Insights from Ian Carter, former CEO of Hilton International: How to Balance High-Tech with High-Touch

Alex Husner  0:02  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals. I'm Alex 

Annie Holcombe  0:14  
and I'm Annie

Alex Husner  0:15  
and we are joined today with Ian Carter, who is the former CEO of Hilton International and currently is the chair of the board for the Watches of Switzerland Group, Eataly, Boom, which everybody knows, and then also the Boston University School of Hospitality and Administration. What a resume Ian

Ian Carter  0:36  
mouthful, that's for sure.

Annie Holcombe  0:39  
Thank you so much for joining us as we talked off camera. We do have listeners that are on the hotel side, but most of our audience is vacation rental centric. So why don't you talk a little bit about all of these great accolades and titles that you have, what your journey's been like to get you where you are today?

Ian Carter  0:56  
Sure. Well, I, unlike a lot of people in the hospitality industry, who I have enormous respect for. I didn't actually start there. I kind of grew up with General Electric without getting too obvious on dates and show my age. I worked, ultimately at GE for Jack Welch. So I was in the my formative years were in the US. Working for GE, I ran the chemical business as my last job for GE before moving to Black and Decker, where ultimately I was the president of all of the operations outside of America. I was based in London, but I ran Asia, Europe and South America, five fantastic years. And kind of unusually, I guess I I knew one of the board members for Hilton International, personally, we were kind of friends, and at that time, which was 2006 2007 around there that the the company was looking for a new CEO, and they made a decision to go outside of the hospitality industry, which was pretty bold at the time, but actually also it was the same thing that IHG did when they when they appointed Andy COSLA, who came from cabarets, which is now part of Hershey's. I was at Black and Decker. 

I met with the rest of the board, the chair of Hilton International, and we kind of hit it off. And I think my background, which was very disciplined in the sense of financial responsibilities, all of those sorts of things, the training I had internationally was, I guess, either you could say it was a good fit, good opportunity, or it was a risk, from their perspective, worth taking. So I joined Hilton in 2006 seven as CEO of Hilton International, which at the time was entirely separate from Hilton in America. We had a couple of joint ventures, including the Hilton hollers program, the loyalty program, the Conrad brand. But basically, Hilton international had separated from Hilton in America some 50 years before, and you know, was responsible essentially, for the Hilton brand everywhere outside of America, with a few areas of overlap in South America and Hong Kong. But for the rest, it was two separate companies, and I was very close to the leadership team in America, and they likewise were very close to us here there, as it was in the UK. We were listed in the UK anyway. I accepted the job. Fantastic move. Loved the business from day one, spent my first 90 days visiting as many hotels as possible around the world to ensure I kind of got a feel for how the business was being run. Fantastic team members, great training ground. We have many great stories of people that have joined the business and risen through the ranks through various different jobs and subsequently become general managers in their not their home country, necessarily, but abroad, so truly international. But it was clear to me at the time that really the two companies should rejoin one way or another. It was, it was kind of sub optimal to have the two brands separate. So we owned a lot of property at the time. In my first year, 18 months, we sold about six and a half billion dollars worth of property at that time, divested of it all, returned the money shareholders. It made us attractive to be purchased back by the US. I'm cutting a very long story short here. And so Hilton Hotels Corporation purchased Hilton International, and of the team that was at Hilton international actually was the I was the only senior person that stayed from the board level. Everybody else kind of went on and did different things. I moved to to the US. Our office at the time was in LA, and I, you know, kind of ran all the international operations from LA and got to know the US business. And I commuted every two or three weeks back to London for a couple years, whilst at the same time we were approached and. And decided to take the company private with Blackstone. 

