Never Give Up: How I Became CEO (And How I'm Empowering Others Now) - Sima Patel, Ridgemont Hospitality

Sima: My story is one of an accidental hotelier. I had no idea that I would be working in the hotel industry. I married into it. My elders had decided that I would make a great housewife someday, and that's what I was groomed as. I had an arranged marriage at the age of 17. I arrived from India and started getting trained on checking in a guest the next morning. I had never seen a credit card in my life. And my first training was how to collect credit card payments with the sliding machines if you remember those. And I just fell in love. I just love talking to people, inviting people into the hotel, and making their experience as memorable as possible. And I had good training. My husband's father trained me firsthand how to check in a guest. My husband decided to build a hotel in Humboldt County, five hours from the Bay Area. So my two kids and I followed him for the summer and said, we will not be staying alone here. We'll follow you. We'll help you open the hotel.

Josiah: So you went up, you all went up?

Sima: Yes, we all went up and spent the summer. The kids were excited. They distributed pillows in each room before opening and distributing blankets, making it a fun experience to open this hotel. It was a brand new Holiday Inn Express. Holiday Inn Express was also a new franchise at that time. We were the second Holiday Inn Express in Northern California. So it got a bit overwhelming. We had two small hotels here in Oakland to manage, and I jumped in to assist my husband and the rest is history. I became a businesswoman overnight. Had to learn everything about hotels on my own. Resilience is dealing with an angry guest on a day-to-day basis. Employees not showing up, pulling all night and maybe all day, sometimes working 16 hours. And I've done all that in the beginning. I was racially profiled because I lived in Oakland. I was accused of drug dealing, and the canine units were called on me. when I got into a major accident on US 101. I mean, some of those experiences would turn you off from doing things. It actually propelled me to do more. And I think that's resilience. That's grit. Managing a household, raising two kids, working in a hotel 16 hours a day, and building the hotel where I'm my own interior designer because there is no budget for a professional interior designer. When the general manager quits on you, jumping right back into operations, all that has built resilience in me. Women have faced tough issues throughout history, and that's what's made them strong. I think it's part of the life experience to go through such things and build resilience in you. When I had to jump into the business and run a Holiday Inn Express, I had to learn the operating system. I had to learn HR overnight, start hiring people, learn about sales and marketing, and then bring that back to the next project at the Oakland Airport. We are pre-opening. I'm working to literally clean rooms and put supplies in rooms so we can open the Holiday Inn. In those days, it was Holiday Inns and Resorts, which is now IHG. The quality assurance inspector checked in to give a final approval to open. He goes to dinner, comes back, and says, Sima, you're not opening tomorrow. And he ran up the elevator, and I was just in tears. And I said, no, this can't happen. Because calling him again would mean spending an extra $2,000 and having him. So I called, gathered a team all night. We worked all night, set up the breakfast bar myself. He comes down the elevator in the morning and he's shocked. He gives a hundred percent score, stamps it, and opens the hotel. And then he used it in future workshops at IHG as an example!

Josiah: That is grit. But what did that teach you about what it takes? 

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