Most projects begin with the wrong question. What can you do for us is a question that sells consulting hours. It is not a question that builds a brand, opens a beach club, or repositions a hotel. The better question is what success looks like for your project today, in three years, and in five. Everything else follows from that, and almost nothing of value precedes it.

I work brand-first. Fifteen years inside one of the most recognisable lifestyle hospitality brands taught me that a luxury asset without a clear brand position is a building with revenue problems. The strategic vision, the operating model, the partnerships, the pre-opening sequencing: all of it either reinforces the brand or quietly erodes it. My role is to make sure that alignment holds.

I think from inside the operating company, not from outside it. The experience I bring, across pre-opening, brand, business development, and partnerships, has all been done in the field, not studied at a distance. It changes the advice. I am not interested in frameworks that survive the slide deck and die in the field.

Honesty is part of the engagement, not a personality trait. Owners and capital partners rarely have a shortage of people willing to agree with them. What is scarce is calibrated, considered disagreement — early enough to matter, specific enough to act on. That is most of what I am paid to do.

I work on a small number of projects at a time, by design. The diligence happens before the contract, not after. If the engagement is wrong for either side, that becomes clear early. Most of my work comes through recommendation, which means both sides being satisfied with the outcome matters more than any single engagement.