Welcome to this interview by Core Recruitment. Thank you very much for joining us. Core Recruitment is an international recruitment consultancy and we cover mid to senior level appointments across the globe. Now we are running an interview series to look at different business leaders from different segments of the industry and I'm very pleased to say that we're in Dubai meeting lots of different business leaders from different business segments. So I hope you enjoy this interview series that we've curated for you. Now our first subject that we're speaking to is Dimitris Manikis and Dimitris has got the most incredible job as he is President EMEA, Global, absolutely everything for Wyndham Hotels. Welcome and thank you very much for joining us.
What an intro. Thank you very much. And it couldn't be, as we said earlier, couldn't be more Dubai than this view. So it doesn't come more Dubai. So yeah, I'm privileged and blessed for a number of things. I work in hospitality which is the best industry in the world. No offense to anybody else. And I work in a region that is just so diverse. Europe, Middle East, Eurasia, and Africa, which is exciting. So yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Oh, you're so welcome. Now, I love a big job title. I love people who have accomplished a lot in their career, but something that always kind of like gets me really interested is the origin story. And I was reading a little bit about you in your early days in Greece and your father's grocery store and that whole kind of side of things. And I guess if we could, I'm not going to take you through each stage of your life, but the origin story I would really be interested to hear a little bit about what kind of like inspired you and how you think that set you up.
Yeah. I mean, look, we all have our role models, right? And it depends how it started. My dad who passed away two years ago at the age of 94. A very wise man, you know, when you grow up, you look at your dad and he's the atlas, you know, the atlas holding the world. He grew up in Greece when the Nazis occupied Greece. Some people might not know, but Greece during the Second World War was occupied by the Nazis for three, four years. Lost half of his family, had to work. So he didn't finish school actually, he only did first grade and moved to Athens at the age of 17 searching for a better future for himself and he became a very successful and a very wealthy man and wealth not necessarily just in terms of money but experiences and what he's done in life. And as we were growing up, my brother and I, in the summer we used to work at his place and then he has the second one and the third one.
And this is grocery retail.
This is a grocery store and he did it with a smile. You can have some really awkward clients coming every day and asking the most crazy things and not being as polite as they should be. And he had this amazing smile on his face and every time when we went home with my brother I said, 'But why? I mean how can you stand this?' He said, 'There is nothing better than serving people and working with people no matter who they are, where they come from. This is the essence of what I do.' And I learned the beauty of servicing people. And this is how it led me to hospitality actually because I said what is the industry that actually does what my dad did from his early years. And I thought actually hospitality is that industry. Unfortunately, my brother and I didn't follow his business because we thought it was too difficult. I mean, with second thought, working all these years in hospitality, I should have thought better. But anyway, so yeah, that's how it started. And that smile on his face despite how tough the job was actually led me to hospitality.
Giving you a real work ethic then, right?
Yeah. I mean, it's work hard. I mean, come on, it's not rocket science. You work hard. You love what you do. You do it with a lot of passion and you just avoid or ignore the headwinds and just have a positive attitude on life. And that's what I've learned. There's always headwinds. And I remember every time we were talking about challenges in life, he taught me two things. Control the controllables. Don't worry about the things that you cannot control because they're going to happen anyway. And he said to me once, 'Son, in my life, I had a thousand reasons to blame somebody else about my misfortunes, the war, the economic crisis, the devaluation of drachma at that time versus the dollar, the Korean War. He fought the Korean War and all that.' And he said, 'No, I only blame myself. I only blame myself because I was the one that actually kept myself down. Every time I wasn't doing the right thing, I said, No, you should have done better.' There's so many things that we can blame out there, especially today. No. And we don't even have to blame ourselves. We just have to move on. And control the controllables is what I've learned. And I keep on telling my team, do not worry about the things that you cannot control. Just focus on the things that you can.
There's a lot of them at the moment.
Yes. I mean, you wake up. I was at a conference on Monday and somebody said, 'How do you manage risk?' And I said, 'Which risk? The morning risk, the afternoon risk, the Wednesday risk, the weekend risk.' You open up TV and there's, for those of you who still do, there's curve balls every day. How do you manage it? I think leadership and working in an environment like we are today is very difficult. Very difficult.
He sounds like he was an incredible mind.
He was. He was. And I was really happy to be with him until the age of 94. So we're very blessed.
Absolutely. So fast forwarding and like somebody's just landed from Mars. They've decided to watch this interview. They haven't heard of Wyndham. They don't know because I think that a lot of people always appreciate the size and scale of just how vast the business is. Can you just give us a bit of an overview to give context?
Look, we are one of the world's largest hospitality companies. We've got 8,800 hotels in 101 countries. We're predominantly franchise. So, we are 95% franchise. The challenge with Wyndham is that a lot of people know our brands, but they don't know the mother company. And that's why in the last few years, we're actually growing a lot of our namesake brands. So, the Wyndham Grand, the Wyndham Garden, we have brands like Days Inn, Super 8. I mean, Ramada brand is 77 years old. A lot of people talk about lifestyle and how things have changed in hospitality. That's a brand that has been around for 77 years and has survived the test of time. So that is something that we are working very hard. We're a relatively young company. I remember at the days when we were Cendant and then we became Wyndham Worldwide and then we became publicly traded in May 2018 and we've only been around as a publicly traded company for a few years but look what we have accomplished and we've got great partners. We're opening up in new territories and new regions. So yeah, it's exciting times and more exciting is the growth of hospitality. We wouldn't grow if hospitality wouldn't grow together with us. So, this is an industry, we're going to have 1.4 billion people traveling this year. It's just an amazing thing. And I've always said when people ask me, 'What do you do for a living?' I said, 'I'm in the happy business. That's what we do. We just try to make people happy.' So, not just us, everybody, all our peers, everybody who works in this industry. So, Wyndham is just one part of a greater ecosystem that keeps people happy. That's what I do. That's what I say to people when they ask me what I do.