So that was right around 2009 and we took the company private in the largest private equity deal at that time. And you know, we spent the next six years essentially reshaping the company. So headline numbers at the time of us going private, we had about two and a half 1000 hotels. By the time we went public, we had 5000 hotels around the world, and now I think maybe just over the 7,000th hotel. I think from from reading and talking to some of my old colleagues, most importantly, we took brands that were tremendously successful in the US and started putting them in countries around the world, alongside, of course, the Hilton brand. So Hampton Inn hadn't existed outside of the US. It's now in many, many countries, including China, around the world, as is Hilton Garden Inn, Doubletree, etc, etc. So we put the two companies back together, essentially, and internationalized it. We moved from the West Coast to the East Coast, and now the company is headquartered in Northern Virginia, and we had a fantastic time. I did in particular, you know, helping grow the company, meeting some some really interesting and fantastic owners around the world. And you know, a vast myriad of owners, from individuals through to companies that had invested through REITs, etc. So, you know, a massive array of different ways that we grew. And it was just a great time to be in the company. Spin the clock forward a little bit, and covid hit, and it was a time for me to kind of reflect on whether, you know, I wanted to continue doing what I was doing, or I wanted to go try new things. And I'd always planned to do this during my period as as you know, running the international business at Hilton. I'd been on the board of Burberry for 10, almost 11 years. I chaired del Frisco, the Restaurant Group. For those in the US know the restaurant, I'm sure. And so around 2019 I stepped down. It was time for me to step down off the board of Burberry, because I've been doing it for longer than is normal. But I helped to with some transitions I took with the team del Frisco is private. Right at the end of 2019 sold the company to El catterton, and by that time, we owned Barcelona and bar taco, as well as del friscos. Del Frisco has ended up with Tillman. And we the the El catterton, which is, you probably know, the the private equity arm Louis. They kept Barcelona and bar taco and then covid hit. And, you know, it was, it was a time for me to think, now, do I really want to do that kind of full time exec role, or should I take some of what I've learned and see if I can help other companies, if they want my help? And I decided to do that. I was approached and in discussion with a number of different companies as to, you know, whether I could help and play a role. I loved the opportunity that was presented to me for watches of Switzerland. Watches of Switzerland, for if you don't know, it is the largest retailer in the world. Of Swiss made watches, the largest Rolex dealer in the world, largest dealer in the world, largest Odem pea for example, you know, you name the brand, it's the largest stores in the UK and across the US. 

We own multiple brands, retail brands in the US. Anyone who's in Florida, we have mayors, for example, if you're in Connecticut, we have better you're in Aspen or Vale. We also own veterans there. So we trade under various different names. But it's a very well established, well known UK listed PLC. It's also the jeweler to the crown, meaning it's it's responsible for the crown jewels in the UK. So we have this fantastic history steeped in connections to the royal family. We hold that one of our companies is called mapping, and web holds the royal warrant. So when you saw King Charles inaugurated that the crown was refitted by ours in private and secret to him, rather than his mother. So it's a very special company, and obviously fantastic retail footprint. I met with the CEO and the rest of the board we all kind of got on and said, Look, I think I can help, and I really wanted to join, so I joined the company as chair about three years ago, and we've been growing inorganically and organically through acquisition. And you know, subsequently, have really enjoyed my time on the board of watches. 

I joined the board of Italy just before Chris, just after Christmas. This invest industrial, large private equity company out of Italy, based between Italy and London and Switzerland, had bought a company. It was a private to private transaction. It's an incredible company, if you don't know it. We have, I think, in the US now, nine or so retail outlets with restaurants. That's the kind of unique feature of this business. We have them in Canada. We have them South America. We have them across Europe and in Asia and the Middle East, close to 60 worldwide. A typical example would be for be flatiron in New York. We have 75,000 foot facility that sells Italian produce of the highest quality. Has a coffee shop, a gelato bar, four restaurants, a roof bar with with a fabulous 200 seat restaurant, and we have something like that in Chicago, in LA in Dallas and multiple cities around the world. It's a really great business. Obviously, my background in hospitality and in restaurants with del Frisco was made this attractive to me. The team at invest industrial in particular, the partners, the founders, are really great. They understand brands. They understand luxury in particular, and they're orbit all of them being Italian. They really understand it. So that's been great. I'm really getting up to speed on all of that business now we've we've formed a board in the US and just taking the business now to the next level of growth with openings in we've got openings, multiple openings coming. 

