'The magic of making people happy'

Okay, so just to start off, can you tell us about your career history, early roles, and what drew you towards hospitality?

Well, I'm Philip Steiner.

I'm Chief Operating Officer at Vertic Hospitality Partners, perhaps for some known in the past as Cycus Hospitality.

We recently merged.

I was drawn to the hospitality industry Not sure when and why, but I have a recording of myself when I was like five years old for my uncle where he asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I guess most people want to be a pilot or a doctor or an astronaut.

And I said I wanted to be a general manager.

Oh,

very specific.

Yes.

And why? I don't know.

I mean, I've always been inspired by the magic of making people happy and creating service.

I'm very detailed and I love things to be in the right place.

And I guess as a general manager, that's kind of what you need to do.

I mean, I remember watching a documentary when I was young and I saw a general manager aligning the flowers in vases on the tables and um a famous general manager in amsterdam in the netherlands which is where i'm originally from um and that just inspired me i just thought is there a profession where that is acceptable amazing that's what i want to do um so yeah i guess i always mentally was on that path um It wasn't for granted, though.

And it's an interesting link to the previous podcast, which was a lot about art.

I had a choice in my career whether I would go down the art route or the hospitality

route.

Art is really important to me as well.

But I realized very quickly that in the art world, you're either really good, like the previous guest, Um, or you're always sort of someone second, um, whilst in hospitality, you can drive your own destiny.

Um, and you're in charge of your own, yeah, your, your, your own future.

And so I chose the latter and here we are.

Oh, very fascinating.

Very, very interesting.

So when it came to that, to choosing that route, what made it, what was the deciding factor really? Where did the crossroads begin? I

guess just travel is inspiring, but the ability to, to, to have control and control is a big thing in my life.