Smack Team

portrait of Torgeir Silseth, podcast guest at smack hospitality

TORGEIR SILSETH

TORGEIR SILSETH Chief Executive Officer Nordic Choice Hotels Torgeir Silseth, the CEO of Nordic Choice Hotels, joined us on the podcast after the Nordic Hotel Conference in Copenhagen and talked to us about the Conference itself, including his participation in the talk “The Battle of the Giants”, how he got to Nordic Choice Hotels, their […]

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portrait of Shannon Knapp, podcast guest at smack hospitality

SHANNON KNAPP

SHANNON KNAPP President & Chief Executive Officer The Leading Hotels of the World Shannon Knapp and her business The Leading Hotels of the World have cemented their legacy in hospitality for years. Their current President and CEO, Shannon Knapp, joined us on the show and Patrizia and her spoke about the importance of remaining open

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portrait of pascal jenny, podcast guest at smack hospitality media

PASCAL JENNY

PASCAL JENNY President Arosa Tourism Pascal Jenny, the president of Arosa Tourism in Switzerland came to visit us on the show and talked to us about saving bears, the Arosa 2030 vision and the uniqueness of skiing. The former professional handball player told Philip about the Arosa Bärenland Foundation, whose mission is to save bears,

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portrait of mieke veldhuis, podcast guest at smack hospitality

MIEKE VELDHUIS

MIEKE VELDHUIS Chief People & Culture Officer The Social Hub You heard it here first and to mark the occasion, Mieke Veldhuis, Chief People & Culture Officer at The Social Hub, is our guest on our next podcast episode. She revealed to us why The Student Hotel outgrew its name and is changing it to

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portrait of josef vollmayr, podcast guest at smack hospitality

DR. JOSEF VOLLMAYR

DR. JOSEF VOLLMAYR Co-Founder & Managing Director Limehome In this episode, we had the chance to speak to the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Limehome, Dr. Josef Vollmayr. We were introduced to the rise of alternative accommodations and the success of sharing economies. Florian and Josef spoke about the companies USP of having no manual

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portrait of podcast guest Sebastien Bazin on smack hospitality cast

SÉBASTIEN BAZIN

SÉBASTIEN BAZIN Chairman & CEO Accor Sébastien Bazin, Chairman & CEO of Accor Group, joined us on the show, kicked of season 4 of our podcast and had a lot of fun giving us a recap on his past 10 years with Accor and what is planned for the upcoming years. Sébastien & Fritz discussed

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LLUÍS SERRA

My name is Lluís Serra and I am currently Managing Director and CEO at EUHT StPOL – Sant Pol School of Hospitality and Culinary Management in Barcelona and President of EUHOFA International. I started my formal career in hospitality in the US. In fact, I was raised in a touristic area by the beach in the Barcelona region, and since I was a teenager, I did summer jobs in nearby hotels, gathering experience in operations. When I turned 17, I was admitted to Cornel University’s School of Hotel Administration in New York, at the time, the best university in hospitality in the world, while hotel schools in Europe did not offer bachelor accreditation yet. In the US I had the chance to work in two beautiful boutique hotels. It was in the 90s and by then, the following

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CLAUDIE RAVEL

Hello everybody, I am Claudie Ravel. I founded the commercial company Guayapi 33 years ago when I was pregnant and this is my SMACK story.

Originally I am a jurist, and I worked as such for 12 years before building the Guayapi company in Paris. I was working in the management of a well know garments company, and I was in charge of the global license as well as the communication fields of the company. I decided to open my own business after I became pregnant. I wanted to focus on my own culture and education as that was significant to me. My mother educated me about the products in homeopathy and plants in our own garden, and my father taught us about diversity of native cultures all over the world. That’s how Guayapi Paris was founded in 1990.

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LARS HEESBEEN

“My name is Lars Heesbeen and I’m originally from the Netherlands. I’m currently working as the Multi-Property Director of Sales at the Abu Dhabi edition, the Marriott Hotel Downtown Abu Dhabi, and the Marriott Executive Apartments Abu Dhabi, and this is my SMACK story.

I have a bit of an interesting background: My dad was in the military, and we would move to different countries very often, but I enjoyed that. I was born in Germany, lived in the Netherlands, and we moved to the United States, back to Europe, and to Abu Dhabi. When I was growing up, I also wanted to go into the military but seeing my dad tour different warzones and handle post-traumatic stress disorder, that’s not something I wanted for myself.

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DAVID FREI

“Hello everybody. My name is David Frei, I am the General Manager of the and this is my humans of hospitality story!

My dream was actually to become a pilot as I wanted to fly around the world and discover new places and cultures. I had already started my application when the Swissair grounding happened. So my dream grounded as well and after serving my obligatory service in the Swiss army for almost two years I was thinking of following my father’s footsteps in becoming a lawyer. I started studying law and economics in St. Gallen, butI learnt pretty fast that this is not for me at all.

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