Alumni blog, Joshua Gardener

We recently awarded Joshua Gardner the BMIHMS Alumni of the Month in recognition of his career and the setting up of his own company Peregrina. It seems like just yesterday when Joshua was going out on first his placement in 1999 where he took the opportunity to start his career in hospitality at the boutique Seaview Hotel on the Isle Wright (UK). The hotel won ‘The Small Business of The Year Award’ at that time.  During his first placement he met one of the hotel regular guests, who was in the process of opening a five-star hotel, One Aldwych. This was offered to Josh and accepted as his second placement.

Josh was assisting in the Concierge Department of One Aldwych. The then Head of Concierge of the hotel advised him to approach Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, being one of the best hotel groups in the world, he assisted in arranging an interview for Josh.  The interview was the success, guaranteeing a position with the Four Seasons Hotel London Park Lane upon graduation. Great contacts and an ability to take good opportunities helped Josh to establish his career in early days and decided his future.

Joshua wanted to become a Head Concierge. To achieve this while he was working at Four Seasons London, he went out with a London Street Map to study the city every weekend.  After a short time working in Four Seasons Park Lane Josh was promoted and worked as the Communications Manager and later Director of Security. After nine months he attained his long-awaited and much-desired Head Concierge Role.  At the age of 23 Josh Gardner had become one of the youngest Head of Concierge of a top hotel in London.

When Four Seasons Park Lane closed in 2008 for renovation Josh used his London contacts and sent letters to key restaurants, hotels and people with whom he had worked to inquire about available career opportunities. A director of the Ivy – exclusive London Restaurant – contacted Josh and offered him a role as Concierge Manager for Caprice Holdings Group, The Birley Group and Soho House. His role expanded exponentially. After a year with the company he was promoted to the Director of Business Development.

While being a part of a marketing team Joshua recognised a gap in the market for a specialist brand-positioning consultancy with truly professional knowledge of the London luxury sector, combined with a superior understanding the necessity for subtle promotion and rigorous attention to detail.

Joshua now runs his own company called Peregrina. This company provides the insider’s advice for the world of luxury. It will enable clients to both maintain and grow new customer bases and reposition businesses within London luxury market.

It is always very exciting to hear of BMIHMS graduates being successful all over the world. We wish Joshua every success with his new venture. I look forward to following his career.

http://peregrina.co.uk/

Val Cook
Alumni Ambassador

5 Star concierge services on Sydney campus

As a member of staff I meet students everyday from all over the world with stories that inspire. Today I wish to introduce Pedro. Pedro Ribeiro is Portuguese he traveled to Australia to become an undergraduate student of the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School (BMIHMS). Keen to study Hotel and Resort Management he has left his legacy on the Sydney campus through his introduction of a concierge services.

From an academic family, they were initially skeptical of his career choice. Hospitality is not a common career path for the Portuguese. However, Pedro proved how passionate he was about the hospitality industry with strong beliefs in the benefits to his career, International travel being a key consideration. Pedro opted for big hotel chains, as he could see how his career would progress quickly.

Pedro chose to study in Australia undertaking the Bachelor of Business program at BMIHMS a prestigious hospitality degree with two practical internships offered. Undertaking his first internship in Agsana, a Great Barrier Reef Resort (part of Thai Banyan Tree brand) allowed him to learn ‘hands on’ about food and beverage/restaurant management within a resort. He happily discovered the working conditions in Australia were fantastic. The level of transparency from management, hours and pay were considerably appealing. Pedro never looked back about his decision.

His second internship, in Rooms Division, at the Hotel Intercontinental Sydney, Pedro was offered a casual position, where he currently works now– post graduation.  Pedro works within concierge services at this 5-star hotel as a porter. A hotelier’s customer service skills working at their highest.  Pedro works at an elite level of guest services.

Applying his skills into a new initiative Pedro introduced a concierge service to students and staff of BMIHMS Sydney Campus. This service was developed to make both student and staff’s life easier. The services include dry cleaning, restaurant and table booking, postage and city information about Sydney. Pedro even found a suitable babysitter for one of the staff member!

A service skill taught at our practical learning center on Leura campus now operates in full swing on our city campus. Sadly for us, Pedro must now hand over the reigns of his initiative to Eitan Swartz, South African/Australian student who will now manage the position.

Both staff and students alike will remember Pedro’s bright personality, skills and dedication to customer service. We all wish him all the best in his future career.

Gabrielle BM

At theTop of the World

The Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School received a member of our Alumni Andreas Brietfuss at its Sydney Campus last week. Andreas proved to be one of our most exciting guest speakers in some time.Staff and students were privileged to listen to our former student who has joined an elite group by climbing the world’s highest peak, Mt. Everest. Andreas spoke with our students about his adventure which successfully overcome adversity to complete the ultimate challenge.

