Thompson Hotels – Elizabeth Mao

Elizabeth Mao is General Manager of one of New York’s chicest boutique hotels, Smyth Tribeca. The latest baby of Thompson Hotels, Ms. Mao is the perfect person for the job. Having worked her way through the corporation, Mao’s experience in the hotel business is world class…just like its guests. It’s a favorite of Rachel Zoe when she travels to New York City during her various fashion weeks. Jessica Alba likes to burn fish sticks in her Smyth hotel room and Glee’s Lea Michele likes to dress sexy in the penthouse.

Despite the GM’s hard work, it still looks like a glamorous job where any given day, is anything but typical. I met Elizabeth at the hotel’s new French farmhouse restaurant, Plein Sud, to see what it actually takes to be a General Manager of a top hotel in New York City.

ASIANCE: You graduated Stern?

Elizabeth: I went to Stern (MBA) for the part time program and Stern Women in Business. I went to Cornell undergrad and graduated 2001. I went to the Arts and Sciences school not the hotel school.

I had never considered hotels as a profession by any means, growing up. Psychology was my major and Dance was my unofficial major.

I did have a few roommates who were in the hotel program at Cornell. Coincidentally, I went to a school that had the best hotel program in the country.

When I graduated, I was doing the starving artist kind of life. I couldn’t find a job waiting tables, so I found a job at a hotel! I ended up behind the front desk at 60 Thompson, which is our flagship over in Soho. I started right after 9/11 and then moved up from there. I was entry level. Three months into working at the front desk, the General Manager, who is now one of the co-owners of Thompson Hotels, wanted to promote me. I became an assistant and starting learning reservations. That’s when I learned I wanted to do dance more on the side and have a more traditional type of career.

ASIANCE: You were promoted in only 3 months?

Elizabeth: Yes, well it wasn’t a managerial level but he must have seen something in me. I was able to work really closely with him and he became sort of a mentor. He taught me a lot about the business. He became a mentor and taught me about the business. A little over a year after that, we took over our first hotel. It was our first management contract down in Miami. So I relocated to Florida and started running the front office. It’s called the Sagamore, which we no longer manage.

ASIANCE: Did you like living down in Miami?

Elizabeth: I prefer to visit Miami and live in New York. I’m from Long Island so this is home. My family is close by. Miami was challenging too. It was a challenging time in my career. I was thrown in and had a lot to learn in a short amount of time. It was fun while it lasted. I had a great little apartment which overlooked Star Island. I had a balcony and two pools. I figured out how to get a tan, when I opened my balcony doors at a certain time during the day. (laughs)

There was so much development going on. You could tell, just by driving around Miami Beach, that there could not possibly be demand for it. You knew the bottom was going to fall out. Everywhere you looked there were insanely expensive developments. There just weren’t enough people down there.

ASIANCE: What is a typical day like?

Elizabeth: One of the reasons I chose Stern was that I could walk to school from my job. And I live in the West Village, so it was very convenient.

I get to the office around 8-8:30am, depending on the day. I have a set of reports that I look through every morning which gives me a sense of what happened the night before; any issues that have happened with guests, etc. At 9am I hold a daily operations meeting. All my department heads come into my office and we discuss what is going on for the day, any VIP arrivals, how we’re performing that week, the next month’s summer business, etc. My meetings tend to have more sales and marketing, revenue generation. Everyone gets a chance to speak and tell us what they are working on.

My front office manager will stay behind and we’ll do some adjustments to our pricing. So we’ll take a look at our rates for the next few months and take into consideration all the various aspects we look at (demand, the market, and other hotels charging). We make any changes and then execute them.

I’ll do a walk through the hotel and check in with everyone, making sure everyone looks great and is happy. Then after that, it will take a different direction. I spend most of my day working with my staff, motivating the sales team, any promotions going on. I always have a project going on with the corporate office. Right now, I’m the operations point person with our creative team and our technical team on our new website. We have a new website we just launched. Sometimes there are client luncheons. We share best practices, complaints.

The team here is so fantastic.

ASIANCE: What is your favorite part?

Elizabeth: I love working in these really stylish luxury hotels because it’s just suits my personality and personal aesthetic. The Thompson Hotels are just a nice place to work. You walk in and are greeted by the bellman just like a guest with a big smile!

I spent one summer at Citigroup and I was just miserable. I didn’t do anything interesting there. You take the escalator, to the right elevator, to the right floor where traders are yelling. You don’t get any fresh air all day. So I love working in these gorgeous hotels with nice restaurants.

You never know what is going to happen during the day. I like handling unexpected situations and making decisions on them. It’s an entrepreneurial spirit that we have with all the hotels operating separately but still with support from the corporate office (next to 60 Thompson).

ASIANCE: Any juicy story you can tell us about?

Elizabeth: Paula Abdul told me I was really cute in the elevator once. (laughs) She was very sweet. She said, “Oh you’re so pretty.” (laughs) I said, “Oh thanks, I hope you enjoy your stay!”

We don’t really have any situations or anything like that Russell Crowe situation.

ASIANCE: What would you have done in that situation?

Elizabeth: Well if someone is abusive to the staff, we ask them to leave. I’ve asked people to leave before. If I think someone is behaving in a way that is dangerous to themselves and the other guests, absolutely. If they’re verbally or physically abusive to the staff, I’ll ask them to leave. It’s not worth it to sacrifice the staff for a celebrity’s one night stay in the penthouse.

