Laura Giordano

I attribute my success to being passionate about what you do and never stopping learning. I never sit here and say I know everything, that would be a lie, because it changes all the time. I don't care what it is you want to do, and I've said this to my children, mommy doesn't care if you want to be a garbage man, as long as you're happy in that job. You're going to learn something all the time about it. Make your job your hobby. Be happy that you're there, whatever it is.

The best career advice I ever received came from Mr. Ed Keys, who was one of my general managers. He used to call me his maverick and was always allowing me to think out of the box, to not always settle for the status quo. But the best advice that he always gave me, and it's still on my signature line, is: before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

My advice to women entering this industry is to not be so protective and think that you know everything, because you don't. Really get out there and learn, and join. You have to be creative. If you're going to be in hotels and in the sales arena, you have to network, but do it in a way that makes it a fair playing ground and fun for everybody. I used to have Juice It Up Thursdays where I would lead a Zumba class, and people would network while feeling good, then we'd have juice bars. When I started, nobody wanted to share information. The STAR report was like, God forbid. But what you want to do is keep the business that you have within your comp set, because if it moves out, it's going to be harder to get back, so it's better to share information than to hide information. Network. Start your own group. I've had women focus groups, the Teterboro Airport Thursday meetings where we discuss challenges, what it's like to be a single mom and how you navigate that. We bring in speakers and things for them. Be part of the community of which you're serving.

The biggest challenge we're facing right now is competing against AI. There are times where I really like AI because it's really fast and gives me my information, but it's also cutting jobs, and that's not a fair playing ground. It's almost like, where is this industry really going? You can take a hotel model and it might be the wave of the future where it becomes almost robotic, because you already have mobile key check-in, you could probably have a kiosk at the front desk if you needed to, and then you could have one person maybe on the national side or a global side of sales that's running AI. It's just changing. The automation of the change - I can honestly say I did not have a computer when I started. We had a day timer and a calendar and a big book for catering. I've had to learn to adapt to changes along the way. What I have learned is that it's never going to stop. There will come a point in my life where I'm going to say, I think I learned enough of this, because it's ongoing.

The values most important to me in my work and personal life are building bridges and maintaining open lines of communication. I stand here today and say that I build bridges, and because of the bridges that I've built, it's reciprocal. I can call anytime and say, hey, listen, it's me, Laura, and Kathy's in LA right now, and I'll say, Kath, I really need help on this, what do you know about that? And we help each other out that way. You never cut down somebody else. You want to uplift. My best advice for anybody, as I sit here today, would be to say it would be a damn shame to take all that I've learned along the way and didn't pay it forward and not teach somebody what I know.