I am Naureen, Founder of Inspiring Women in Hospitality
I am a community builder, gender balance advocate and inspire impact coach.
How did I get into this?
I found myself in hospitality as a place of true belonging. Where I was not the odd-one out and everyone had a weird story like I did. Here I began a journey of discovery to identify what I enjoyed the most and where I could make an impact.
- I started in F&B and I loved it. The creativity, variety, creating those beautiful culinary experiences.
- Then I found myself in revenue management and rediscovering my love of data. A spreadsheet would make me so happy. And when I got the forecast right… I don’t need to tell you the sense of satisfaction I would get. In fact one day I must tell you about the August 2009 forecast.
- My love of data brought me to STR and benchmarking. Knowing that the data we provided helped our customers make better and informed decisions was something I was proud of. So proud I stayed there for 12 years!
But around 2018 I started having an uneasy feeling. Is STR all I am ever going to be known for? I am so grateful to them for the career I developed and network I built. But I wanted more and that led me on a journey of self discovery. I took up yoga, joined a hiking group, drawing geometric art patterns and salsa dancing. All things to broaden my mind. And it was during this time I kept being drawn towards women in leadership and I asked myself how can I make an impact here? My time at STR gave me that unique over view of the industry and I started noticing a lack of women in senior leadership positions. Were they not there yet or we did not hear about them?
That led me to start the podcast Inspiring Women’s in hospitality in 2020. And that has grown to so much more since.
So what have I done?
- Interviewed over 200 women globally over the past four years for the podcast and built a wealth of knowledge of the female experience in hospitality
- Held 13 inspire Roundtables in 8 cities around the world
- Launched the Inspire Community in September 2023 with over 100 members globally and counting
- Coaching women to grow in confidence and progress in their careers to make an impact
- Conducted workshops for women in leadership
- Been invited to speak on podcasts, webinars and in person events on the topics of gender balance, networking and inclusive leadership
The work I am doing today gives me a great sense of fulfilment and also knowing the impact that I will bring to the industry to change the make-up of our leadership over the next 5 to 10 years. My vision is gender balance at all levels of hospitality.
So the question I leave you with today is?
Have you ever had a feeling of being unfulfilled? You know you want to make an impact but you don’t know how?
