KEYNOTE
Of all the directors and managers within the
company, I’m the only one who doesn’t wear a suit!
winter) that we take a step back and say ‘let’s concentrate on the customer needs and catch our breath,’ because we have been so busy over the last couple of years. This has involved building new holes on the Roman Road course to facilitate the new £84.5m International Convention Centre and car parks. Wales currently gets less than 3% of the huge UK conference market and the new centre will encompass the largest conference room in Europe. It’s a 50-50 venture between Celtic Manor and the Welsh Government and an opportunity to put Wales on the map. My gardens team have, so far, planted 16,500 trees around it which has been time consuming in itself.
What’s been the biggest challenge/ problem you have had to deal with over the years?
Currently, I would probably say the Human Resources aspect of the role. Dealing with lots of different people (from ages nineteen to sixty), all of whom have their individual
needs and issues, can be really hard. No previous role or management training prepared me for this side of things. I am faced with an extensive array of issues that people expect me to sort out for them and that’s becoming 30% of the job at the moment.
Three years ago, we unfortunately had a death on site and that’s by far the most difficult day I have had in my career.
Is there anything you would do differently, professionally or personally, if you had the chance?
I can now look back on a couple of opportunities (in the early days) to go abroad, which I didn’t take, and I always wonder where those would have taken me. Sometimes, when guys ask me about applying for other positions, I tell them to go for it. Learn new languages, experience different cultures and encourage them to do all the things I decided not to do. I feel very fortunate that the Resort has
developed around me into what’s now known as the Celtic Manor Collection and I’m the only guy who has ever been in this post. The site has changed so much over the years … when I first came here it was going to be an 18-hole course with an 85-bedroom hotel. By the end of next year, we’ll have 800 hotel rooms on site as well as many other attributes in the portfolio (over five sites) including: 3.5 golf courses and a further one in Canada, a country pub with bedrooms, ten lodges overlooking the 2010 course, a local estate we look after, a municipal course and the Coldra Court Hotel.
How would you sum up your career?
That’s difficult. Every year, we hold a long service award ceremony and, last year, we had 189 years of service and experience on a table of ten staff. There’s a lot of people that have been here a long time and it’s been a privilege to work alongside them. To go to exhibitions such as BTME and catch up with friends I have made over the years (some who I’ve worked with at Celtic Manor) is a delight.
Do you have any regrets?
There isn’t anything that keeps me awake at night, so that can’t be a bad thing! Maybe, if Celtic Manor hadn’t evolved into what it is now, I might think differently and that I should have gone abroad when I was younger. Someone said this to me a while ago, whilst sat with Terry Matthews: ‘When you think there is light at the end of tunnel, it’s usually a train coming the other way.’ That has always stuck with me and you just have to keep going and developing in your personal life and career.
54
PC June/July 2019
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