Scaling the 8,850 meters of ice, snow and rock to reach the summit took 2 months, and over a year of preparation and training.

Arriving in Nepal to complete the 8 day trek to base camp was just the start, on arrival, Andres’s adventure was nearly over due to detection of low blood oxygen, which should have ended the trip. While under doctor’s observation and medication, Andreas made a remarkable recovery  to get back on track and start at base camp.

Fighting the extreme weather, which reach -42C, managing to breathe with 66% less oxygen at high altitude, burning 10,000 calories per day and surviving the continual intensive long day climbs were all part of the challenge.

Andreas went on to save the life of a member of his team. Stranded, suffering from frostbite and snow blindness, he applied life saving medical treatment and managed to get him to safety.

It seems that having a day job in hotel management prepares you for many challenges. This is one I am sure he never imagined as a young hopeful student living in Leura.

I wish him well on his future adventures and hope Andreas will continue to return and share his adventures with the School. BMIHMS  may humbly accept  a little credit for educating Andreas into being the determined and successful individual he is today.

Val Cook
Alumni Ambassador

Indonesian Alumni, Tobias Pratama Susanto making a difference

Unfortunately I do not manage to travel to Indonesia as much as I would like to. Many of our successful alumni have originated from Indonesia. The hospitality industry in Jakarta alone provides many opportunities for our graduates. I recently caught up via email with Tobias Pratama Susanto who was working when we were last in correspondence at the Hotel Indonesia Kempinski, Jakarta.

Tobias worked as a Sales Executive for the Banquet and Catering Department and has been enjoying his role. Having said that he has taken a sharp turn in his career and has moved into the not for profit industry and is now the Corporate Channel Officer at Putera Sampoerna Foundation.

Still based in Jakarta, Tobias’s new role focuses on education. Every year, millions of Indonesian teenagers (high school students) are forced to drop out of school due to financial reasons – either to support themselves or the whole families thus ending their chances for a proper education.

Putera Sampoerna Foundation is a social business organisation working in the field of education. They take on underprivileged students from various area in Indonesia and placed them at Sampoerna Academy with a full scholarship (including dormitory, food, books, uniform, etc.) and providing them with a dual curriculum (National and Cambridge IGCSE). Tobias works closely with contributors; government, corporates, retails and individual donors.

As Channel Officer, Tobias finds or creates events that generate funds to help these students. It is heart warming to receive emails from Alumni adamant that their studies at Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School continue to guide them through their careers and such great challenges.

I wish Tobias all the best in his new direction and in turn raising the level of education in his home country of Indonesia.

www.sampoernafoundation.org

Val Cook

Advice for our graduates, 2012

Graduation ceremonies bring everyone together; staff, students, past and present, and of course graduates of the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School. For me it is an opportunity to welcome new graduates into our alumni. It is always interesting to guess as to which students will find successes and where. My success story in this blog and the guest speaker at the graduation ceremony held on 3 August 2012 is Dr Juvanka Roberts.

Her title speaks instantly of the highest level of academic achievement she has received. Juvanka currently works as an e-learning specialist combining every skill she has learnt right from hotel school, to her PhD.

As part of her undergraduate degree, Juvanka took IT as an elective, which sparked her interest and led her undertake a Masters in Information Systems. Upon completion, she was actively looking for hospitality related jobs where she could use all her skills in human resources, management, technology and teaching.

Juvanka said ‘it was then that I decided to challenge myself enrolling in a doctorate program where I researched the creation of learning societies by adapting the educational system to match e-learners profiles. It involved finding ways and means of making e-learning courses more learner centric by customising them to learner’s individual personalities.’

Juvanka gave the graduates some good advice…’believe that even if you are 100% clear about the career path you want to take, you should not let the fact that you’ve graduated from a hotel school limit your options.

Think outside the box.’

She continued . . . ‘employers hire you for your attitude and train you on your aptitude, so good social and communication skills are key along with personality and a can-do, positive attitude. I hate to generalise but in how many other professions do you see staff or management smiling under pressure?’

Skills learnt in hospitality – such as working with people, teamwork, sales and problem solving – are the foundation skills for any successful career. As well as being a people-oriented industry, hospitality is creative. You are creating a product — be that food, drink, or an experience — and there’s always scope to dream up new ways of making it more enjoyable for your customers. It is this very unique mix of skills and knowledge that makes each of you a valuable asset

As a graduate of Blue Mountains you are part of a global network of thousands of alumni worldwide found in some of the highest positions in the industry and other fields. This network is one of the most accomplished groups of alumni in the hospitality industry. Networks are vital in developing your career. Use this wonderful resource that has been handed to you, take advantage of it and stay active at the center of this shared mission. As alumni, we stand ready to help you as fellow graduates of this wonderful Hotel School, and we expect you to do the same for future graduating classes.’

