Resiliency
How a Hospitality Leader Transformed Setback Into Purpose Through Relentless Resilience
LEADERSHIP & RESILIENCE
I Didn’t Survive This Industry by Being Tough.
I Survived It by Being Relentless — and Resilient.
By Joyce Turchetti, Founder, Synergy F&B Consulting
I was 23 years old, standing in a New York City bus station with $200 in my pocket and no plan beyond the next few hours. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. I didn’t ask for help—I was too proud for that. I just went.
Three years earlier, I had started as a cocktail server in a Fort Lauderdale nightclub. By 23, I was running the place. The owner saw something in me and offered to take me to New York. I didn’t have the money to do it—but I wasn’t about to admit that. So I didn’t. I scraped together $200, got on a bus, and figured I’d work out the rest when I arrived.
I slept in that bus station. By that evening, I had a bartending job. That same night, during training, I met someone subletting an apartment. I told him I’d pay nightly until I could commit to monthly. He agreed. I kept my word. Within two years, I was General Manager of Visage—at the time one of the most iconic nightclubs in New York City, spanning two city blocks, backed by millions in investment, and attracting a clientele that included some of the most recognizable names in the world.
From the outside, that story might look like hustle. And it was. But what it really was—what I didn’t yet have words for—was resilience in its rawest form. Not the polished, conference-ready version of the word. The real kind. The kind that doesn’t pause to assess whether conditions are favorable. The kind that moves because stopping isn’t an option you’re willing to consider.
I kept climbing after Visage. Decades in hospitality leadership—IHG properties, award-winning general management, revenue transformations, operational rebuilds. A career built by being more prepared, more consistent, and more strategic than most people in the room. And I do mean most—including the men who kept getting promoted into roles I had already outgrown. (You’re welcome, gentlemen.)
I should have been a Director by 30. I knew the role. I had the results. In many cases, I was already doing the job—without the title, the compensation, or, apparently, the right chromosomes.
The men who got those positions instead were not more qualified. In some cases, they were impressively—almost admirably—less so. But they had something I refused to trade in: access. The unspoken currency of an industry that rewards proximity and compliance over competence.
I would not sleep my way to the top. So I climbed the hard way—on merit, grit, and a track record that spoke for itself. Loudly.
It took longer. It cost more. And along the way, I developed a sense of humor sharp enough to survive just about anything. Because if you can’t laugh at the absurdity of watching a less-qualified man stumble into the role you’ve been quietly running for two years, you’re going to need a lot of therapy. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
I would make the same choice again without hesitation. The humor, though—that wasn’t optional. That was survival gear.
And still—that wasn’t the whole story.
Because the hardest part of climbing wasn’t the hours, the pressure, or the scale of the properties I managed. It was the constant, exhausting work of being a woman in rooms full of men who couldn’t decide whether to respect you or pursue you.
Colleagues who were supposed to be peers.
Supervisors who were supposed to be professional.
An industry culture that made it clear—both explicitly and implicitly—that your advancement came with conditions.
For most of my career, I managed it the way many women do—carefully, strategically, and largely in silence. Because speaking up had consequences. Because the professional cost of naming what was happening often outweighed the cost of tolerating it. Because I had worked too hard and come too far to risk it all on a complaint that might go nowhere.
In my 50s, I stopped managing it quietly. I reported sexual harassment. I pursued the case. And I won.
I also lost my job.
That’s the part that doesn’t make it into the inspirational version of this story—that doing the right thing, at great personal cost, after decades of professionalism and documented excellence, can still cost you everything professionally—even when you win.
The system can be navigated correctly and still leave you standing in the rubble.
And yet—here I am.
I founded Synergy F&B Consulting. I mentor food and beverage entrepreneurs through SCORE. I am building SafetyShift, an AI-powered workplace safety platform designed specifically for the hospitality industry. Because if I can help protect the next generation of women in this business from even a fraction of what I navigated, that matters more to me than anything on my résumé.
Resilience is not a trait. It is a decision—one you make repeatedly, in circumstances that have no business requiring this much of you.
It’s the $200 in your pocket when you know you need more.
It’s the nightly rent payment when you can’t yet afford monthly.
It’s standing up for yourself after decades of calculated silence, knowing what it might cost—and doing it anyway.
And when it all gets to be too much, you find something to laugh about. Not because it’s funny—but because humor reminds you that you are still bigger than whatever is trying to break you.
I didn’t survive this industry by being tough.
I survived it by refusing—every single time—to let it be the end of my story.
And by laughing, loudly and unapologetically, at every absurd chapter along the way.
About the Author
Joyce Turchetti is a 43-year hospitality industry veteran, award-winning General Manager, and founder of Synergy F&B Consulting. She mentors food and beverage entrepreneurs through SCORE and is the creator of SafetyShift, an AI workplace safety platform for the hospitality industry.
