“Family Owned Company”

Paul Milsom's Inspirational Journey

Career Path: School > Tourism Management Degree > Family Owned Company > Managing Director

“Working in the Hospitality Sector is incredibly rewarding.  It is an exciting, fast moving and vibrant industry which offers a whole range of interesting career opportunities for people of all backgrounds"

My Story: When I finished my degree in Hotel and Catering Management at the University of Surrey, I joined our family owned company. Initially I was General Manager of Le Talbooth Restaurant but over the next six years, I had the opportunity of running all 3 of the small hotels that we owned at an operational level during the 90's recession. This was a huge learning curve and the lessons we learnt then helped us greatly during the growth years that followed and now again as we enter into another recession. In that  time we have rebuilt the company from the low point of 1993 so that we now have 7 different businesses, set over 5 properties and employ between 350 and 400 people, full and part time. My own role has been extremely varied and has covered marketing and sales, finance, recruitment, training and leading a talented team, but the buzz of a busy restaurant or creating a wonderful party, is still the thing that gives me the greatest pleasure.
It's the people side that brings our business to life, the customers of course, but above all the fantastic team of people that we employ who make our business what it is. Some may only stay a year or two whilst others have committed the majority of their working life to our enterprise. Either way I hope they have enjoyed working with us.

 

Funny Story: Welcoming a bus full of Dutch guests with impaired mobility to our Harwich restaurant. It took ¾ hour to unload them from the bus and we had to get rid of all the chairs into the yard to accommodate the wheelchairs. Having got them all settled, the bus driver then told us they were on the ferry that night. We quickly realized he had forgotten the one hour time difference between the UK and Holland  - meaning they should have been checking in rather than eating fish and chips. The result of all this was that we had to immediately reload them onto their bus, unfortunately the only penny they spent was in the loo!