I’m the CEO at Trilogy Hotels, an independent hotel management company that is set to shake up the industry here in Australia. We’re developing a great business model which celebrates everything about hospitality, and meets the needs of hotel owners, guests, brands and our operational team. We believe that everyone wins with Trilogy at the helm. Up until recently, I worked for almost 30 years with Accor rising through the ranks from a night porter to become the Senior Vice President of Operations, Pacific North. Before leaving to start Trilogy Hotels, I was responsible for 85 hotels throughout NSW, ACT, QLD and NT. To me, hospitality has always felt like home, and I fell in love with it from the very beginning. I threw myself into my studies and graduated as Dux of my class in 1994 from the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School. Afterwards, I found a graduate position as a night porter at Novotel Brighton Beach. I worked through the Rooms and Food and Beverage Departments before being offered a position in a National Management Traineeship program. I was one of four trainees selected to be part of an upskilling program to fast-track talent throughout Accor. This gave me several opportunities to learn from amazing experiences and leaders across the organisation. I then began working at Accor’s flagship hotel in Darling Harbour and eventually travelled overseas to open hotels. It was also my privilege to open a hotel at Sydney Olympic Park ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. I later helped to transform operations at Sydney Olympic Park during the busy peak of the 2003 Rugby World Cup and won the global Bernache award for what we achieved across our booming F&B business. Family is everything to me, and in 2005 I married my high school sweetheart Jenny, and we moved to the Barossa Valley to give our growing family an amazing new home. With Jenny’s support, I took on a role at the Novotel there and was able to explore the importance of shaping a culinary offer in Australia’s best wine region. After several regional roles in South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, I returned to Sydney as Regional General Manager for NSW and ACT. There I had the opportunity to integrate the recently acquired Mirvac hotels with Accor, before being promoted to take on the responsibility for 85 hotels.Each of my experiences forms part of an incredible career path that took me places I never imagined as a youngster. I want others to be able to build exciting careers in the industry too, which is one of the reasons I founded Trilogy.