INTERVIEW
LEADING THE WAY Abigail Tan is CEO of the St Giles Hotels Group in the UK, Europe and North America but she is not your average hotelier, as her energy, passion and adventurous nature are what drives her, and she believes that hospitality has to be a way of life and not simply a job. As she puts it,“I have a passion for people, and creating happy teams.” In her spare time, you might find her flying helicopters, riding a motorbike and having a boxing lesson at 6am. Lynda Clark chats to her about how it began, her plans for the future and her charity work
worked. It was a very good opportunity for me as I worked across all the projects, and it encouraged me to focus on learning who I was as a leader and what role I wanted to take in the company. He was a brilliant mentor and even used to drive me back to Exeter, which takes quite a long time, and we talked about hotels all the way. Sadly, he had a very bad stroke and so I took over his role while he recovered and came back. “I was passionate about studying and when I finished, I naturally joined the St Giles team as Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategic Investments. I was involved with the purchase of two New York properties and assisting with negotiations and transition preparations. I became CEO in 2018 and I was travelling to New York every two to three weeks. It was hard work but I was in my 20s and it was exciting to build a new team from scratch, learn new cultures and meet new people,” Abigail oversees the London hotels,
hotel, talking to the reception staff, going into the back of house and asking what games they had to play with and best of all, finding the housekeeper’s trolley to see what I could take. Even now I take a peek at the trolley to see if there is anything interesting there! My parents would tell the story many times of how the only way to get me to leave the hotel was to say we were going to another hotel. I’ve also always been fascinated by how hotels are built and the whole construction process has always interested me. I found it amazing how it starts from nothing and ends up as a fabulous new hotel. “I eventually went to the University of Exeter to study business, but during the holidays I was an apprentice for the St Giles Hotel Group and shadowed the COO at the time. I was very keen to learn, and he invited me to go along to board meetings, even sit at his desk and try out my ideas and generally see how the whole operation
It is the second day back in the office after her maternity leave when I chat to Abigail, and during her time away they moved offices, so she is still finding her way around the new surroundings. Immediately I can feel the vibrancy and passion for everything she does, yet she is still very grounded and seriously has great enthusiasm for everything. Abigail was born and brought up in Penang, Malaysia, and said, “I was in the business before I really knew it. My family owned hotels and one weekend a month when I was under 10 years of age, we would go to the beach and stay in one of my favourite hotels called Rasa Sayang, aptly meaning the feeling of love in Malay. I have a vivid recollection of being so excited as soon as I walked in, I would take a deep breath and exclaim ‘Hotel….’! I was fascinated about how everything worked there and wasn’t bothered about going to the beach but would wander around the
66 First Time Buyer October/November 2024
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