But since I'm in Florida, I can tell you that we're opening in Aventura very soon, at the big mall there, and we've just signed a new lease for to open a new facility in West Palm Beach in a fabulous location, and there'll be more of those coming, of course. So with that, we have really spent, I've really spent the last three years working with private equity, on one hand, and with larger brands in the retail hospitality space. I've been involved in Boston University for a long time, and I became chair four years ago, fabulous school really found really focusing on innovation within hospitality, to try to differentiate from some of the other big schools that have hospitality schools. I was there just last week, actually, for a board meeting. At a fabulous time, we inaugurated the new president of Boston University. So it was a really momentous occasion. And I spent time there with the dean and the team, really helping them shape kind of the strategy over the next few years. So that's kind of the formal stuff, as we're really going to talk about today. Boom came around. It kind of on an unusual way in that, through my family, and in particular through my daughter's boyfriend, we have invested in single family homes for rental market, for short term rental and as we were doing this, and this was, in fact, South Florida, we came across boom, as we started to think about, how do we want to manage these properties in the most efficient, professional way if we ultimately want to attract institutional capital? So it's not the idea of having just one or two, the idea of having many requires a systematic approach, and really need some professional systemization in order to be able to present, you know, a strategy that says this is duplicative across multiple properties. It also applies to one. But our our view was, we want to have a number of these, how we're going to do this efficiently. And we came across, boom, literally, by chance, and I met with Shahar. 

We met with Shahar, and really liked what he had to say. I went to his office, actually, to understand what the Yeah, I guess. I don't know whether he calls it this, but to me, it looked like this nerve center. You know, he's got screens everywhere, and BRAC laser. And so we liked what we saw. We became a customer, and then he kind of took me to the next level and showed me what they were doing in preparation. At this point, we're there now, but in preparation to introduce AI into the equation. So not just a property management system, but AI property management. So I really like what I saw at that point. And said two things, look, if I can help, I'm happy to help. Secondly, I like to invest in the company. So I did both in the end. And, you know, I've been now involved with with Shahar for six months or so, as we think about where to take the business next. And he and his team, who are, you know, great mix of people that are both software developers and just smart marketeers, etc, that can really help take the company to the next level. But it was the frankly, it was a need we had. We found him. Secondly, more convincingly was he was in this space before. US and had the same need, and so developed technology for himself, as well, as, you know, for potentially for others. So kind of born out of his own need, he developed boom. And, you know, that brings us to today. Yeah,

Alex Husner  15:17  
wow. What a history and so many different just parts of business that you've seen between, you know, the retail to luxury brands to the restaurants and tourism, I mean, just so many different things there. But I have a million questions. I'm not sure where to begin on To be honest, but I think it's interesting, you know, from you seeing the side of hospitality, of hotels. And we talk about the professionalism of hotels versus vacation rentals a lot on our show, and that's just kind of a, you know, an ongoing topic and storyline within our industry. Andy worked for Marriott homes and villas for a little bit over a year on their side, as they tried to get into the vacation rental segment. But I'm just curious, from your experience running in the hotel side to now, what you've learned and kind of in the last six months about the vacation rental side, short term rental side of the business, what are the main differences that you see from your lens of what you've seen on the other side?

Ian Carter  16:18  
Well, you know, I won't speak to all of the other brands, but you know, if you're a Hilton or Marriott or IHG, a large portion of your business is business traveler, and there'll be a lot of cases conferences and business meetings. You know, typically that's not what we have in short term rental. It's almost completely the reverse, and particularly in the what the areas we were involved, where it's really, you know, it genuinely, genuinely, years vacation, yeah, so that's the first thing. Second thing is, of course, it's very diffuse. You know, it's not, there's there's not, although a number of the big guys are trying to aggregate through loyalty programs, etc, the ability to sell to short term rental market, which, by the way, I think, is a smart thing to do, potentially, you know, get that if you can break that code. But they're the main differences, I think, and and what I like about the short term rental market, and this is a personal thing, albeit, I come from a, you know, a big hotel company, I personally have always on a vacation, from a vacation. You know, when I'm traveling on leisure, I prefer something that's more unique and local, yeah? And there's nothing more unique and local than a short term rental. Yeah,

Alex Husner  17:31  
exactly, yeah.

