THE STORY

My name is Sofie J. Ziethen, and I have a very clear mission for my customers and partners:

I want them and their company to become better in their performance, employee development and thereby in their service quality.

To achieve this, by acting according to a system that I designed over the past years. A proven, systematic approach to achieve excellence. 

The system and its relevance is based on hard work, dedication and real-life experience paired with academic research and a ´´personal calling for excellence´´!

My triggering moment for this was shortly after my graduation ''Master in international Hotel Management'', in one of my first management positions, which I started in 2011 in Abu Dhabi in the pre-opening phase of a hotel.

A few weeks before the opening, we were still on a construction site. Half the systems were not yet in place, processes were incomplete, and staff, people who had never met before, were neither trained nor ready to act in a five-star hotel operation and to offer service quality.

In an ideal world, we would have asked the cooks to heat up their pans and fry a few things - however, we had no gas to cook with at that point in the opening, and I was looking for other ways to share our knowledge with the new carpenters.

The problem with that:

We had basically nothing yet, neither mattresses in the rooms, nor gas in the kitchen. I knew in a few weeks the first guests would be at the door ready to check in for their dream and luxury vacation.

We, were far from being ''ready''. I had to make as a decision.

Either I fly back to Vienna and do nothing, or I follow my instincts and drive (back then, alone, as a 23-year-old woman in the United Arab Emirates), and seize the opportunity to achieve great things.

Of course, I chose the latter.

I took responsibility for making my department, and therefore the hotel, the operation and the staff, work with my team. I went online, found some pictures and did my best to share what I knew with all the employees.

Their appreciation, immediate understanding and hunger for more knowledge motivated me to help them even more and get into what is now known to me as "People Development and Training".