By Amy Bostock and Nicole Di Tomasso
TORONTO — More than 200 foodservice-and-hospitality professionals gathered last Monday at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto for the eighth-annual Women in Tourism and Hospitality (WITH) Summit. A partnership between KML and Sequel Hotels and Resorts, the WITH Summit has become the meeting place for individuals and companies committed to advancing women in the tourism-and-hospitality industry while creating an inclusive and diverse workplace.
“We are surrounded by leaders, innovators and advocators who are paving the way for future generations of women,” said Rosanna Caira, editor/publisher, Kostuch Media Ltd. and co-founder of WITHorg. “The hospitality industry is a cornerstone of the global economy, yet, as we know all too well, it’s also a field that represents unique challenges for women.”
“This isn’t a gender issue, it’s a business issue. Research consistently shows that companies with diverse leadership outperform their peers by elevating women to decision-making roles,” added Anne Larcade, CEO, Sequel Hotels and Resorts and co-founder WITHOrg. “We create new ideas, we disrupt, we enhance team dynamics and we build a more sustainable and innovative industry. Women bring unique perspectives that are crucial to understanding the evolving needs of travellers.”
This year’s Summit opened with a welcome from honorary chair, Katie Taylor, former Chair, Royal Bank of Canada, and former president and CEO, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts.
“My career has spanned over 40 years, and it’s fair to say that during those many decades, I have had the privilege of both benefiting from and contributing to extraordinary changes for women,” she said, emphasizing that “I didn’t get any of these places on my own. So, I have been constantly re-committing myself to the hard work of getting more women into positions of power and influence, and in the world of business, that means getting more of them, more of you, into the office of the CEO or the seat of ownership. This is not an easy thing to say, definitely not an easy thing to do. Becoming a CEO, a leader of a big division of a company, the owner of the whole place, can take decades of training, years of hard work, boatloads of determination and hope, lots of risk taking, resilience and sacrifice. And in the end, it always requires whole organizations and women to be more strategic about career paths for our female leaders.”
And while every year numerous publications tell us how the number of women leaders has increased over the past year and year before that, “and in absolute terms, this is probably true, a closer look reveals a more accurate reading on how we’re really doing on rise, lead and inspire,” said Taylor. For example, she said, in Canada’s 100 largest companies, we now have 62 females in what we call the named executive ranks. These are the top five highest paid jobs in a company.
“Sixty-two. Remember, I said that was the top 100 companies. That’s 500 positions. Do the quick math, less than 50 per cent of those named executive officers are women, which should not make anyone feel good. But it gets worse when we consider that fewer than 20 of those 62 are actually in the titles roles in their companies that can get them shot at competing to be the next CEO. The same picture emerges if you turn your attention to our beloved hospitality industry, where the number of female CEOs has not significantly changed in the last 15 years. All to say that the pipeline for our future female CEOs and business owners is in urgent need of a great deal of work.”
Taylor closed out her welcome by saying that we have to modernize system structures and attitudes that continue to put men on the CEO and business owner track overwhelmingly more often than women. “We have to actively encourage and make it possible for women to stay in those significant DNL operational goals, including getting a really firm understanding of the existing and emerging obstacles that are in their way. This is no small matter, and we need to support mentorship and champion women at all levels of our organizations and our industry to ensure that they can gain a clear and continuous line of sight to those top goals. We must set more ambitious goals and relentlessly track our progress and our failures, learning from both along the way.”
The morning keynote from Carolyne Doyon, president and CEO of Club Med, followed. Her talk highlighted her personal journey as a working mother who overcame challenges and successfully integrated work-life balance while rising to leadership.
