I suspect that gave me confidence at a fairly young age that I could communicate with people.17 What’s the first lesson that you learnt in business?I started my career properly with Unilever and there were two very fundamental principles that I learnt there. The first was that good businesses are built around consumers and, secondly, that good businesses are based on good people. I’ve worked in very different businesses and industries since then, but those are the two common factors that have remained constant in my mind.18 How important is your personal profile to your business?I don’t think it’s hugely important. We work with a lot of major corporations around the world – about 70 per cent of the world’s top 250 companies are customers of ours – and many of them don’t know me from Adam. It is important to some customers that I get involved, but they know who our key people are. I think it’s important that we’ve got some sort of public profile as far as the investing public is concerned, but ours is not a business built around one individual and it would worry me if that was the perception of the company.19 Is there a single task that you hate doing the most?Probably doing my tax return. It may be part of my Scottish ancestry, but I resent paying somebody else to do my tax return so I do it myself.

I find it quite hard going.20 What makes you lose your temper?Dishonesty is really the only thing that will make me lose my temper. I can live with a certain amount of incompetence because not everybody is good at everything, but the thing that really gets me riled is people attempting to cover up problems. If we are honest with each other, you can cope with all sorts of problems.. It’s really irritating. Every time I come dashing into the office with an exciting piece of news, Tony says: “Oh, yes. I heard that, too.” I keep in touch with the business pretty well, but I’ve yet to tell him something he didn’t already know.

Mind you, his network is better than mine!

It’s really irritating. Every time I come dashing into the office with an exciting piece of news, Tony says: “Oh, yes. I heard that, too.” I keep in touch with the business pretty well, but I’ve yet to tell him something he didn’t already know. Mind you, his network is better than mine!
I’ve been here since October 1999 and this is my first job in the sector. But Tony has worked in hotels since he graduated and is pretty well known.

So, often, I’ll phone someone on his behalf and they’ll say: “I used to work with Tony at …” or “Tony and I met at ….” He seems to know everyone. Before he came to Millennium & Copthorne [in September 1999], he was chief executive of Choice Hotels Europe. Before that he’d spent 19 years in senior roles with Hilton, and he also worked for several other large groups – so you could say he has a good pedigree.Tony has made a number of fundamental changes to the business. His first priority was to set up a system allowing our customers to tell us what they want, which also forms the basis of our new training strategy. And from now on, we’ll be taking part in the university Milk Round.Another first was the Staff Awards Gala Dinner, recognising the contribution of employees throughout the business It was a wonderful evening.

Tony gave out the awards himself, which was right up his street – he’s a great showman, very flamboyant. The Uniform Assistant at the Copthorne Tara Hotel won the Employee of the Year award. We may sit here in head office, but we rely on chambermaids and everyone else for the success of our business Tony knows that and is very loyal to his staff. He often eats in the staff canteen and likes to be accessible He’s very straightforward – what you see is what you get. There’s no hidden agenda.At the moment, we’re working on a huge branding exercise to standardise our corporate image across the world.