PERSONALITIES
Calderon leads
POSADAS ’ BIG PUSH
By DEBBIE CARLSON
Enrique Calderon Fernandez , chief operating officer of Posadas , got bit by the hospitality bug early . Now the bug has hit his employer , Mexico ’ s largest home-grown hotel company , which is launching a major expansion with plans to develop 54 hotels in the next three years and sign 30 more management contracts each year through 2020 .
For Calderon , a 35-year career has prepared him to manage the ambition plan , which would increase the number of rooms by 38 %, to almost 36,000 .
His uncle was the general manager at the Camino Real ( now Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta ) and managing director at Las Hadas ( now Las Brisas ) in Manzanillo , Mexico , in the late 1970s . “ I had the opportunity to spend my summer vacations with him and learn ... It was more glamorous than the business is today , but that ’ s what really inspired me ,” says Calderon , who started as an F & B trainee at the Hyatt Mexico .
Calderon ’ s start with Posadas came early in his career with a 14-month hotel management trainee program . After receiving a bachelor ’ s degree in hotel management in 1983 from the Centro de Estudios Superiores de San Angel in Mexico City , he worked in the sales division of Grupo Presidente , eventually working at hotels such as the Westin in Ixtapa , the Sheraton Acapulco and Intercontinentals in Ixtapa and Guadalajara .
He joined Posadas in 1999 as sales director for the all-inclusive Fiesta Americana brand and oversaw its growth for 20 years before taking on other top sales positions in the organization , eventually becoming responsible for sales teams at some 80 hotels around Mexico . By 2010 , he was named chief commercial officer and later became COO .
16 hotelsmag . com July / August 2018