How difficult is it to step up from deputy to the top job?
Jonathan Lowrey had joined Royal Garden Hotel, London, at its reopening in 1996 as F&B director. A year ago, he stepped up as GM of the 394-room hotel. “I had been deputy GM since 2004, but being thrust into the leadership role has been much more challenging than I imagined,” he said. “Basically, the buck now stops with me.”
His appointment was only made public when his predecessor announced his retirement in January 2014, and for the next three months Lowrey more obviously shadowed everything the outgoing GM was doing. He did not have to learn local politics or overseeing sales-and-marketing strategy because he had been involved in that for the previous 10 years anyway. Lowrey still works 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. five days a week.
“The main challenge,” he admitted, “has been managing my internal family — 350 employees, many of whom have been here for years. I am now their boss.”
Instead of a deputy, Lowrey now has two EAMs — one handling ops, the other distribution and revenue management. (They were formerly really close friends of his, Lowrey said, and remain so, but now with a slight distance.) In the informal atmosphere that has always prevailed in the hotel, he remains “Jonathan” to his team back-of-house, but in public he is “Mr. Lowrey.”
The non-union hotel, owned by a Singapore-based family, has a staff-turnover rate under 20% — far below the London norm. It pays competitively, has a strong ethical culture and backs employee-of-the-month and manager-of-the-quarter awards with flowers for birthdays and family events. Family values are, indeed, its core. At least partly as a result, 32.5% of guests are repeats, and strong long-stay Middle East business takes average length of stay to almost three nights.
Lowrey still has an essay that he wrote at age 11 saying he wanted to be a chef, and his career was essentially F&B until 2004. After working at many of England’s top hotels, he went to Asia to do projects for Peninsula and helped open The Peninsula Bangkok in addition to running that city’s Capital Club. He noted, “Asia is a fast learning curve for financial management, but you learn quickly — otherwise I could never have reached GM.”