Now, working in talent and recruitment, my first question in my brain always goes to culture. And when you're managing a business of that massive size, scale, the multiple brands, the multiple countries, the multiple markets, the cultural differences, the headwinds. I mean, you're going to go back to the grocery store. I can tell you I'm putting you off now. But it's vast. But so with your exec team, with your leadership team, with that kind of like, they have to be super resilient, super agile, every day is kind of like a different challenge. So when you are looking for them, when you're looking to hire, what skills do you look for and how do you identify people who have got the right mindset?
Look, there's one thing that I've learned again, you hire for attitude, not necessarily always for skills. In our industry, attitude is very important. If I was hiring a doctor or a mechanical engineer, I would hire for skills. You wouldn't want to be operated by a doctor who has a great attitude, but he doesn't know what he's doing, right? So, I wouldn't hire a doctor just for attitude. It helps, but I wouldn't. But in our job, in our industry, I think attitude is very important. When I talk to young recruits and when I work with some universities and with graduate students I say look if you don't love people this is not a job you should be doing because it takes a lot of sacrifice it's a job that requires a lot of sacrifice so we look at attitude we look at people that fit the culture and I know that in recruitment you guys say culture eats strategy for breakfast and it does because culture if you build the right culture you attract talent and talent is very rare these days. I know that everybody says technology is going to help. No, actually with technology growing, the search of talent is becoming more challenging because everybody. One thing that I've seen when we talk to young recruits is the sense of entitlement. To be fair, I didn't have that when I was growing up. I didn't have that when I was starting my career. I get it. I have two kids that are the age of 29 and 26 and one of them is in hospitality and I can understand that sense of entitlement but I keep on telling them it's the attitude that is going to get you through. The skills a lot of people have them it's all about the attitude how you wake up in the morning and you've got two choices and I've always said that you're either going to be optimistic or pessimistic. Pessimism is contagious it actually ruins the people around you, especially if you're in leadership. Optimism is what drives us all every day. So that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for attitude. I'm looking for somebody who really loves what they do because that's key in our business and at the same time somebody who and I know it sounds cliche but somebody who looks at a glass half full and not half empty.
Absolutely. Now when you say that sense of entitlement because I think this is something which is mentioned a lot and I think it falls into different contexts because personally I've met a lot of young people who have got a phenomenal work ethic but they maybe don't see the need to earn their stripes. They want to progress kind of like much faster and then there's almost this kind of gap underneath them in terms of like I personally I think everybody should have done operations, marketing, finance. I think they should have done multiple sectors if they're going to be going into an exec position because if you're managing those functions, you need to have at least an understanding of a lot of those functions. So when you say entitlement, can you expand on that a little?
I think you just said it. Fast. They want everything they want it's like Amazon Prime. I think our world is Amazon Prime. I want it and I want it now. Actually there will be a point why Amazon Prime didn't deliver something before I wanted. You know that's the world we're going now. It's all about now. Now, Amazon Prime I get it. Other delivery services are available. Yes. Of course. I mean only because I use Amazon Prime a lot but yeah it's whatever. But everybody wants the world now. So that is I think the culture that we live. They are impatient. They feel that that entitlement allows them to progress faster than their predecessors or the generation before them. And at the same time, I think they're fed up with the world that we are leaving them behind. One thing that my kids keep on reminding me is that your generation is what created this. Don't always look at us and say, 'Oh, you should have been doing this.' Think about yourself and how you could have done things better. And I'm talking about from sustainability to the world we live in to the fast pace. There is a generation, one generation follows the other. The other thing which is very important, especially if you're a leader, it's the first time in history where you've got all these ages in the workforce. You are a leader of 25 year olds, 35, 45, 55, 65. All these people are in the workforce at the same time. And you have to understand what a 25 year old needs versus a 65 year old. Because in a world of AI that everybody seeks the answers and they're all on your phone. You need the 65 year olds. You need the 60 year olds. You need the 55 year olds to give you the perspective and the experience that they've gained through their lives, through their business lives. The 25 year olds will give you the fast, the pace, the technology, the urge, but you need these guys to look at a number and say actually there might be more behind that number. It's not just a GPT or Gemini to your point other services available or cloud or whatever. You need that expertise. To me that is very exciting. Why? Because from a leader perspective because I lead teams in such a diverse environment. I get so much value from different people. So I'm very fascinated about the young kids that we get into hospitality. I'm very fascinated about what they bring. But at the same time I feel they should take their time. Fast forward is not always the answer.
Absolutely. Now, I mean, it brings us on to the next thing because I know that outside of the very expansive day job that you do, you sit on a number of different boards, associations, societies. I did want to go into that a little bit, but maybe if we trigger off with the one because you're involved with sustainability outside of work as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that to start?
