Special RepoRt : Hotelier of tHe World
The adventure Solomons ’ 16 years in the hotel business came about by happenstance – or as he would put it , in the words of Kemmons Wilson who founded Holiday Inn , “ half luck and half brains .”
First , in his early 30s , Solomons and his wife Karen lived all over Europe and eventually in New York as an investment banker . “ I come from a big , close family and suddenly we had to go off and make our own life and we took the view that we wouldn ’ t save any money for two years , we ’ d just have fun .”
Solomons set up meetings for Fridays and Mondays and he and his wife took to the road . They learned to ski , made many good friends and says Manhattan still feels like home .
In the early 1990s , Solomons answered an ad in a Sunday newspaper for Bass PLC , which then had five divisions , one of which was Holiday Inn . He joined them in the head office in 1992 to do M & A with a view to join one
Solomons in March 2015 with Prince William at the opening of the new wing of InterContinental Shanghai Ruijin , as part of the Great Festival of Creativity .
“ I thInk a lot
about hIm [ Kemmons Wilson ]
and how the company came to exIst . we are here because an IndIvIdual had thIs vIsIon of what travelers need .” – RichaRd SolomonS of the businesses after a couple of years . “ The two bits of the business I liked were soft drinks and hotels . I connected with them because they were all about brands , which was a growing interest ” he says . When Solomons talks about brands , his face lights up . “ Hotel customers don ’ t have passion for brands like they do in other sectors , like Apple products or Gucci ,” he says . “ Owners and industry people do , and one of the dangers of the hotel business is that we ’ ve all experienced the product and tend to structure things around what we think is right .”
The motivations Despite his financial background and working his way up at IHG as a development , a CFO and interim head of the Americas in 2008-2009 , numbers have never motivated him as much as the business overall .
Solomons is interested in the people , from the experienced corporate bosses to the feisty entrepreneurs with whom he came in contact in his early career in accountancy and banking .
He likes to recruit to IHG from that perspective , bringing in Keith Barr , now chief commercial officer who came up through operations and Eric Pearson , chief information officer who once headed up marketing . “ These guys have the skill of understanding business ,” Solomons says . “ They may have a specific perspective but they see the overall picture and that ’ s really important .”
Solomons believes “ every business needs a good mix of individuals from inside and outside the industry to keep the gene pool fresh .” He has ensured that during his tenure , bringing in Kenneth MacPherson from Diageo as Chief Executive , Greater China (“ strong on brands and China but knew nothing about hotels , so you put a strong team around him ”) and working with the late Steve Porter , a veteran hotelier who joined from Hilton as President of the Americas region .
The values IHG asked staff throughout the business , “ What does IHG stand for ?” Solomons sat with a group of kitchen porters among 52 groups all over the world . He believes that what they came up with still lives , 10 years later : do the right thing , show we care , aim higher , celebrate differences , work better together . Solomons has built on that , introducing what he calls The Winning Culture .
“ Winning is a vernacular that works in our industry and for our company . You might be great at a point in time but that doesn ’ t mean you are tomorrow ,” Solomons says . “ Take sport , you win one race and you ’ ve got to then prepare for the next one – it ’ s a great analogy because that ’ s what we ’ re about .”
He says it ’ s important to protect what ’ s great about IHG , build on the culture and history , drive performance and
28 HOTELS November 2015 www . hotelsmag . com