When Damon Lawrence was growing up in Pasadena, California, he didn’t realize that the hotel business could be a career option for him. Like so many others, he fell into the business and believes he could have progressed much further much faster if he had learned about opportunities earlier.
The 33-year-old creator of the Oakland, California-based Homage hotel brand, which focuses on paying homage to black culture, continues to learn the business on the fly, even after management stints with Ritz-Carlton, IHG and Dusit International. (Read about his plans for the Homage brand here.)
“It took me at least five years to really understand the economics behind buying a hotel as a commercial real estate asset,” he said.
With the attention given today to the Black Lives Matter movement and greater empowerment, Lawrence feels it is first incumbent upon himself to introduce younger people to the hotel business and stress that it is open to them. “One of the things that I’m really excited about is mentorship and what we can do to expose hospitality to the generation behind us,” he said.
Upon further reflection, Lawrence, a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., believes leadership, growth and even ownership opportunities for people of color have been difficult because everything has been done in tight-knit groups.
“And the issue is bigger than we think,” he added. “If you went to Cornell and you’ve got your friends that you went to Cornell with, or you went to business school, who’s in your class? If you look around at your class, these are the people that you end up partnering with later on. And the same reflection that you see in hospitality right now, that’s who was in those classes.”
Lawrence wants to take the learning stages back to childhood. “Do those little kids playing with Legos and building things realize they could have a career to be an architect, to build cities, to be in commercial real estate?” he asked. “What I’m excited to do is hopefully open up this space to more people that look like me, and to feel that there’s an opportunity there.”
Driving the change
The responsibility for educating these youngsters cannot lie on the industry itself, Lawrence believes. “The industry is only going to be able to do so much. I put the onus on myself to make sure that I’m open and honest as I possibly can about the trials and tribulations, as well as the fun and the aspects of it that I love. There are tons of people that, if they knew this was possible, would be doing it themselves, as well.”
He wants to lead change because of the habitual nature of the business, even going as far as to say he doesn’t feel there is much of a place at the table for him at conferences run by NABHOOD, the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators, and Developers.
“It feels a lot like ALIS (Americas Lodging Investment Summit), it’s just that the suits look like me,” he said. “But the creative field is not there, is not representative of the entire hospitality industry… So, I put a lot of the onus on myself. I want to see 10 more Homage-like brands exist in the world.”
Lawrence counts Mark Seiler, principal of Hotel Slo Co. in Oakland as a mentor and trusted adviser, as well as his main equity partner, Erik Murray of Oak Investment Funds, Oakland. In fact, the Homage brand sold in December its only existing hotel in New Orleans and is slowly moving forward with plans to further develop the brand in California, potentially starting with a deal in Napa Valley.
“What I’ve learned from his grit and his willingness to just get stuff done (has) been transformative for me in realizing my own potential,” Lawrence said. “He’s one of those people that does not take no for an answer. Failure is not an option. He’s said that every day… He’s a natural salesperson. I’ve learned the value of picking up the phone and calling people. I think my generation is so used to being behind email and not picking up the phone and actually calling people.”
Seat at the table
No matter whose responsibility it is for lifting up people of color in the hotel business, the Black Lives Matter movement serves as a marker in time for the industry to reflect on its inclusiveness record.
“I think the biggest takeaway probably is making sure that there’s a seat at the table every step of the way,” Lawrence opines. “I don’t think there’s an expectation that you’re just going to overhaul your C-suite at any of these companies. But just making sure that you have everybody’s voice reflected is so important because what we’ve seen over the last couple of months is how people have missed opportunities and how messaging wasn’t right. And you know when you hear certain things, there was not a person of color at that table to even tell you that this was not smart or wise.”
Lawrence further explains that the plight of black people is so unique that if you don’t have someone that understands it, other people can say that they get it all day long, but it’s different.
“There are cultural nuances that you have to understand,” he said. “We’ve had this conversation with a bunch of hotel management companies that wanted to help us. But when I looked at their company roster, I said, ‘You don’t have anyone that looks like me. So, how can you properly manage the company? How can you properly market the company in the correct light? You’re going to make a mistake. You’re going to mess up.”
Those are the things, Lawrence said, that are very important to figuring out. “How do we market? How do we promote? How do we make sure we manage properties with everyone in mind?” he asked. “I’m hoping that’s what changes in the near future.”
Not unlike the #MeToo movement for women, Lawrence believes that BLM will lead more companies to understand the need to have that type of diversity. “It just makes sense for good business,” he said.
For Lawrence personally, the BLM moment has created better resolve. “I think the mission has become even bigger. We talked earlier about just what mentorship means. And I think that that has become even more of a part of my identity in making sure that there’s just more people in the industry.”