Born in Montreal to a middle-class family, Doyon always knew she wanted to travel. Now, after more than 25 years of cross-functional leadership experience in the industry, ranging from airlines to tour operators, both retail and wholesale, in 2019 she was named president and CEO of Club Med, North America and the Caribbean. She now oversees more than 3,000 employees in her business unit, and is responsible for the full P&L commercial operations and development activities for four regional offices, two in the U.S., one in Canada, one in Mexico, in addition to seven resorts with Caribbean, Mexico and Canada. Throughout her tenure at Club Med, Doyon has been a key contributor to the success and profitability of the North American business unit. Her mission, in her current role, is to continue to increase profitability by gaining market share, to recruit new premium clients, to develop Club Med mountain leadership in her region, and to develop and update the North America’s resort portfolio.
Doyon shared her story, including the importance of mentorship and cultivating resilience, with the goal of inspiring the next generation of female leaders by demonstrating that leadership is not about perfection but about growth, resilience, and support.
View from the Top: Foodservice Leadership from a Woman’s Perspective
The first panel of the day, moderated by Amy Bostock, managing editor of Foodservice and Hospitality and Hotelier magazines, featured Sarah Anseeuw, VP, Local Sales, North America, Sysco Canada; Bernadette Farag, president and Chief Marketing Officer, Osmow’s; Lisa Mazurkewich, head of Marketing, Subway Restaurants, and Nuit Regular, executive chef and co-owner of PAI, Kiin, Chaiyo, Sukhothai and By Chef Nuit Events & Catering. This quartet of leaders shared their stories of resilience and triumph and addressed pressing issues such as gender equality, workplace diversity and women’s leadership.
The discussion opened with ways the landscape for women in foodservice has changed.
“One of the things I’ve observed that has changed over time is a truly inclusive culture that’s beyond what goes on paper as a program [through] my interactions between executives and through every single one of my colleagues,” says Anseeuw. “We’re making incredible progress but there are other areas that still have significant opportunity.”
Coming from an industry that hasn’t historically been women-friendly in the kitchen, Regular said that since she was named the Nine of Dine winner at the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo in 2009, she has witnessed more female chefs entering the food scene.
“I have many young female chefs come and talk to me and want to work on my team,” she says, adding that approximately half the team across all her restaurants are women.
Then, the speakers talked about how they have conversations with their children about their future careers and the opportunities that await, as well as lessons they want to instill in their children.
“It’s a benefit that your kids see you working and it’s a benefit that your kids see both parents helping out around the home,” says Mazurkewich. “My hope is that they takeaway that if you follow who you are and what you love, you’ll surprise yourself sometimes.”
“I make sure to share my successes with my daughters, but I also make sure to share my mistakes, so they know that as strong as you are, you still have room to grow,” said Farag.
The panellists also talked about how they motivate their teams to embrace their potential and champion change in their own communities.
Rapid Fire Spotlight
During the rapid-fire spotlight, Greg Klassen, senior director at Skift, defined the “tourism of me” as an emerging concept and uncovered four trends that manifest into travel and tourism.
Simply put, Klassen said travel will be hyper focused on ourselves and words to describe tourism in the coming years will include “self-care, mental health, physical health, pampering, low- and no-alcohol” and more, directly impacting “how we travel, where we travel and the experiences we’d like to have.”
The four trends included luxury travel, health and wellness, loneliness/solo experiences and remote work. Klassen said people with lower incomes are still investing more of their money into luxury travel experiences; health and wellness influences the types of experiences and destinations people want to visit; people are more confident travelling on their own and enrich their lives by meeting new people; and remote work has given people more flexibility to travel more often.
He concluded his presentation with one major threat that’ll have a major impact on hospitality and tourism in Canada and around the world in the next 10 years. With Saudi Arabia announcing multi-billion investments into its tourism sector, Klassen warns that the country will draw the attention of our “airlines, tour operators, travel agents, athletes, influencers, celebrities, brands and hotels to re-define what luxury is. Canada needs to respond with better product, better experiences and more investment.”