Ian Carter  17:34  
Always for me, for example, now I don't I can stay, and I always have stayed anywhere I want to stay. As it were, when I'm traveling, if I'm traveling, I tend to stay in boutique hotels or small hotels. I want to understand what makes them tick, what makes them unique. Short term rental is a microcosm of that, you know, and that's what I like about it. You can be really, really local and really unique if the short term rental is running the right way, you still get the professionalism of being in a, you know, well executed, large, large, well resourced Hotel.

Annie Holcombe  18:08  
So I have a question related to the like, the standards. And again, where Alex has talked about, we talk about this all the time, like, how do we infuse the standards that people know they're going to get when they stay in a hotel brand, they say, you know, an IHG, a Hilton or a Marriott, they know they're going to get a specific type of service depending on the brand that they choose. And so there's, there's always been this conversation of like, how do we instill that same trust and that same expectation or deliver on the expectation that the consumer has? Do you think that it's feasible to do within our industry.

Ian Carter  18:40  
I yeah, I think it is, but it boils down to personal commitment from the owners. I mean, that is, you know, because some people might simply say, Look, I just want a transactional relationship on this, you know, short term rental. It's going to be people in, people out. I'm not offering anything unique or special here. It's just, you know, a volume production, as it were, but I think on many and what we've seen, I think where you look for, you know, the highest ADRs, etc, is it's going that extra mile. And that extra mile can be, of course, within the physical asset, you know, you know, you can, you can put a swimming pool, you can have a swimming pool, but you have lots of toys in the swimming pool. As an example, you know, what kind of barbecue, all of those things, you know, can add to a, the capital, but B, the potential for the ADR, and there's always a, you know, a return investment, return discussion that needs to be assessed by the owner putting a swimming pool in if nobody wants to swim. You wants to swim, simply put. So let's assume people can make that calculation. I think beyond that, then it's down to the personal delivery of the service. And actually, this is where I thought really long and hard about how AI can play, because there's a fine line between. Between personalization and personal interaction versus the ability to do things efficiently and not be, frankly, a pain in the ass, if I can. Yeah,

that is, I don't like getting a million emails before I arrive somewhere, something you have to understand that balance. The second thing might be, I decide kind of what's useful, because it's down to me when I'm, you know, staying somewhere to define what my need is. Now that makes it tricky for the owner, and that's why I think AI helps. A simple example. When I first saw one of these AI, one of boom, one of Shahar, working examples he showed me for the use of AI. AI was, you know, I'm a I'm staying in a particular property. And let's say the owner has 30 properties or 20. Doesn't matter. They manage a lot of properties. Let's say so. You know, one of the most difficult things would be, what do I as an owner want to be involved in when there's a problem? And often, case would be, I get the phone call at 9pm at night on a Friday, and I'm at dinner because the the guest has a question. And if I'm managing that property, I'm I'm the one responsible now with AI, depending, of course, on how you you know how sophisticated the AI is, and it can be massively sophisticated. Now, a lot of that interaction can be real time, very productive and very, very focused on solving a problem. An example, you know, the guest is in the in the bread, and they in the in the property, and says, Hey, I have a problem with swimming pool. It doesn't seem to be heating up, making this up, so I'm going to call the manager or the owner. Well, let's assume that the app is sophisticated enough to say, I just simply say, problem with the pool, right? The AI, and I'm really simplifying this, but the AI can not only respond to that in a meaningful way, but it can also ensure that an immediate email or text is sent to the pool person copying the owner of the owner wants to be on copy, telling them to fix it. Now, you know, because they're on a contract, let's assume that ensures 24 hour call out. I'm using that as a kind of extreme example, but the point being that all falls back on the quality of the service, ultimately, responsiveness of the owner to the guest, in the same way in a hotel, if you have a problem with your air code, typically, you get a phone front desk and say, My airco is not working. Whatever they'll send up an engineer. So in this case, it's not as simple as doing that with potentially with the owner of a property in short term rental. It needs to be more sophisticated. And I think again, Shahar and the team saw that and said, Okay, we need to come up with something smarter here that's going to be, you know, able to be repeatable and sophisticated enough that the guest feels like they're getting dealt with in the right way and is taking out manual interaction that could be unproductive, and of course, then it can be repeatable. So I gave you an example where customer service informed. But then, if you think about the track, if you think about what happens in that particular instance, a transaction results in a bill that the pool now has a bill well that could be automatically generated through back through the PMs system, and using AI, would respond to the pool. But you know the guy that fixed the pool, it populates a receivable, a billable when that's paid, etc, and it populates your accounts such that you're ready to produce a PNL, ready for your accountant again. I'm exaggerating for effect here, but I think, guess what? I mean. Going back to your original question, Annie, it's, it's difficult to be as formulaic as in a hotel, because you've typically got two or 300 rooms in one block, right? Not the same. But it's all about response, you know, understanding the guest needs and being as focused on immediacy, so the problems are solved if they arise as quickly as possible. It can also it conversely, also though be productive, and it can be suggestions. You know, it could be that the person staying at the short term rental says, God, I'd really love to go for, you know, a fantastic Asian fusion, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  24:27  
yeah. Where should I go?

