Yasemin Ugurlu Email & Phone Number

Connecticut, United States

Hartford, Connecticut Area

• Key contributor with organization’s leadership - balance priorities, work competently and confidently with a variety of high-pressure stakeholders.• Raise the profile of the organization and strengthen relationships with the community by managing collaborations with community partners.• Plan, organize and execute core company events (i.e. meetings, galas, banquets) at flagship locations.• Primary manager of all facets of each event including invitations, registrations, travel arrangements, facilities layout, menu/beverage planning, technology set-up, vendor management, finance, and invoicing, requiring detail-oriented multi-tasking and organization.• Use project management skills to balance and coordinate multiple internal and external resource providers, keeping all stakeholders focused and on target to achieve common goals.• Utilize a scenario management approach, anticipating all “what ifs” and building in contingencies.• Key player in projects geared towards re-engineering of workflows critical to the organization's success.• Serve in a public relationship capacity with all guests, using events and outreach to promote the vision, values and brand of the institution.• Active participant and leader in other company initiatives, including negotiating vendor contracts, coordinating all logistics, interfacing with IT and video conferencing group, and determining staffing needs. • Expert in Windows, Zoom, DocuSign, Survey Monkey; proficiency in QuickBase.

Antalya, Türkiye

• Managed staff at a 5-Star resort with bottom-line responsibility for operations, guest relations, sales, marketing, and special/holiday events.• Trained all front-end staff to improve cultural competency, customer retention, and overall customer satisfaction.• Interviewed, selected, mentored and supported top customer service agents, ensuring they performed in accordance with the established resort standards and values.• Resolved customer complaints, and anticipated potential problems by reviewing and monitoring operational issues, business flow, and associate performance.• Created specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely action plans to remedy guest service deficiencies.• Implemented social media strategy to achieve market penetration, enhance hotel awareness and branding/messaging to maximize appeal to target market.• Collaborated with IT on innovative web design and content, as well as operations software design, to better represent the resort to the public and to enhance our internal efficiency.• Built a client-centric philosophy to ensure a positive guest experience with a focus on loyalty and retention.• Used customer surveys and feedback as a baseline for continuous improvement initiatives.• Established goals and performance metrics to better analyze and optimize our progress.• Streamlined and re-engineered operational workflows and processes to achieve lean and efficient staffing.• Established and supervised group’s payment system between accounting departments, central finance department and banks to increase efficiency.• Played a key role in pre-sale of group's golf course and hotel property with foreign buyers by overseeing and coordinating operational logistics, including financial audits; property management; translation of correspondence and documents; maintaining and submitting the due diligence list; and reporting out status updates to the CEO and Board Chair.

Antalya, Türkiye

• Handled diverse requests, complaints and problems of international guests in award winning 5-Star all-inclusive resort, requiring creative problem solving to satisfy guests and increase brand loyalty.• Collaborated with supervisors and other departments to provide guests with one-stop service solutions.• Worked with sales and marketing department to create and implement innovative marketing strategies, and supported the team with correspondence, translation, and on the ground marketing efforts at tourist expositions.• Attended to all VIP guests from arrival to departure, anticipating and addressing all needs and requests with courteous professionalism.

Hartford, Connecticut Area

• Built, implemented, and executed operational system and processes for new banquet space to allow for higher capacity for event/meeting sales and to maximize sales revenue.• Scheduled and trained employees and ensured proper staff coverage to reduce patron waiting times.• Checked restaurant and banquet facilities on a daily basis to ensure cleanliness, high quality food and food presentation.• Focused efforts on cost efficiencies, productivity, a positive customer experience and bottom-line profitability.