“Travel has made me more humble and respectful of other cultures,” says Dagmar Mühle, general manager of the 483-room Hilton Munich City, Germany.
She moved to the hotel two months ago and is still trying to remember the names of each of her 120-strong team: The hotel, which is leased, shares some back-of-house functions with Hilton Munich Park, and it also outsources. Everyone is on first-name terms, says Dagmar, with a firm smile. She has relocated 13 times in her career, working variously in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Austria, Singapore and Japan.
She has been at Hilton for nearly all her working life, with the exception of three “very happy years” with InterContinental. “Then Rudi Jagersbacher – a Hilton legend – telephoned and said I was needed to open Hilton Belfast. It was my first GM position. I arrived and knew no one, but Hilton has a good structure to provide help,” she explained.
“Hilton has been very good to me. Whenever I move, they handle all paperwork, and transport all my things. Typically, before leaving a hotel, I move into it, at least for a few days, to allow my furniture to go ahead. Then, at the next location, I stay in that hotel – which I will already have visited — until everything arrives. (At Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh — The Caledonian, in Scotland, I lived in for six weeks as I was buying an apartment, which I have since sold). For those who have families, Hilton helps not only with relocation but with education.”
Mühle believes that it may be easier for those with families to settle into a new place quickly, perhaps by making friends via kids’ school companions. As a woman alone, one of her tried and tested strategies is to get to know other hoteliers in a location. She also invites ambassadors and other emissaries to her hotel.
Does it help being a woman? “Possibly,” she admitted. A recent week-long female leadership course at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business confirmed her belief that women’s modesty and ability to reflect helps in a global lifestyle.
“How did I get into all this? As is often the norm in Germany I did an apprenticeship, thinking I might be a receptionist — I always loved people. Then I realized the opportunities the industry offered,” she recalled.
For Mühle, the disadvantages of never putting down roots are vastly overcome by having friends, real friends, in so many places. She feels it is essential for any GM to stay at least three years, and in her case she might now well stay longer at Hilton Munich City. How can her peripatetic experience inspire others, globally?
Keith Kefgren, New York City-based managing director and chairman of Aethos Consulting Group, cautions that once people have spent five years or more outside the USA, for instance, it gets tough to return at equal or promoted positions, and once someone has a taste of expat pay it is tough to match (“plus most employers in the USA would be concerned about the ability to assimilate back, deal with an employee base that is very different and, most of all, cope with trends in revenue management, unionization and talent acquisition,” he said).
This does not bother Mühle, who admits that all this moving around has just made her want to travel more, in her own time. “I am going back to Japan for a vacation soon and my bucket-list still includes the Galapagos and Nepal,” she laughed.