Ian Carter  24:30  
I go, Yeah, rather than it being printed out on a list, or I go and do my search, which I might still choose to do, if I go and do my search on, you know, on Yelp or something. That could be an interaction, again, through the system that we put in place. So I think it's it's difficult to be as repeatable as a hotel, just simply because of the volumes involved. But it's also very possible to be quite personal, which is actually, I think people want but personal when they want it, rather than in your face. Yes,

Alex Husner  25:00  
right? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's such a complicated business that we all work in, and it's like, you know, at the end of the day, I think you're spot on that it's the ownership has to understand and have put value and weight on the importance of executing on those standards and making sure that things are done the way that they need to, and implementing the right technology that's going to enable them to be able to do that, because, at the end of the day, this business is so complicated, because there is so much manual work that has to go with it. And it's like the people that you know, if you're really leaning hard against using technology and AI and these things you're you can still get the job done. But if it's nine o'clock on that Friday and you want to have a life, it's really hard because you're constantly being pulled in million directions. So, yeah, more you lean in, the better. But

Ian Carter  25:48  
the question of being productive as well, I mean in the sense that productive and reactive in a good way. And again, what I mean by that is, you know, there's no point me sending a text if I don't get an answer till the next I expect something immediate. And the beauty of the potential of AI is it's immediate. It's not an immediate. Got your text, it's an immediate, okay, right? Just define specifically what the issue is before I make a call out. Or, again, I'm making the verbiage up, but that's how sophisticated it can be. Rather just, Yep, we got your vote well, and if

Alex Husner  26:22  
there's not a one size fits, all, way to respond to guests. And I actually just commented This on one of Simon Lehman's posts earlier today that he was talking about their guest journey and how, you know, you want to make sure that you are getting information to people in any capacity of how they're going to consume it. And I said that I agreed. But I think the one thing our industry has not gotten right yet is being able to figure out initially from that guest, how do they want to be communicated with? Because you have to be able to communicate all the different ways. But if they only want to be talked to via the text message or WhatsApp or email, whichever their choices, then that's how the flow should continue for them?

Ian Carter  27:02  
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it's, I know, in the in the hospitality industry, I can't speak in a blanket way, but sometimes it's, it's underestimated how important that first question is, is, how would you like us to respond to you, right with you? And it's the same, by the way. Same in retail, yeah, in luxury retail. I mean, you know, some of the worst things about luxury retail is, one of the worst things, I think, is that you have what, this is probably not a technical term, but I call hover us. So, you know, you go in and someone's hovering around you because they're trying to figure out, Should I step in and direct you, or should I just wait for you to ask me a question? Right? It's often easy just simply say, is there anything I can help you with right now? And if not, I'm over here. I'm here

Alex Husner  27:47  
if you need me, yeah, yeah.

Ian Carter  27:49  
Question rather than kind of, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  27:52  
yeah. So interestingly, just with all you were just saying, you think that our opportunity in standardization is more on the communication level than it is actually going into the units and having, again, like hotel linens and specific soaps and those type of things.