ASIANCE: How much higher up the ladder can you go in the hotel business?

Elizabeth: That’s an interesting question. I started with the company and was able to grow with this organization. That has worked out very well for me but at this point there really aren’t many levels above me. My title is Managing Director. We have one Regional Vice President of Operations, so at some point there may be some more of those. That’s pretty much as high as it goes other than being part owner. Larger hotel companies have a few more layers above that. You can get into corporate work. A lot of people in my situation think about starting their own hotel company or opening their own hotel. I’m not sure what my next step is. It’s something I think about a lot. I don’t have a solid plan yet.

ASIANCE: Did getting your MBA help in advancing your career?

Elizabeth: It helped me learn about business. My mom is an accountant, a CPA. She’s the CFO at Federal Defenders, which is legal aid for federals, people who are accused of federal crimes. My dad is a commodities trader. I knew how it worked but wasn’t too much into it. I learned how to do my job better. I did not necessarily receive a pay increase because I received an MBA. I’ll find it benefits me in the long term for what I’ve learned.

ASIANCE: What did you major in?

Elizabeth: Entrepreneurship and Innovation & Leadership and Change Management.

ASIANCE: What do you do on your time off?

Elizabeth: Right now I have the best schedule. I work Mon-Fri. I come in for weekends if I need to. I do Yoga. I hike. I try to be outside as much as possible. I’m working on my golf swing at Chelsea Piers. I love dining out. It comes with the territory. So I know all the new hotels, bars and restaurants out there.

ASIANCE: What would you recommend now?

Elizabeth: I’m focused on the new hotels that are opening. Some are very nice.

ASIANCE: Do boutique hotels compete or is it all hotels competing?

Elizabeth: Most of the new inventory is downtown. There’s a lot of competition for all of us.

ASIANCE: Do you work with Expedia or sites like that?

Elizabeth: We don’t at this hotel. I try not to, if we can avoid it.

ASIANCE: So it’s just through the website?

Elizabeth: It’s through a lot of different channels. We do work with a lot of online travel agents, Expedia in particular. I try not to work with them because they are dangerous, in my opinion, to your bottom line and top line, as well as your brand identity. If I can at all help it, I will try to avoid it.

They mark up your rooms an exorbitant amount so the hotel gets paid much less than what the customer pays. They’re such a big player in the market and so big with search, most leisure travelers will do a search such as “downtown, NY hotel” and you’ll get a large selection. It’s just a very expensive channel.

I’d rather have the guest that is trying to get to us the least expensive way.

ASIANCE: Do you follow any other Asian business women?

Elizabeth: I always identify with the Asian woman first. So I’m always drawn to Andrea Jung. She’s a rock star. Ann Curry. I’m always identifying with women who are partly Asian or Asian and born in the US. I’m always inspired by smart, successful women. I like to read about their career paths. I have been wishing that I had a female mentor for awhile now. They are so few and far between in the hotel business. So I mentor women and just make sure I have time for people.

I went to the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. It’s a General Manager program a few weeks during the summer. It’s for the hotel manager or higher. Some really great people were involved in the project. There were about 60 people in the program, 44 countries were represented and only 3 were women!

Thinking about it now, I don’t know of any other female GMs in this town at all. I know a few in the W, maybe two or three, another one in my company. I know about maybe 5 in New York.

ASIANCE: What advice would you give to women who want to follow in your shoes?

Elizabeth: Definitely find a mentor as much as you can. It doesn’t have to be a female mentor. Find people that you work with and you like. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice or feedback. I’m always honored and enthusiastic when someone comes to me for advice, whether it’s a decision they’re making or how they can get better at their job or where they should go next, even if it’s outside of the company.

Someone who works in the restaurant here wanted me to speak to her 16 year old daughter. She just wanted me to speak with her about what she wanted to do. I was so honored.

ASIANCE: What do you look for in a hire?

Elizabeth: It depends on what you are hiring for. If I’m hiring for line staff, I’m looking for energy and enthusiasm. I can teach them how to answer the phone and teach them the computer system but at the end of the day, it’s more about personality. They’re going to be interacting with the guests the most. In any service industry, you’re looking for personality.

As far as the other qualifications, it really depends on the role. Experience of course! Depending on the assignment, whoever has the right assignment and who can get the job done. Industry experience is important. Education factors into it depending on the role.

ASIANCE: Your dad is Chinese?

Elizabeth: My dad is Chinese. He was born in Hong Kong and then moved to the United States when he was very young. He was first in Orange County, then Queens, then Long Island. My parents met when they were 16 and got married when they were 26. We had never gone to China until Christmas of this year. I always wanted to go when I was a child. Who wants to take a child on a plane though? My American born cousins were at dinner with my Uncle and there were about 6 of us. He suggested we all go to China together. So there were about 14 of us. We went for 2 weeks. We went all over. I would love to go back and spend some more time there. My dad’s brother (my uncle) is very Chinese and my dad is very Americanized.

Still to this day, I’ll get, “What are you?” As I child, I would look at my mom and she would say, “They want to know what nationality you are”. Tell them, “I’m half Chinese and I’m all American”.