General Manager (Pre-opening | Opening)

General Manager

General Manager

General Manager

Deputy General Manager

Director and Operations Manager

Indirect sales Manager

Marketig and Sales Manager

www.sofitel.com

During this period I have been in charge of 2 Sofitel

At the end of my mission, I have been awarded by the President of Equatorial Guinea as Officer of The Legion of Honour (Oficial de la Orden de la Independencia) for my outstanding participation during 8 years to the development of the country as Sofitel General Manager.

 

 

In september 2015, during the first global Luxury & Upscale Brands General Managers’ Convention at the Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit with over 380 General Managers and Accor executives, I have received the award of The best worldwide Cousu-Main.

This award is dedicated to the service culture of Sofitel. The Cousu Main award for Sofitel literally rewards “service from the heart” and the Ambassadors that have gone above and beyond the call of duty to create those hand crafted service memories that will live forever in the hearts of our guests.

 

Click on medal

2011-2014

Sipopo – Equatorial Guinea

General Manager (Pre-opening | Opening)

www.sofitel.com

200 rooms – 220 employees – 18 holes golf course

Owned by the Government of Equatorial Guinea

Contract agreement has been signed in December 2010, we had 6 months to succeed the opening and welcome the XVIIth African Union Summit (June 2011)

We welcomed 6 former Presidents:

Brazil	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
South Africa	Thabo Mbeki
Nigeria	Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar
Burundi	Pierre Buyoya
Ghana	Jerry John Rawlings
Guinea Conakry	Sékouba Konaté

and 50 Ministers of Foreign Affairs

The hotel has been awarded Best African Luxury Golf Resort by the World Luxury Hotel Awards in 2013

The hotel has been awarded as one of the best 25 hotels in all Africa for 2013 by Tripadvisor

Employees’ satisfaction survey
December 2014 – 92% happy to work in the hotel
December 2013 – 92% happy to work in the hotel
December 2012 – 95% happy to work in the hotel
December 2011 – 90% happy to work in the hotel

On February 2011, I have been awarded by Sofitel has the best General Manager in one of the 3 values of Sofitel: “Spirit of Openness” demonstrating my ability to work in a multicultural, multiethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity

English | Français

Malabo - Equatorial Guinea

General Manager

www.sofitel.com

100 rooms - 140 employees - Government's hotel

The hotel is owned by the Government of Equatorial Guinea and the President wanted the hotel to be the "showcase" of his country It is why he chose Sofitel to manage his hotel The objective was to be the best hotel in the sub-region

With the new re-branding of Sofitel as a High Luxury Brand, we managed the target of The President

In 3 years, I have welcomed 1 King, 21 Presidents and more than 50 Ministers

King of Morocco	Mohammed VI
Princess of Jordania	Gilda Talal
Equatorial Guinea	Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo
Brazil	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
South Africa	Jacob Zuma
Nigeria	Olusegun Basanjo
São Tomé	Fradique de Manezes
Togo	Faure Gnassingbé
Malawi	Elson Bakili Muzuli
Burkina Faso	Blaise Capaoré
Central Africa Rep	François Bozizé
Sierra Leone	Ernest Bai Koroma
Cape Verde	Pedro Pires
Ethiopia	Meles Zewani
Central Africa Rep	Ange Félix Patassé
Ivory Coast	Laurent Gbagbo
Cameroun	Paul Biya
Tchad	Idriss Déby Itno
Congo	Denis Sassou-Nguesso
Gabon	Ali Bongo Ondimba
Ghana	John Atta-Mills
Guinea Conakry	Sékouba Konaté
Mali	Alpha Oumar Konaré

Banjul - The Gambia

General Manager

www.corinthiahotels.com

contact: christian.windfuhr@grandcityhotels.com (former Comex member)

204 Rooms - 250 employees

Before my arrival, the hotel has been managed by 4 different General Managers in 2 years and 90% of the permanent staffs have been working for more than 20 years in the company.

The consequences of these 2 points were:

• No real strategy of management for the last 2 years
• The staff was taking advantage of the lack of management

During the first 6 months I have mostly emphasized on operations and controls.

I quickly realized that the F&B staffs were stealing more than 30.000 Euro per month that I stopped by introducing a cashless policy in the hotel outlets.

I had to re-think the complete control in the finance department (1.000.000 € debtors, no balance sheet...).

And the most difficult, I had to get the trust of all the remaining "honest" staff.

After these 6 months, I mainly emphasized on service. The activity is seasonal and starts current October. It was important after getting back the hotel to normal finance and management to think about customers. With the help of the owner we invested in some new equipments, new decoration, new services (F&B) to make the clients (a lot are repeaters) to feel the difference.

