This month we showcase Katie Tobin and Karen Willey, Co-Founders of the Festival of Hospitality. Curated by Always Thinking in collaboration with the broader hospitality community, the festival offers exciting new event formats which inspire connectivity, best practices, and learning across the whole hotel ecosystem. Providing an inclusive space for hotel and F&B operators, designers, architects, developers, investors, and thought leaders, the aim is to share ideas for the productivity and growth of the sector.
What’s keeping you busy?
We’re in the thick of planning this year’s Festival of Hospitality which is running from October 10th until November 18th. Last year we developed the concept and brought it to life in just 6 weeks, which was exciting and crazy at the same time. This year we’ve given ourselves a lot more time to plan, but with that comes even more exciting and extravagant ideas!
Mixed in with this, we’re still busy with our normal day jobs being Business Development Consultants for businesses within the built environment/real estate sector, helping to enhance their sector knowledge and Business Development skills.
Add into this the normal craziness of having families – we’re pretty busy!
What new ideas or opportunities will become part of your future business fabric?
The pandemic has given us a real chance to recalibrate what the event landscape looks like. We’ve learned a lot about what people want from events, and we truly believe that intimacy and shared learning experiences are a key part of this. There’s a real opportunity to challenge preconceived ideas of how the industry should learn, share, network, collaborate and form partnerships.
We want to ensure that the Festival leaves a lasting legacy beyond November, and really helps to contribute to positive change in the industry around recruitment – the biggest challenge for the hospitality industry right now. We are recreating some of the Festival events for harder-to-reach groups from non-traditional backgrounds to offer people a seat at the table and share knowledge of the varied pathways into careers in the hospitality sector.
What are the biggest challenges you are facing right now?
Streamlining our ideas – we get so excited we often have to rein each other in! We have so much that we want to do but we have to be realistic about what is achievable for both of us as organisers and what’s best for our sponsors and partners.
Also time! Running two businesses and balancing family life is challenging, but our energy and enthusiasm always steer us through
Is there anything you know now that you’d wish you’d known at the start of your career?
Karen: I was so worried about ‘what I wanted to be’ – I had no idea! I thought I wanted to be a travel agent but after a week of work experience realised that was not for me! After an experience at 16 which took me out of my hometown, I realised I wanted to get an education and so went back to get a Degree. I have realised that sometimes you have to go with the flow – trust your instincts and it will be ok.
Who have been your most important professional mentors/influencers?
Karen: It has to be the people who gave me my first proper job. I came to London as a temp and was working as someone’s PA (very badly) but met a bunch of architects through work. They got to know me and asked if I wanted to work with them. It was total luck, but I take my hat off to them for meeting a random girl, offering her a job and giving me the chance to learn about an industry I did not even know existed!
Katie: Chris Sanderson and Martin Raymond from The Future Laboratory taught me a lot about being a great host, being interesting and interested, and having an eye for detail!
What is the best piece of advice you ever received?
Katie: “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” Basically – challenge yourself, look forward, and be brave!
Karen: “Don’t let that young girl (that you were) make your decisions.”
What inspires you?
People! We love meeting new people and have been really lucky to work with great people that we now call good friends and help champion us. Through both of our roles, we are continually meeting loads of interesting people and it is always really fascinating to listen to them and see if we can help in any little way – we love joining the dots and being useful to people!
A book you’ve recently read and would recommend?
‘How to make the world add up’ by Tim Harford is just brilliant for data and research geeks like us!
Want to join The Collective, and contribute to the debate?
Email us at: The.Collective@lewissilkin.com