Life lessons from room cleaner-turned general manager

Pooja Patel, GM Holiday Inn Nairobi Two Rivers Mall. (Courtesy)

Pooja Patel opens her right palm wide, all fingers curved upwards to portray a hotel waiter balancing a tray full of delicate champagne glasses. “It is an art,” she says. “You must learn how to balance the tray with your fingers, or it will topple.”

Balancing the trays and opening champagne bottles, cleaning hotel rooms, working long night shifts, writing dissertations on a poolside — Pooja has taken advantage of every opportunity thrust her way to get to where she is, a hotel general manager.

She is among the few female general managers of top hotels in Kenya. In a recent meeting of top hotel managers, she was among three other female general managers in a room of more than 20 hotel heads.

At the Holiday Inn Two Rivers Mall, Pooja juggles her time between office work, supervising a tightly knit ensemble of close to 100 workers, making rounds within the premises, coordinating the newly-launched meeting rooms besides meeting and greeting guests. On this Wednesday afternoon, her tasks included working with gardeners in revamping the small garden at the hotel’s entrance.

Are all these in the duty rooster of a hotel general manager?” I asked her. “Not everything is scripted,” she says, “Just go over and above your call of duty.”

That last statement seems to have been her clarion call, from the moment she decided to go for a career in the highly competitive industry.

She was young when her parents took her along whenever they visited different lands. Hotels gave her a kick. Like the Leela Hoel in Mumbai, described as a “palatial hotel, the inaugural jewel of the Leela … a blend of India’s rich heritage and refined modernity and an “oasis of tranquillity with luxurious suites that look out into the hotel’s green landscapes and shimmering water bodies”.

“My parents gave their all to treat me and my brother in this hotel. I was mesmerized by how everything was so cool, clean, and well arranged. Everyone was so nice. I kept asking myself, ‘how does everything work so perfectly?’ It almost looked unreal,” she says.

This is the world Pooja wanted. A world where everything works like clockwork. Where chances to travel and see the world present themselves. The world would be like an oyster in her hands.

But she first had to overcome the persuasions of her mother who wanted her to become an optician and help more people within her community. Pooja stuck to her guns, egged on by the sheer grit with which her grandfather made it in Zambia.

Pooja’s grandfather was orphaned in India and at about 17 years of age, boarded a ship, enduring the many perils at sea, and moved to Zambia. Here, he joined other relatives who taught him the ropes of surviving in the harsh continent but one that presented immense opportunities. He ended up as a truck driver.

It was in Zambia where her father was born. He would later meet up with his mother through an arranged marriage. Zambia became their home where young Pooja schooled till high school before proceeding to the USA for college.

“I learnt the value of excelling in whatever was thrown my way from an early age. My father was the chilled pilot and my mother a robust accountant who pushed me to greater heights. It was actually my mother who urged me to intern at a hotel in Zambia before joining college in order to instill some work ethics in me,” she says.

At Johnson and Wales University, Pooja learnt from the best tutors in a college regarded as one of the best in culinary arts, hospitality and business. JWU competed for the best slot with equally-acclaimed Cornell University and the Culinary Institute of America.

Her real career began in 2011 at The Historic Dunhill Hotel in Charlotte North Carolina, USA. The hotel with a rich legacy was built in 1929 and is a member of the Historic Hotels of America. It is the dream of anyone trained in hospitality to work at Dunhill.

But Pooja had to start from the bottom, first as a front office receptionist and three months later, as a housekeeper, working her way up to housekeeping supervisor within a year. “I went to housekeeping happily,” she says.

“Here was a 21-year-old Zambian girl in charge of 60-year-olds. It was humbling for all of us. I learnt to respect those older than me, and they too respected those younger than them as well. They were kind and taught me all the patience I required at my age. You can always learn from anyone regardless of their status in life.”

In the following year, Pooja moved back to Zambia to look for a job as she could not secure a work permit for a job that could be done by a local. In America, she says, education levels are high and she could not justify a work permit application in addition to such a permit being costly.

Back home, she joined Radisson Blu Hotel in Lusaka as a night duty manager for six months before moving on to an assistant front office manager. Working night shifts had its fair share of challenges, she recalls. “It not only tested my resilience but my sleep patterns too. But hey, hospitality is a 24-hour business,” she says.

She was off again, this time to pursue her Master’s of Science degree in Leysin Switzerland at the Swiss Hotel Management School between 2013-2014 before returning home to write her dissertation. Like the rest of Africa, Zambia had poor internet connection. “I would come in the morning and sit at the poolside of the Radisson Blu Lusaka hotel and use internet coupon from the hotel.”

At the behest of the resident general manager, Pooja joined the sales team at the hotel. It was at this hotel where she, as banqueting manager, learnt to balance the glass trays bottles as mentioned on the outset.  

Later, during her stint at the Radisson Blu in Upper Hill, Nairobi, the staff taught her how to open champagne bottles, picking more vital life lessons.

“Don’t be embarrassed to learn. Don’t be the fool that wants to appear right but is not”.

In her stints in the USA, Zambia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and now Kenya, Pooja has collected immense lessons that have shaped her life and career, lessons she wants to impart to the younger generation.

“You may not have prior experience in everything but always grab any opportunity and learn on the go. Few people give you the opportunity and if you do not get one, ask for it if you want to grow. Make yourself available. Have your name on that team that creates a difference,” she says.

“Show the people who you are. Do something extra that will make you stand out. Make the most of your younger years. Do not be quick to fret if people do not embrace your ideas immediately, especially if they are used to doing things a certain way.”