A taste for adventure, the comforts of home

Kathleen Taylor's warm smile graced a whirlwind cocktail event held recently in the Pearl ballroom at Four Seasons Guangzhou.

The president and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is in the middle of a multi-city Asian tour that includes the grand opening of Four Seasons Beijing.

Taylor remains refreshingly approachable despite running one of the world's fastest expanding luxury hospitality brands.

Kathleen Taylor helms one of the world's fastest expanding luxury hospitality brands. [Provided to China Daily]

She exudes a down to earth confidence that underscores what she is: a smart married lady from Toronto. The Canadian city is also the head office of Four Seasons, a brand founded there by Isadore Sharp more than 50 years ago.

"We became empty nesters this year," Taylor notes, referring to their 21-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter. "My husband Neil will join me in Beijing and we'll spend a long weekend there together."

Originally legal counsel to Four Seasons when she joined almost a quarter of a century ago, Taylor has risen through the ranks to become chief operating officer. She held that position for three years before her appointment to the top post in 2010.

During the past decade, she has been instrumental in steering the company's ambitious surge in growth, particularly in Asia.

"The most significant change has been Four Seasons' approach to growth," she notes. "My point of view is strongly biased toward the fact that we're living in dynamic times. Technology has played a huge part in accelerating change.

"A variety of things have crept up in the past 20 years: globalization, accessibility of travel and lower airfare costs. I'm focused on interpreting the meaning of all that change for our company and how we can evolve more quickly.

"I'm comfortable now with making a few more mistakes. We're ramping up our ability to shift in response to global, regional and local changes. We're moving toward decentralizing the decision making process.

"We're trying to get the people closest to our customers empowered. We're trying to give all 40,000 of our people the tools and mindset to speak up. A lot of those changes have happened locally by hotels doing things in response to their specific markets. The game is won and lost at the employee and guest level."

Taylor was the first woman to be appointed to Four Seasons' executive committee and she is one of just a few ladies in the top echelon of the hotel industry. However, she plays down being a pioneer for her gender.

"I looked around the boardroom table and thought about who each man was married to: all extremely strong-willed women who were equal partners in their relationships," she says. "I figured they can spend a few hours a day with me."

When Four Seasons began doing deals in the Middle East, Taylor was the company's chief negotiator. "Izzy (Sharp) said that it had to be me - there was no one else," she recalls. "I had no preconceived notions about expanding the company in a traditionally male-dominated region and never doubted that it was acceptable. It was a good growing experience."

Four Seasons currently operates seven hotels in China, with nine more in the pipeline for cities such as Shenzhen, Qingdao, Wuhan and Chongqing, as well as additional properties in Beijing and Hangzhou.

"It doesn't matter where in China you go - you feel this optimistic energy everywhere," Taylor says. "There is a huge sense of expectation about what the future will bring."

She believes that Chinese travelers are just like everyone else: "Like the rest of us, they are looking for comfort. Genuine hospitality. Something done specifically for them. We started adding Chinese amenities in all of our hotels outside China; things like tea, slippers and familiar food to make stays more enjoyable. We all want our trips to include adventure, but we all like the taste of home."