Ian Carter  28:10  
You know, yes, yes. I think, I think the personalization and the opportunity is not not just the interaction, but but also all the kind of back the back of house in any system, like EMS system, per se, but it's it. You know, there may be opportunity in some standardization. The question is, I think, is, is any particular owner looking to have scale? In other words, what I mean by that is, if you have four or five properties, you know, and you're trying to make them for want of a better description, a collector, a collection, they might want to have some consistencies, you know, but I think it's all that that's a function of scale, yeah, and it's the same, by the way, in hotel business, right? You know, you say even the smallest brands, they will aim to have some brand standards so that there's consistency. So if a person stays at the standard in New York, it's gonna be the same as roughly the same location as standard in Miami or the standard in LA. You know, the same could be said for a short term rental group of collection, collection or a collective. But I don't think it's essential unless, unless you really think that's going to drive loyalty. And you know, there is some extra benefit to doing it. There may be a benefit on the purchasing side, of course, but if there are benefit on the guest side to say, Okay, I'm always going to stay with this particular, particular collection of short term rentals, because, sure, you know, I love their linens and I love their soaps, yeah, brown or whatever. You know, otherwise, I think actually part of a cell. And the uniqueness of short term rental is, it is unique. Each one is a bit different, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  29:55  
yeah, the collection of boutique hotels. And how do you buy them all? Tie them all together. Yeah,

Alex Husner  30:01  
different marvels. I'm interested, too. Ian, I mean, you've, I have a lot of experience of taking public companies private, and just curious your thoughts on what has happened within our the vacation rental space, as far as the companies that have gone public, and you know, we've seen that not go so well in some cases. But, I mean, what would be your take on that? For

Ian Carter  30:24  
one rule fits all, sadly, I wish there was, because I think we could all figure, you know, we'd all, we'd all plan better, you know, I think, I think something I learned, certainly in public private, whether you're public or private is, you know, you've got to kind of figure out what's most important to you in either state. So if, if, if you want to go public, because you're looking to, you know, raise capital and grow then that might be the best route for you, because you're, you know, your existing shareholding, or existing investors in the private and the private world may just not simply have enough cash to be able to get help you go do that, but you will believe that's the right that's the right route. Conversely, the public markets operate very differently. As a public as a public company, you're under different pressures than you are private. And obviously sat both I've sat both sides the fence and I've sat both sides of the fence in America and in Europe. In Europe, it's more restrictive. And more restrictive may not the right word. It's more you have to operate in a very specific way, not just with quarterly earnings, but the number of board meetings you have, the number of people you have on the board, the diversity of the boards, and all of which is good, by the way, it's just, it's very formalized. You know, in the UK, there is a, there was a review done a number of years ago called the Cadbury act, and that actually enforced certain standards that were put in place on the way companies operate. I as a chair. Can't be a chair for longer than nine years. Then you consider the insider, so you have to rotate in the US. That's not the case. You can be the chair of a company for 30 years. You know, I'm a non executive chair, for example, which is considered to be more a generally good practice in the UK, because I'm not running the day to day of the company. In America, you can be a chair and be an executive. I'm not saying either is right or wrong, but they're quite different, and that puts different pressures on the companies. The one commonality being public versus private is that, generally speaking, public companies are measured quarterly, and a quarterly measurement can be quite tough, especially if you're a growing business and you're trying to persuade the markets that actually the best is ahead. We need to be showing growth, not in the quarter, but in a year or in two years. And that, you know, you the public markets are not particularly forgiving. You know, they may buy that story for a little while and they say, Okay, that's good, but you know, then they suddenly think, well, no, you know what, I want to see either A, the share price go up, or B, you should start paying dividends, or you should buy, do a share buyback. Or, you know, they, they have their own pressures as shareholders, many of whom are, as you know, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

Alex Husner  33:12  
Yeah, you know. So

Ian Carter  33:13  
the public markets are, you know, there's, there's some very good things about it, but there's some tough things about you got to know what you're getting into privately. Of course, there are some restrictions, potentially in terms of access to capital, maybe, maybe not. But you're not measured, you know, as in as tough a way, potentially based upon who your shareholding base may be. So unfortunately, I don't think there's any one thing fits all. I do think there's often case a function of time, meaning sometimes a company might be better off being private a certain point in time of their history. When I chaired al briscos, I was the first chair in the as a public company. But over time, we realized we weren't being rewarded. We thought for our story as a public company, it was better to be private, so we took it private again. I think there's also now a growing it's becoming a growing question of where you list as a public company if you have a choice, the US markets have greater access to capital. There's greater fluidity and shareholdings, versus the UK, for example, which much tougher public market right now

