Business Management

How to make a family business in hospitality work

Episode 1- Series - Conversations with hospitality entrepreneurs & leaders

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In this webinar Joshua Gan, regional director of Asia Pacific for the EHL Group, is joined by Renyung Ho, VP Brand HQ at Banyan Tree Holdings, and Adrien Desbaillets, Co-Founder and Managing Director at SaladStop! In this webinar the panelists discuss the ups and downs of working in a family business.

How to accept professional feedback from a family member?

It depends on each scenario, it's much more rounded now because I have more sources of feedback. So their (parent) feedback is one of several. And I've learned how to understand when I'm wearing this professional hat getting feedback from someone else's experience versus my parent child hat where I'm getting feedback from my parents and that triggers something else emotional. I feel that for people working in family businesses, knowing when to wear what hat is important.

Gathering work experience outside the family business

Spending time outside of the family business is a must. A least it's important. I think my experience of stepping outside the family business and into consulting was a good training ground. I think no matter what kind of business you join, if you know how to look at numbers, you know how to analyze the market, how to work with different types of people, that all helps. When you're 20 and you graduate, just explore the world, get experience working across a lot of different types of jobs. Ideally there's no rush to join the family business. I know some family businesses obviously have different pressures and there's no choice. But if you do have a choice and your family's understanding, I think there's definitely a few years of exploration that should happen which will benefit the family business down the line.

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