I’m looking forward to hearing about Jovanka and her career success well into the future.

Val Cook
Alumni Ambassador

Graduates’ Careers are Taking Off

Tish has recently been appointed to open the 4 and 1/2 star Rydges Sydney Airport Hotel due to open in early 2013. It is an impressive appointment, Tish will be running an operation estimated to cost over 68 million dollars.

Early in Tish’s career he worked for both Rydges and Accor mainly in the area of food and beverage and conferencing gaining experience in a variety of roles and properties. Particularly relevant was his role in the opening of the Olympic Park Novotel.

Tish re-joined Rydges as an Executive Assistant Manager in 2001 and reached his first General Manager position– less than ten years from graduating at BMIHMS.

The experience of being part of an opening is an invaluable one to your career. A huge amount of work takes place in the years and months leading up to the actual opening. Being part of the team that manages the various stakeholders, coordinating owners, builders, architects, designers, and in this case, the Sydney Airport Authority is a mammoth task.

Tish is responsible for managing contracts, controlling costs, and putting management policies and procedures in place, many of these skills were taught as basics to Tish at the School.

Recruitment will be imperative for the operation to run efficiently and talking to Tish reminded me of the importance of learning all the fundamentals. It is critical to manage through the knowledge of how all departments in the hotel operate and interact to make the project a success.

Training at the School prepares graduates to work with all members of the Hospitality Industry.

I know Tish and his team will do a great job and we wish them the best of luck.

Val Cook
Alumni Ambassador

Alumni Working to Create Opportunities for Graduates

Mr Val Cook

I am fortunate to be regularly out and about, meeting with our graduates, and it never surprises me the career paths they take. To continue my online discussion about the wide and speculator opportunities that open up to graduates of the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School. I want to share a meeting I recently attended with the key management team at SiteMinder a leading channel management company based in Sydney. http://www.siteminder.com/

SiteMinder offer innovative cutting edge technology, designed to give the hotel industry integrated online solutions, channeling and distribution that reduce time and costs.

I was especially keen to catch up with Nita Toh, their Key Accounts Manager, Asia and graduate of Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School. Our discussion revolved around employment opportunities for future graduates. A company such as SiteMinder can offer opportunities to graduates from our hotel school by utilising their excellent training within the hospitality industry. I also asked Nita about her current  role  to understand how it links with her past training at the School.

In her role Nita does extensive traveling throughout Asia, visiting both existing and perspective clients, run seminars and workshops, identify business opportunities and up sell products. Whereas this is her official line I know that her role also entails wining and dinning at the most luxurious hotels and resorts.

It is obvious to me that Nita is not just a sales manager but also a true hotelier. Her studies at the Hotel School have prepared her for this work by giving her a complete and true understanding of the industry. Nita will admit that her food and beverage knowledge has taught her to enjoy the finer things in life and even ‘ behave like a lady at all times’.

The company is growing, particularly in South East Asia as the industry is expanding more and more. It is a world of possibilities for Nita Toh, and of course through our Alumni network we can ensure further opportunities to our new graduates.

Val Cook
Alumni Ambassador

Blue Mountains Graduate Receives International Award

Welcome to my first blog. If you have a connection to the School you would know me as the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School’s Alumni Ambassador. My passion is to keep the Blue Mountains graduates united by sharing their experiences as they grow throughout their career. In particular I want to use this blog to highlight fantastic individuals, working in industry, in great places, doing great things.

With electronic media playing a bigger and bigger role in the customer retention in the hospitality industry. Graduates can be seen broadening their skills in the technology and marketing fields and excelling. It was great to hear Marketing Magazine, recently awarded one of our graduates, the highest award for 2012, at their black tie awards evening in Singapore.

Cameron Richards a Blue Mountains International Management School graduate 1996, founder and CEO of CPR Vision http://www.cprvision.com/. CPR Vision works with clients such as Banyan Tree, Adidas to Diesel and Loreal.

CPR Vision, based in Singapore, won the CRM and Loyalty Agency of the Year 2012. The Awards process is very rigorous from independent industry nominations, through to the presentation of several case studies of workplace programs. Judging was based on performance, product, people, innovation and strategy. With no less that 21 judges!

Cameron was on hand to accept this prestigious Award. CPR Vision won over some very high profile agencies including Ogilvy and MRM Worldwide. CPR Vision specialises in loyalty programs.

Congratulations Cameron!!!

Val Cook

Alumni Ambassador