Gretel Kutan
Luxury Hospitality Projects
EMEA · Globally Flexible
Practice

How I work

Most engagements are senior, interim, and advisory. The brief takes one of a few common shapes.

I.
A pre-opening team needs another experienced hand — someone who can move across brand, commercial, and operational questions through the high-pressure months before launch.
II.
An in-house team needs steady direction during a transition — between hires, between phases, or between leadership changes.
III.
A new market is being entered, a new asset is being taken on, or a portfolio is being repositioned — and the executive bandwidth required is real but not yet permanent.
IV.
An owner or operator wants an outside view on what is working, what is not, and what a credible path forward looks like — delivered as constructive, specific feedback, with implementation left to the client.

Across each of these, the work is presence, judgement, and the ability to move fluently across disciplines — without the overhead or fixed cost of a permanent hire. Every engagement is scoped to the asset, the stage, and the people involved. No two are identical, and none are sold as a package.

What I do

Pre-opening support

The work that happens before the doors open determines what happens after. Pre-opening is where strategic vision becomes operational reality — sequencing the launch, building the sales and marketing function, recruiting and training the team, establishing brand standards on the ground, and managing the owner-operator relationship through a high-pressure period.

Brand strategy

Most luxury hospitality assets are not undifferentiated; they are under-positioned. The brand strategy work — identity, narrative, standards, voice, multi-property consistency — is what separates a property that earns its rate from one that competes on it. Engagements range from rolling out a brand into a new market to repositioning an existing asset, to building the brand standards that allow a portfolio to grow without losing coherence. Where the right opportunity exists, well-structured partnerships with luxury fashion, beverage, automotive, or lifestyle counterparties extend brand reach and open new revenue lines — built to compound rather than dilute either side.

Business development

Owners and operators rarely have a shortage of opportunities. What is scarce is the judgement to evaluate them well, structure them properly, and bring them through to signed contract without the deal degrading along the way. Engagements include framing the growth path, building the step-by-step strategy to get there, evaluating incoming opportunities, responding to RFPs for management agreements, and managing the relationships across owners, capital partners, and legal advisors that make complex deals close.

Marketing & Sales

The commercial functions are where strategy is either delivered or lost. Engagements involve senior direction — building or restructuring the marketing, sales, and communications functions, setting the commercial rhythm of the operating year, advising in-house teams and external agencies, and ensuring that activity at every level reinforces the brand position rather than fragmenting it.

Each project is built around the specific asset, stage, and people involved. The right shape becomes clear in conversation.