Pursuing the Entrepreneurial Dream
In the first morning workshop, Reetu Gupta, Ambassadress, Easton’s Group of Hotels moderated an entrepreneurship panel featuring Heather Cameron, head of Brand and Creative, DoorDash Canada; Sarah Sklash, co-founder, The June Motel; Connie DeSousa, co-owner and co-executive chef, CHARCUT; and Komal Jafri, regional manager, Central Canada SBB| Women in Enterprise, TD Bank. The group of successful female entrepreneurs shared their personal journeys, highlighting the challenges they faced and the innovative strategies they employed to overcome obstacles.
Additionally, Cameron highlighted how DoorDash is helping entrepreneurs grow and thrive through the company’s Entrepreneurship & Access Program, which provides opportunities for restaurant businesses owned by women, immigrants and people of colour through communications and support, increased in-app searchability, funding and marketing campaigns.
“There’s a ton of intersectionality in those groups which is important to recognize, and we celebrate that with more access through grants, developing content, partnership, et cetera,” says Cameron.
Conversely, DeSousa shared the importance of giving back to communities as an entrepreneur. Recently, DeSousa and her business partner John Jackson launched the CHAR Hospitality Fund, administered by the Calgary Foundation, to support charities, organizations and initiatives that help alleviate food insecurity; benefit women experiencing poverty who want to pursue careers in foodservice; and promote mental health awareness.
“We create [dinner series] to raise money and host events in the Calgary community,” says DeSousa, adding they’ll continue to diversify their fundraising avenues.
The panel also covered funding, networking, balancing work-life dynamics and showcasing the achievements of women in business while also fostering a sense of community and support.
“One of the amazing things about entrepreneurship is you can set your own rules,” says Sklash. “Work-life balance as an entrepreneur is so different from work-life balance at a typical nine-to-five job. I’ll spend three weeks living with my husband in Bermuda, focusing on spending quality time with him and catching up on administrative work. Then, I’ll spend three weeks in Canada and focus on being at the properties and being with the teams.”
“Becoming an entrepreneur requires a lot of courage because there’s a lot of risks,” says Jafri. “At TD, we’re investing in women entrepreneurs who have a vision for their business and want to make it a reality. We focus on access to funding and growing social networks.”
To conclude, the panellists offered advice to budding entrepreneurs while highlighting the importance of finding a mentor, embracing failure and building strong teams.
Empower Your Well-Being
The morning breakouts included a session dedicated to the mental health and wellness of women, gender non-conforming and non-binary people in the restaurant-and-hotel industry. Hassel Aviles, workplace mental-health leader and advocate and executive director/founder of Not 9 to 5, addressed the challenges and strategies for maintaining mental well-being while navigating the demands of your career.
Aviles was “born and raised in this industry,” starting as a hostess when she was a teenager, to owning her own restaurant as well as running food-event businesses and now a non-profit. “A lot of why I do what I do came from lived experience,” she said. “I was always living with mental-health challenges, I had my own experience around substance abuse and I also saw it in every workplace I ever went into — well-being was just never a priority. It was never discussed. There were no resources, there was no support, and there was no education. And that fuelled me to try to fill that void.”
Her session addressed the connection between DEI work and workplace mental health, along with the intersection of work and well-being. “It’s really important, especially for leaders, employers or anyone in a management position to remember that we have influence, so we need to always keep this in mind when discussing well-being or workplace mental health.”
Data collected by Not 9 to 5 shows that two thirds of the industry still tries to keep mental-health challenges to themselves. “So that means that there’s really high stigma still,” said Aviles. “So, if you’re a leader, you need to focus on de-stigmatization. People still feel uncomfortable being vulnerable, and part of that is because there’s not enough investment in workplace mental health and in general well-being in the workplace.”
She also stressed the importance of leading with equity. “It sounds obvious, but unfortunately, equitable workplaces are still not abundant in the hospitality industry, so making sure that everyone feels seen and heard is part of that — seeking input, valuing everyone’s voice.” If anyone is interested in resources, click here.
Check out the Thursday edition of Hospitality Headlines for coverage of WITH Summit’s afternoon sessions.