Alex Husner  34:23  
as well. Yeah, so

Annie Holcombe  34:24  
what do you what do you think there's, there's been the conversation about the companies within the short term, rental vacations, rental space, that have gone public or planning to go public, and there's always this, I say there's often this side conversation that says, well, when, when they do that, they lose the charm of what the industry is, because now they're beholden to a completely different set of rules. And to your point, quarterly earnings, where, you know, vacation rentals and short term rentals is pretty seasonal. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's not very balanced as much as, I think, like the hotel businesses, where they can. And they can manage their inventory and manage their occupancy based on a lot of factors. Where, you know you mentioned the beginning, vacation rental is really about vacations. It's not about the corporate business travel who's traveling all the time. So do you think that there is room for more people in this space to go in the public sector, or do you think that being private is where, where they have the best opportunity for success,

Ian Carter  35:28  
again, without being too specific on any particular company or or any, any particular company? I think it's, I think again, it's, it's, it's a function of what the investors really want. And again, what I mean by that is you go back to the benefits of being private are you're not under those same public company pressures that you mentioned and I mentioned, but the benefits of being public may allow you to grow quicker. So if the objective of that particular entity is to grow fast and have recognition for that, then maybe public is the right way to go. You know, obviously, when we were private under with Blackstone as Hilton, we grew faster than any time in our history private ownership, but we had a fantastic sponsor, and it was, you know, always with a view at some point that those private sponsors also do need to be rewarded for the investment. So even being private is not without its pressures. It depends, really, I think, on the objective of the company and how best they think they can achieve it. And there's, you know, there's lots of different types of private from individuals to a collective of individuals, through to private equity, through to sovereign wealth, you know. And you know, arguably, someone like four seasons, who's effectively owned by two large, you know, one sovereign wealth and one private family. You know that that brand can run with a really good, strong view on the very long term, rather than just be worried about what the next quarter looks like specifically, and that can benefit. I mean, it's a philosophical argument as well. I think, you know, I remember one of the first times I went to Japan, a long, long time ago. I met with the president of then Toyota. This is when I was with GE. And I, you know, we were talking about strategy and business, etc. And I said, you know, our five year plan is always kind of, really, it's, you know, years one, two and three. We know about four and five. We don't know so much about because it's too far down the line. And he looked at me, we plan in 25 year cycles.

Annie Holcombe  37:46  
Wow, wow,

Alex Husner  37:48  
oh my gosh. They take a long

Ian Carter  37:50  
term view of where they want to be. And, wow, there's a story talks about, you know, when they launched Lexus, it was with a view to be competing with, you know, BMW or Mercedes, but they didn't do it in the next year. They said, Look, if it takes us 10 years, then it'll take us 10 years to be recognized. That's significant. And sometimes, you know, the pressures of being public don't allow that to happen. You're not given that much time, right?

Alex Husner  38:16  
Yeah, I can't imagine planning anything for the next 25 years, today's day and age, so on that point too. I mean, I that's so just unbelievable that you got to work with Jack Welch. I'm sure that must have been a wonderful experience in your career. Good to Great. It's one of my favorite books. But what would you say? What's like one of the biggest lessons that you learned working from him, such a visionary like that. Well,

Ian Carter  38:43  
fortunately I wasn't, you know, so fortunately only because he was a pretty tough taskmaster. I wasn't, you know, so close to him. I was running a small but the one thing I've said this a number of times to other people over the years, when we've talked about what I learned at GE and I think bear in mind, at the time I was, it was the biggest company in the world by market cap, and, you know, by pretty much any measure, it was often these guys didn't really exist at that point. So we were the biggest company in the world at that time. We had 13 different businesses. We owned NBC, and we owe the aircraft engines. So we had a massive conglomerate. When that in all the textbooks, would you tell you conglomerates don't work. You know that was it was an anomaly in that respect, that it had a huge bank. GE Capital was a massive bank at that time, and that that fed our growth. So if you imagine this massive, complex business, I think we had half a million people at the time, 500,000 people working for the company around the world. Jack was brilliant at putting great people in position. Is of importance to make big decisions. And what I mean by that is, you know, he had fantastic HR network right to the person that reported to him that HR network went throughout all of those 13 businesses, you know. So my head of HR was linked into the head of HR for I was in GE plastics division, and that person went straight into Jack's HR person. 

