Industry Influencer
www.parkworld-online.com
At the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for Ocean Park
during those 12 years? There are
10 principles of leadership that can be applied to manage and tranform any business.
I had reached the end of my contract for Spain and was preparing to return to the US and take the role of VP and GM of Six Flags Fiesta Texas, when I simultaneously received an enquiry from Korn Ferry International, who had been retained by Ocean Park Corporation in Hong Kong, China to source a new chief executive to replace the existing chief executive. I flew to Hong Kong for the interview and fell in love with Ocean Park and the potential of its development and growth. I encountered a motivated government, a motivated board of directors and a motivated staff, who all believed in the park and the ability to develop as a complement and supplement to Disney Hong Kong, which was under development at the time. I was offered the position on the spot by the chairman, Allan Zeman and the Board agreed to support the offer, which I gratefully accepted and relocated, with my family, to Hong Kong from Spain. The biggest challenges were to articulate a vision, mission and set of values that were aligned with Government, the Board and the staff to ensure the redevelopment plan of the park was embraced by all, and that we could secure the funding to pay for the redevelopment. The park was just recovering from SARS and attendance had reached a low with cash reserves in a very diminished position. We were able to define a vision, sell the vision, secure the funding and redevelop the park in eight phases over six years, which was a significant challenge as we were growing attendance and revenue through event introduction, while redeveloping the Park for a whole new experience. We likened it to performing open heart surgery on a marathon runner, while the runner is running. We more than exceeded our aspirations and expectations in the process and continually reset the bar of expectations each year, while also exceeding the annual attendance of Hong Kong Disney each year. We drove the cash reserves to record levels and defined the future for the park that was quite bright, prior to the economic and tourism hardships that have hit Hong Kong in the last few years.
I’m interested in your book ‘Taming of the Mouse ‘ - can you summarise the 10 lessons for making a business a success? Actually, rather than lessons, they are 10 principles of leadership that can be applied to manage and transform
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any business, but were instrumental for me in leading Ocean Park to the success it achieved. The 10 principles are: 1. Understand - Seek first to understand, then be understood, which is one of Stephen Covey’s habits in his book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. 2. Value - define your differential competitive values in your market and build upon them to make the competition irrelevant by complementing and supplementing the market. 3. Measure - If you can measure it, you can manage it. Use of metrics and analytics can enhance your business focus and performance. 4. Plan - Anticipate, Communicate and Execute (ACE). You can takle most any challenge by planning, anticipating, communicating and executing, so plan the work and work the plan. 5. Be Relevant - Ensure you are always culturally relevant to the markets you serve, as it will differentiate your product and your position. 6. Control - Control the controllable and keep things inperspective. 7. Lead - Be a present leader. Know your business and know your team. Be present in the business and in the park if you are running a theme park, and be accessible. Recognise good performance when you see it and focus on catching people doing the right thing. 8. Disrupt - Be disruptive, without being destructive and find your niche by never settling for the average, or the acceptable.
9. Be Genuine - Through your business practices and personal leadership, be genuine, as well as generous. Develop CSR programs and ensure your business gives back to the community in meaningful ways. 10. Aspire, Then Expect - Set your aspirations and once you achieve them, they become expectations, then evolve to the next level by setting new aspirations and continue the cycle.
You went on to set up Themed Advisors in 2016, providing consultancy and ultimately, becoming the man that would spearhead Universal’s first theme park resort in China. Talk me through it as it happened? When I chose not to renew my contract with Ocean Park, I decided to set up a business in Hong Kong to advise the industry since Asia, and China specifically, were developing at such a rapid rate. I have always believed that software drives the hardware and I felt I had 40 years of experience I could give to advising the industry so that the right hardware investments could be made from my software (advice). My former chairman at Ocean Park, Allan Zeman, was interested in setting up his own advisory business for the attractions industry, so we formed a partnership in Lan Kwai Fong Attractions, which was complementary to my personal business. My first client was Ocean Park for Themed Advisors Limited. My first client for Lan Kwai Fong Attractions was Universal Parks and Resorts, to provide advisory services for the development of Unversal Beijing Resort. After about nine months of advising and offering insights from China and some conversations happened about me joining the company as the president and general
DECEMBER 2020
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