From Hotel Floor to PMS Sales Advantage

1. You spent years behind the bar and on the floor at properties like the Sheraton Grand Edinburgh and the Doyle Collection before moving into software. What does having actually run day-to-day hotel operations give you now, when you are selling a PMS to people doing the same job you used to do?

Absolutely. My years working in hospitality gave me a 360-degree understanding of hotel operations, and that experience still influences how I work every day.

When I speak with a potential customer, I can genuinely understand the operational challenges they’re describing because I’ve experienced many of them myself. I’ve managed teams as a Duty Manager, dealt with guest experience, housekeeping and cleaning schedules, check-ins and check-outs, and worked across bars and restaurants.

That means when I’m discussing a PMS, I’m not just thinking about the software or trying to sell a list of features. I’m thinking about how those features actually fit into their day-to-day operation: how they can save the team time, improve processes, increase revenue and ultimately deliver a better guest experience.

Hostify is a very flexible PMS, so there are often different ways to use the same functionality depending on how a company operates. Having been on the operational side helps me understand that structure quickly and recommend solutions that make sense for that particular business.

I think that hospitality background has been one of my biggest advantages moving into hospitality technology: I understand both sides of the conversation — the operational reality and what technology can do to improve it.

2. You went from Key Account Manager to Chief Revenue Officer at Hostify in roughly two years. What is the hardest thing to let go of when you move from owning a set of accounts to owning revenue for the whole company?

It has been a big transition. I joined Hostify when we were still very much a start-up, with no sales representatives, so I had the opportunity to build the sales processes and team from scratch, followed by Marketing and later Customer Success, while also supporting some aspects of Finance.

As the company grew, one of the biggest things I had to learn was how to delegate and trust the people around me to take ownership. When you’ve been involved in building something from the beginning, it can be difficult to step away from the day-to-day details.

But the hardest thing for me to let go of has definitely been the close relationship with our clients. I genuinely enjoy speaking with them, understanding what is happening in their businesses, helping solve problems, and showing them new features and implementations that can make a difference to their operations.

I’m still involved with customers, particularly some of our key accounts, but my role now is much more about making sure we have the right people, processes and strategy in place so that we can deliver that same level of attention at scale.

That transition — from solving things yourself to building a team that can solve them even better without you — has probably been one of the biggest lessons for me as a CRO.

3. The PMS space has just seen its first unicorn, with Hostaway crossing a billion-dollar valuation on the back of massive funding. As CRO of a company competing in that same space without that kind of war chest, where do you actually choose to fight, and where do you deliberately not?

It’s an interesting question because we have some great competitors in the PMS space, and I think competition ultimately pushes all of us to build better products.

For us, the strategy has never been to fight every battle or try to replicate everything our competitors are doing. Hostify has its own product DNA and there are markets where we are particularly strong because we’ve invested in understanding the local requirements, not just translating the software. Markets like Spain, Portugal or Colombia have specific regulatory, tax and operational requirements, including connections with local authorities, and we believe that level of localization can be a real competitive advantage.

Commercially, we also try to be disciplined. We focus heavily on markets where we already have a strong footprint, customer base and understanding of the industry, while expanding gradually into new markets where we believe we can genuinely add value. Having a smaller war chest means you have to be very intentional about where you invest your resources.

And there are areas where we deliberately choose not to compete. Dynamic pricing and revenue management is a good example. There are already excellent specialized companies such as PriceLabs and Beyond that are completely focused on solving that problem. Building a serious RMS requires a very different product, data and organizational structure.

For us, it makes more sense to integrate deeply with the best specialists than to build something simply because competitors are building it. You don’t need to win every category. You need to be very clear about where you can be exceptional, and then partner with great companies in the areas where they can do it better.

4. Your degree is in Surveying Engineering, about as far from hospitality software as it gets, before a growth hacking course pointed you toward sales and marketing. What from that original technical training, if anything, still shows up in how you think about revenue strategy?

My engineering background probably influences the way I think more than I initially realized. On the product side, having a technical mindset helps me understand the logic behind the software and what is happening in the background. That’s particularly useful when speaking with customers because I can go beyond the commercial conversation and really understand how they can get the maximum value from the product.

When it comes to revenue strategy, though, I think the biggest influence has been everything that came afterwards. Working in different countries, industries and positions gave me a much broader perspective on how different markets operate and how you need to adapt your go-to-market strategy accordingly.

Hostify itself has probably been my biggest education in that respect. Building the revenue side of a bootstrapped company forces you to become extremely disciplined about how you allocate resources. Cash flow matters, every hire matters, and you can’t simply spend your way into growth. You have to constantly think about where the next euro will generate the greatest return, what you can automate, and where your team should be spending its time.

Perhaps that’s where the engineering mindset comes back into it: I tend to look at revenue as a system. You understand the different components, identify where you can improve efficiency, and then keep optimizing with the resources you have available.

That combination of technical thinking and the practical experience of scaling a bootstrapped company has probably shaped my approach to revenue strategy more than any formal business education could have.