Zanzibar - Tanzania

General Manager

www.karafuuzanzibar.com

89 Rooms - 160 employees

In 2001 the occupation went up from 55% to 85% over the year. The owners faced a new situation:

• increasing of client insatisfactions
• increasing of general costs in a non proportional way
• The image of the hotel started to become bad
• The maintenance state of the hotel was poor

• After a quick audit I realised that the previous GM was managing the hotel by himself in all departments. If it was nearly impossible with 55% occupancy over the year, it was simply impossible with 85%.

My first step was de recruit (internal and external) department managers, to train them in my way of managing.

It was easyer after to train the staff and assist them to ameliorate the client satisfaction

• I realised also that there were parallel sales in the hotel. Clients paying cash at the bars, boutiques, restaurants, massages, etc.., or staff saling excursions and also staffs stealing food and beverages. All was organized by few staffs employed since the opening of the hotel.

This second step was a little bit longer to solve because it was important not to face a strong reaction from this people. I first started to identify this people, afterwards, I isolated them in different departments to finally put them out one by one in a period of 1 year

Doing this second step was more successfull than I thought because most of others employees were scared of the old "mafia" staff . So afterwards not only the cost was really doing better but the quality of the service with new employees was excellent.

• The previous manager to reduce the cost that was incrasing a lot, completly cancel any maintenance job in the hotel. The consequence after one year was a disaster and increase the insatisfaction of the clients and in the same time distroy the state of the hotel.

I put back the maintenance in a good stage with a new manager and a weekly and monthly maintenance program.

• 97% of the clients are happy of the hotel
• Costs decrease of more than 20% compare to 2002. Cost per bednight passing from $33 to $26
• All rooms are renovated once a year
• Number of employees passed from 190 to 160

On the 20th of September 2006, Karafuu Hotel has been awarded:

"Africa leading resort" & "Tanzania's leading hotel"

by the World Travel Awards

In Zanzibar I am also Executive Member of ZATI

(Zanzibar Association of Tourism Investors). (www.zati.org)

This association has been established to represent the interest of all Tourism Investors in Zanzibar. The aim is to ensure a sustainable and professional Tourism industry of the highest standard, working with the government institution to achieve this.
The Association is very important in creating and implementing the ‘Public and Private Sector Partnership’ in order to succeed in the common goal to have Zanzibar as a favorable tourist destination.

You can see the mid term report below

Zanzibar - Tanzania

Deputy General Manager

www.karafuuzanzibar.com

89 Rooms - 160 employees

During these 6 months I had 2 objectives:

• To manage the Reception and Guest Relation
• To get all informations to become the new General Manager

Arusha - Tanzania

Director and Operations Manager

www.tanganyika.com

contact: denis@tanganyika.com (owner)

In my assigned job, I was in charge of:

• to manage a team of 140 people
• to organise drivers, guides and cars timetables (car fleet of 30 cars)
• to negotiate contracts with supplyers
• to book all safaris

• to deal with the logistic (drivers, guides, cars, campsite, supply,...)
• to accompany clients during their safari (groups between 50 to 100 people)
• to accompany Travel Agencies on survey to sale the safari to their clien

During these 4 years I had managed 3 tented camps including the opening of 2 of them. They are based in:

• Serengeti
• Ngorongoro
• Tarangire

Over a 4 years period we dealt with more than 15 000 customers.

Drivers-guides team

Paris - France

Indirect sales Manager

www.cognos.com

Cognos is a Canadian company specialised in management software tools.

In 1996, Cognos decided to set up a indirect sales network for its french subsidary. Up to this date, all sales had been done through the direct sales department.

My assigned job was to prospect, develop and animate this network all over France territory. The target was to get 3 types of partners:

• Partners which ones integrate completly our softwares inside theirs.
• Partners which ones propose our software as a complement to their software.
• Partners which ones are only dealers of our softwares.

For this 3 types of partners, we have developped a complet service to help them:

• To train them
• To help them technically
• To help them to sale our softwares
• To maintain their knowledge up to date

One and half year after this department set up, Cognos France had more than 40 partners

Toulouse - France

Marketing and Sales Manager for a new market

National saling of DATAVIANDE, management software for meat industries on mini-system IBM AS/400.

I started to work for IDA Informatique during my Marketing studies. In 1991 I made for them a market study to know if there was an potencial market in the meat industry. The result showed that the market was important but one software company was already deeply established.

In 1992, IDA Informatique manager's decided to target this market with a team of 3 technicians, 1 saler and 1 sofware: Dataviande.

In 1993, after the end of my studies, I joined this team as saler.

Through these 3 years I have:

• propected custumers all over France territory
• negociated with financial managers or director of 20 to 300 employees companies
• sold Dataviande between 100.000 to 200.000 €

In 1996, Dataviande was a software well established in France.

Today Dataviande is posisionned as the reference for the meat market.

This first professional experience was really enriching for the negociation