, so, you know, I mean, I've been very lucky to, when I was 17, I got a scholarship to something called United World College, which is basically
00:33:36
Speaker
International Association of Arts. It's a movement of high schools, boarding schools, where everybody gets scholarships, so nobody pays their way to it. It's changed a little bit since then. And I found that, you know, education is probably the best way to help the world become a more civilized place and to left people from poverty. So, you know, education is something I feel strongly about. So, I give to UWC. I don't give to inside, but because UWC needs my
00:34:07
Speaker
that instead does. But education is definitely something I feel very strongly about. Even more now that I have kids, it's really something I spend a lot of time thinking about and reading up on. So it's something I feel strongly about and then, you know, whatever I can. And that's probably also why I taught. I mean, I definitely didn't teach for money. I taught because I love the impact you can have as a professor and I love being able to do that.
00:34:35
Speaker
Another one I feel very strongly about is leaving the world as a cleaner place than the one we inherited from our parents. That's why I'm very keen on sustainability at my hotel. Living in a big polluted city, I've become asthmatic. My youngest son is asthmatic. It's horrible.
00:35:00
Speaker
We can't live our lives without having to think about it that we need to buy bottled water because we can't have clean water coming out of a faucet or CO2 emissions, et cetera. It's something that scares me. You see natural disasters, et cetera. So whenever I can, I try to be useful and that's it.
Rapid-fire Insights: Achievements and Philosophies
00:35:19
Speaker
All right. Good. So last bit, last part is the quick round of questions back and forth. So I'll start and you just shoot back.
00:35:30
Speaker
Proudest achievement? Having a family. Successful you is? Actually, it's a very difficult question. A lot of books have been read about it, written about it. But I'll tell you one story. Yesterday, I went to the premiere of a French documentary about an amazing guy called Earl-Ying Guat that I met, who's a friend, who's an entrepreneur, very successful entrepreneur.
00:35:59
Speaker
And three years ago, he was diagnosed with ALS. So he knew he only had a few years to live. And instead of being a sad person, he decided he's going to live life to the full until he dies. And he totally accepted the fact that death was natural.
00:36:22
Speaker
fully got his family to accept it. His wife, his sons, totally managed to live through that philosophy. His company, his team, totally, he felt he could be useful to
00:36:36
Speaker
to his company, so he goes to work every day, he's still there, manages to motivate his teams around Europe with his strength and the courage to live.
00:36:54
Speaker
Like everybody, I watched Dead Poets Society and heard about Carpe diem, but it took on a new meaning for me. And I was like, wow, to me that's success. Knowing you're dying in a couple of months or in a couple of years and being able to live like that, that's success to me. So with the love of his family, his friends, and everybody who was in the cinema yesterday is studying innovation, of course, but the documentary about him was very, very strong.
00:37:22
Speaker
Right. Successful. There's some material success, of course, but the yield curve on material happiness flattens very quickly. But if you can live your life like that, then you're successful, I think.
00:37:41
Speaker
Well, it's a continuation of that. I think even more than that is being able to have an impact. I think that the reason why I love being an entrepreneur is being able to, I mean, even from the days when I did my parties, people come, I mean, I stopped during nightlife over 10 years ago, people still come back to
00:38:02
Speaker
It was amazing. I met my wife at your parties. We had such a good time. It was great. Our team members who've worked with you, who've gone on to have amazing careers and do great stuff and come up with like, yeah, you inspired me to do this and to do that and to manage it that way.
Conclusion: Inspiration and Reunion Reflections
00:38:19
Speaker
Or students who are like, wow, thanks to your classes. I took the courage to start my own business, et cetera. And I think that's something I derive a lot of
00:38:30
Speaker
A lot of happiness. And of course, seeing my kids grow and being able to impact them and the way they're going to impact the world, I think is also something that I derive a lot of happiness from. Biggest regret? Not having children earlier. Okay. What keeps you awake at night? Or you sleep well?
00:38:52
Speaker
Oh, I sleep well. I tend to sleep pretty well. A lot of things I worry about as any conscientious human being should, but I tend to sleep well. As I told you, I like to put problems in a box and open them when I have to. Wish you had known or that someone had told you earlier? That you can be good at everything and that you should keep a focus on what you're good at. If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?
00:39:20
Speaker
Oh, not much. Maybe I would have gone a little bit more of an international experience. I've been stuck in Paris for a long time, never really. Well, there you go. Now it's a talent. Exactly. A retirement ever, never. If you enjoy what you're doing, you don't need to retire. Yeah, you can turn down the volume a little bit, but I enjoy creating stuff.
00:39:47
Speaker
Right now I'm a family to raise, so it needs to be for profit. Maybe one day I'll create stuff with less of an upside in mind, but no, I can't sit still and I need to have people around me. I need to create stuff. So I don't think I'm ready to retire. If you had to pick one book, everyone should read.
00:40:12
Speaker
Difficult. One book that I think made a profound impact on me was an Italian writer called Dino Buzzatti, who wrote The Desert of the Tartars, which is basically about life choices and how to grow as a human being. Most admired public person? Oh, plenty. It's a cliché, but I like the resilience of a guy like Nelson Mandela.
00:40:40
Speaker
most despised public person. Right now, probably, Vladimir Putin. And the last one is, are you coming to a reunion?
00:40:51
Speaker
Of course. It's pretty close from where I live. I should actually catch up with you on the party side. I'd be happy to help. Cool. Excellent. Well, now I can say this was a conversation with Rasmus Michel. I keep it quiet until the end because I had serial entrepreneur, most recently founder and president of Octopus Hospitality Partners. Interesting name.
00:41:19
Speaker
Thank you very much for your time, Rasmus. Thanks a lot, Milena, for being interested in what I do. Very interested. I'm very interested to come visit next day as well. Yeah, I hope so. I hope you all come. Yep, we all come. Thank you, Rasmus. You have a good day. You too. Take good care, Milena, and see you on the reunion. You were listening to the Republic of Incia 20 years later, O3D Podcast Edition.
00:41:45
Speaker
It is my hope to remind everyone what an interesting and, dare I say, colorful bunch of people we are and how much we can contribute to each other, be it through ideas, knowledge, or mere inspiration. The podcast is inspired by the original Republic of India Yearbook, produced on paper 20 years ago by Oliver Bradley and team. Thank you, Ollie and team, for this contribution to our class's memory and for letting me continue in the tradition, title and inspiration included.
00:42:14
Speaker
Creator and author of the Republic of Incia 20 Years Later O3D Podcast Edition, M.I. Milena Ivanova. Original music by Peter Dondakov would help from their film's productions. Stay tuned for more and remember to book your tickets for the 20-year reunion in Fontainebleau October 6th, 8th, 2023. Thank you for listening.