Her Story
About Toni
I'm the Event Manager at the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute, where I've been doing event sales and management for three and a half years. I run our event department and operate a team of about 10 individuals, managing everything from operations and execution to payroll, scheduling, and building our standard operating procedures. We do both in-house cross-functional events for our education department and external events where people can rent our event space with full catering. I work closely alongside our executive chef, and I'm very much on the hospitality front of house side. I help clients plan their events from start to finish, walking them through the entire process. I try to stress the hospitality in our name and go above and beyond, striving for what I call unreasonable hospitality every day. I recently hired an event sales manager to join my team, so now I can focus heavily on operations and execution. Before landing in this role, I worked in hospitality growing up, including as a hostess at restaurants while in college. After graduating with a degree in criminal justice, I worked for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department for a couple years, then became an 8th grade ELA teacher. This role at NOCHI fell into my lap very naturally. It was actually laid on my heart before I even started working there. I had written in my journal that I wanted to own event spaces for the long haul, and then this opportunity came to me. Hospitality has always been embedded in me since childhood, growing up in church helping with repasses, celebration of life events, youth ministry activities, ushering, and serving food. My mom and grandma were always the ones volunteering for those things, and seeing them do it made it very natural for me. I'm a member of Meeting Planners International (MPI) and Mid-South Women in Tourism (MSWIT), where I network and build both professional and personal relationships. I work with a lot of corporate and nonprofit clients, and I've been able to build strong relationships in the community.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Toni
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say make sure that it's something that you are aligned with, that you really want to do, because it makes it sweeter when you enjoy what you do. It makes it easier for you to bear with the long hours, because sometimes events can roll all day, and you're there before the event goes and you're the last person that leaves most of the time. I would say build a spirit of excellency. We're not perfect, but there is a way to build that spirit of excellency, and whatever you do, give it your all. Also, I would definitely advise network, network, network in this lane. Please get out there, meet people, talk to people, exchange phone numbers, attend their events or something that they're having that they're inviting you to, or a luncheon. I definitely advise getting a mentor in this lane, somebody that you can look up to as a mentor, somebody you can ask questions to, someone you could talk to that's outside of your family and friends, somebody that's in that lane that understands or been there and done it. Find someone that you fit with, that you mesh with, not just anyone, just someone that you click with, that you feel like you can learn from, that you like their attitude. And I highly recommend reading Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. Reading that book changed my life and my perspective on hospitality. It gave me a good look on how you can do little different things in the hospitality industry that makes a difference, and you can apply it anywhere. Every company needs hospitality, whether it's a law firm or McDonald's. Every company needs a strong hospitality part for people to feel appreciated, welcomed, and understood.
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