Across hotels, resorts, hospitality management groups, and tourism destinations, we recruit senior operational and commercial leadership for organizations operating in experience-led sectors.
Hospitality and tourism across our markets operate in an environment shaped by the steady recovery of international travel, growing intra-African tourism, and the ongoing investment in destination development and branded hospitality assets. The senior leaders who succeed in this sector combine deep operational discipline — the standards-led, service-led capability that hospitality assets depend on — with the commercial sophistication required to position assets profitably in increasingly competitive markets.
Our practice supports hotel and resort operators, hospitality management groups, tourism destinations, restaurant and F&B groups, and the broader experience economy that hospitality assets sit within. Engagements span general manager and managing director appointments through to specialist commercial, operations, F&B, and revenue management leadership.
How the senior talent market is moving in this sector and what it means for boards and CEOs.
Branded hospitality expansion has been a dominant theme in the sector across our markets in recent years. International hospitality brands continuing to develop properties, regional brands building portfolios, and independent properties seeking management contracts or affiliation arrangements have all driven sustained demand for general manager and senior commercial leadership with credibility in branded operations.
Domestic and intra-African tourism is reshaping the demand profile for hospitality talent. The senior leaders capable of designing operating models for predominantly domestic guest mixes — different service standards, different price points, different food and beverage preferences — are increasingly central to hospitality success in our markets. The candidate pool with this experience profile is growing, but more slowly than demand.
Branded residences and mixed-use hospitality is creating senior demand at the upper end of the sector. The development of hospitality-led residential and mixed-use assets requires hybrid hospitality-real-estate leadership profiles that few candidates carry naturally.
Typical senior roles we are engaged on across this sector.
Branded and independent hotels and resorts including business, leisure, luxury, and lifestyle properties.
Hospitality management businesses operating multiple properties under management contracts.
Hospitality-led residential developments, mixed-use hospitality assets, and branded residence projects.
Restaurant chains, casual dining groups, and F&B operating businesses with scaled operations.
Tourism destination businesses including theme parks, attractions, and destination management organizations.
Hospitality investors, asset owners, and specialty hospitality real estate investment businesses.
Hospitality engagements are particularly fit-sensitive — strong general managers in one operating context can struggle in another, and the differences often come down to subtleties that are hard to assess from a CV alone. Our briefing process places explicit weight on understanding the specific operating context, the guest mix, the service standard, and the brand culture the appointment needs to fit.
We also push hard on referencing in this sector. Hospitality operating performance is highly visible — to guests, to staff, to owners, to brand partners — and the references that matter most are the ones from people who saw the candidate operate at property level. We invest accordingly.