Hospitality Folks

Why Hospitality Always Comes Back to People | Melanie Chinwe

What does hospitality look like when you strip away the buzzwords and start with people?In this episode of Hospitality Folks, Alicia talks with Melanie Chinwe, an operator who owned and ran S'MUVE ME Café in Nigeria before moving into Oenotourism at Château Dauzac in Bordeaux. She brings a grounded, intentional view of an industry that too often chases scale over connection.In this episode:Why hospitality, at its root, is always about peopleBuilding service design and systems that actually serve guestsWhat running her own café taught her about leadershipThe move from restaurant operations into wine tourismStorytelling and environment as tools for shaping guest journeysThe strategic role of service in driving long-term valueMelanie is currently an MSc Hospitality and Tourism Management student at Paris School of Business, with over six years in restaurant operations and guest experience.Hospitality Folks is a weekly show to showcase the wonderful and many career paths within hospitality and tourism. Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniechinwe/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniechinwe/]Follow along with Alicia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg/]

You Can't Lead Until You've Swept the Kitchen Yourself | Wolfgang Schürmann on Events, Crisis & Hospitality Leadership

Day two of a five-day event. 150,000 visitors. 200 of your 600 staff are no-shows. Wolfgang Schürmann has been there. He restructured the menu, reassigned every manager, got on the radio, and delivered anyway — because he's spent two decades learning every role from the ground up. In this episode: what high-pressure event operations teach you about leadership, why you cannot lead a team you haven't worked alongside, and the story of a Michelin star chef who threw a frying pan — and then did something that Wolfgang still thinks about 30 years later. 🔗 Connect with Wolfgang on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/wolfgang-schuermann-🇩🇪-🇪🇺-🇲🇽-9a8b5b32 [www.linkedin.com/in/wolfgang-schuermann-🇩🇪-🇪🇺-🇲🇽-9a8b5b32]🌐 Gastro 2.0: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gastro2-0/about/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/gastro2-0/about/]🎙️ Alicia Dick Wahlberg: linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg [www.linkedin.com/in/wolfgang-schuermann-🇩🇪-🇪🇺-🇲🇽-9a8b5b32] #HospitalityLeadership #HospitalityFolks #EventManagement #HotelTech #HighPerformanceTeams

Katarina Alič Čretnik | She Left a 15-Year Digital Career for the Forest — Now She's Changing What Hospitality Wellness Looks Like

What does it actually mean to slow down and why are the most intentional hospitality experiences being built not in hotel lobbies, but in forests? Katarina Alič Čretnik spent more than 15 years in digital marketing before following a deeper pull toward nature. She is an ANFT-certified forest therapy guide and NLP trainer based in Slovenia, running Melisa Holiday, a nature retreat where guests arrive stressed and distracted and leave feeling something they had not felt in years. In this conversation, Katarina and Alicia get into what forest therapy actually is and why guests who walk through trees every day still feel the forest completely differently when guided. They talk about the emotional weight of nature, what it takes to leave a corporate career for something slower, and why the hospitality industry is sitting on a wellness offering it has not recognized yet. This one is for hospitality owners and operators who want to understand what nature-based guest experiences actually look like in practice. 🔗 Connect with Katarina Alič Čretnik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katarina-alic-cretnik/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/katarina-alic-cretnik/]🌿 Melisa Holiday: https://melisa.si/ [https://melisa.si/]🔗 Connect with Alicia Dick Wahlberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg]📸 Instagram: @alicia_dickwahlberg

She Applied With Zero Experience — 26 Years Later She Built One of Europe's Leading Revenue Consultancies | Annemarie Gubanski

What would you do if you applied for a job you knew nothing about and told them exactly that? For Annemarie, that moment changed everything. She moved from the Netherlands to Sweden for love, stumbled into revenue management at Radisson with zero experience, and spent the next 26 years building one of Scandinavia's most respected consultancies. Today she runs Taktikon [https://taktikon.com/], organizes the Global Revenue Forum across multiple European cities, and teaches the next generation of revenue managers that you don't have to be a mathematician to be great with data. In this episode, Alicia and Annemarie talk about what it really means to bet on yourself before you feel ready, why revenue management is never a one-size-fits-all strategy, and how the best consultancy relationships feel less like business and more like family. For GMs, revenue managers, and commercial leaders who know there's always more to learn. 🔗 Connect with Annemarie Gubanski: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemariegubanski [https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemariegubanski] 🔗 Global Revenue Forum Amsterdam — June 4th: https://www.globalrevenueforum.com/amsterdam-2026 [https://www.globalrevenueforum.com/amsterdam-2026] 🔗 Connect with Alicia Dick Wahlberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg] 📸 Instagram: @alicia_dickwahlberg

From Dishwasher to Director — Why the Best Kitchens Run on Mentorship, Not Fear | Adam Mali

What separates a truly great kitchen from a toxic one? According to internationally experienced culinary leader Adam Mali, it comes down to one choice every leader has to make: do you lead with fear, or do you lead with humanity? Adam has spent decades at the highest levels of hospitality across Europe and North America — working alongside multiple Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire, shaping fine dining concepts for luxury hotel groups, and quietly amassing the kind of knowledge that only comes from time spent in both palace kitchens and the unassuming neighbourhood restaurants he loves most. A fluent French speaker with a deep affinity for European culinary culture, Adam brings a rare global perspective to a conversation the industry badly needs to have. He speaks candidly about the "badass chef" culture he once participated in, the moment a frightened young stage knocked over a bread starter and changed his leadership philosophy forever, and why hospitality is failing its own people through ghosting, burnout, and a profound lack of mentorship. This is a conversation about fine dining, kitchen culture, what great recruitment actually looks like — and the kind of leadership that builds teams worth staying for. 🔗 Adam Mali on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammalichef/ 🔗 Alicia Dick Wahlberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciadickwahlberg