Shape of my Heart…
From Hotels to Heritage
If you looked at my CV, you might struggle to find a straight line.
My career has taken me through hospitality, event catering, live entertainment, visitor attractions, heritage organisations and national museums. Along the way I have managed restaurants, events, commercial businesses, visitor operations, estates, security, capital programmes and executive leadership teams.
On paper, they look like different industries.
In practice, they are remarkably similar.
Every one of them depends on people.
Every one of them relies on creating experiences.
Every one of them succeeds or fails on whether somebody leaves feeling that their time, money and attention were well spent.
The buildings change ,The products change ,The audiences change.
But human nature rarely does.
The Unexpected Apprenticeship
My first leadership lessons did not come from business books.
They came from hospitality.
They came from watching experienced operators navigate a busy restaurant on a Saturday night.
They came from understanding how a guest's mood could change in a matter of seconds.
They came from learning that a complaint is often not about the complaint at all.
Most importantly, they came from recognising that every interaction leaves an impression.
At the time, I thought I was learning customer service.
Looking back, I was learning organisational leadership.
Because whether you are welcoming somebody into a hotel, a conference venue or a museum, the challenge is fundamentally the same.
You are creating trust.
A Lesson That Followed Me Everywhere
That lesson followed me into my own business, where I founded and grew an event catering and venue management company. It followed me into large-scale commercial and operational leadership roles across the live entertainment and exhibition sectors. It followed me into St Andrews Links, one of the most recognised sporting destinations in the world. Today it follows me into National Museums Liverpool, where I oversee operations, estates, visitor experience, commercial trading, safety and major capital programmes across seven museums and galleries.
The contexts are very different.
The principles are not.
Visitors do not experience organisations through organisational charts.
They do not know who owns catering, security, marketing, visitor experience or estates.
Nor should they ,They experience a single organisation.
A joined-up experience Or a fragmented one.
The difference often comes down to culture rather than structure.
What the Data Tells Us
There is now considerable evidence to support what many operators have understood instinctively for years.
Gallup's global workplace research has consistently found that organisations with highly engaged employees deliver stronger customer loyalty, better productivity and higher profitability than their peers.
That finding matters because it highlights something leaders often overlook.
Customer experience begins with employee experience.
People who feel trusted tend to take ownership.
People who feel valued tend to value others.
People who understand the purpose of their organisation tend to deliver better outcomes.
The best visitor experiences I have witnessed were not created by policies.
They were created by people who cared.
Museums Are More Like Hotels Than We Think
One of the surprises of moving into the cultural sector was discovering how much museums and hospitality have in common.
At first glance they seem entirely different.
One sells rooms and meals.
The other preserves collections and tells stories.
Yet both depend on creating memorable experiences.
Visitors rarely leave a museum talking about governance frameworks.
They talk about the volunteer who took time to answer a question.
The gallery assistant who shared a fascinating fact.
The café team who made them feel welcome.
The staff member who helped when something went wrong.
The collection may attract a visitor.
The experience determines whether they return.
That principle applies whether you are running a five-star hotel, a sporting venue, a concert arena or a national museum.
The Human Advantage
We are entering an era where technology will transform almost every organisation.
Artificial intelligence will increase productivity.
Automation will streamline processes.
Data will improve decision-making.
All of this is positive.
Yet it creates an interesting paradox.
As technology becomes more capable, human connection becomes more valuable.
Efficiency can be automated.
Empathy cannot.
Processes can be automated.
Care cannot.
Information can be automated.
Presence cannot.
The organisations that succeed over the next decade will not simply be those that embrace technology fastest.
They will be those that combine efficiency with humanity.
The Last Competitive Advantage
After twenty years working across hospitality, commercial businesses, sporting venues, visitor attractions and museums, I have reached a simple conclusion.
People remember people.
They remember how they were treated.
They remember how an organisation made them feel.
The strongest organisations understand this.
They know that culture is not built through strategy documents.
It is built through thousands of interactions every day.
A welcome ,a conversation ,a helping hand or a genuine interest in another person.
In a world increasingly shaped by technology, those moments may become the last true competitive advantage.
And that is why, despite everything I have learnt about operations, governance, commercial strategy and organisational leadership, I still believe the most important lesson came from hospitality.
Pay attention to people.
Everything else follows from there.