What, you know, it's a matrix management system, of course, but you imagine, this is 25 years ago, so we had great people and really important positions that were making decisions across businesses. So you know that, on the plus side, you can afford to take a few risks when you've got that bigger business, you know, if you'd made a bad decision about me, you know, it's not going to kill the business. You know, I can leave and you put someone else in there, and you know, it's not going to cripple the business by any means. So you had this fantastic network of people that were being trained and given positions that weren't necessarily in their obvious wheelhouse, take a risk and promoted and given opportunity to see whether they could, you know, run with it or or fail. So ahead of me in that era was Dave Calhoun, you know, who became when I was a GE plastics, running my little business. Dave was running Asia for GE plastics, and you know, he went on to run Boeing. And if you think about Jim McNerney, 3m you know, and also Boeing at certain point, and then a whole cadre of people that were given jobs while Jack was there. That was probably a risk in other businesses. I certainly didn't have the skill set when he put me in place. I mean, I may have had the foundations, but it was a risk. So I think that was his one really great skill, was this ability to use his network of people focused leaders around the business, to understand where the next level of talent was coming from, and move them around the world, across businesses. You know, for many years, the chairman of NBC, Bob Wright, was actually a lawyer. Came out of GE plastics. That was his background. He was a, you know, he was a trained lawyer. So, you know that that was, I think, the thing that made made jack stand out. There's all the other things that he's, you know, everybody knows about that he knew John Jack. You'd make decisions and move and buy things and sell things and everything else. He was great at that as well. But in the end, it boiled down to his ability to take a risk and promote talent early and have this, have his tentacles within the business without you necessarily knowing, whether it's through the finance organization or the right, yeah. And I, you know, I tried to use those learnings when I was involved in bigger businesses myself. Yeah. I

Alex Husner  43:11  
think that's an amazing message for our listeners, too. Of just, you know, looking at not that, you know, anybody is as big as GE, but in a small property management company, if you've got people in one area that literally believe in them, yeah?

Ian Carter  43:23  
Jack, Jack, one of the, one of the mantras we had was, you know, think, go global, act local. Yeah, somewhat right to say it, but it wasn't that. Was it, you know, if you're, even if you're a small business. Now, the reality is, it's still all about the personal interaction at the local level. You know, just because I be running a particular business didn't mean to say that the still, the most important transactions were always from a person to a person in the front business. And my job as kind of running that business was essentially to allocate resources to make sure we did that in the best way possible. Yes,

Alex Husner  44:00  
yeah, and identify that talent, right? And be able to see within somebody that

Ian Carter  44:03  
they prepared to take here and there on people that you know you think they may not quite be there, but they're 70% of the way there. Let's, let's take the risk. Yeah,

Alex Husner  44:13  
that's great. Very cool. Well, Ian, this has been such a pleasure having you on today, and what an honor for us to have somebody of your career experience here on our show, truly a pleasure. We

Annie Holcombe  44:26  
hope to have you back and talk more about your involvement with boom and in greater detail. But I know you're you're a busy man, but if anybody would like to get in touch with you, yeah, have a conversation. What's the best way to get

Ian Carter  44:38  
with you? Probably the easiest would be through my email, which is Ian dot, Carter, eaterly.com, that's the easiest one to get me on. Okay, well, we'll

Alex Husner  44:49  
include that in the show notes, but yeah, and any other maybe you're linked into or any other way that you want people to connect with you

Ian Carter  44:58  
on LinkedIn. As well. Yeah, okay, perfect. Great, great. Well, thank you. Thanks for the time.

Alex Husner  45:04  
Absolutely, absolutely. And if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to alexandanypodcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody.

Ian Carter  45:14  
Bye. Thank you.