WOUTER LIEKENS

Wouter Liekens My professional biography in a nut shell As a young man, I expatriated from Belgium, on my own. Not supported by any company. From Belgium to the UK (London), after mission accomplished: to the UAE (Dubai), later to China (Beijing) and finally to the Baltic States (Vilnius). In each expatriate station I stayed about three years. I returned home to Belgium, where I am still based now. However the story has not finished…yet. This Exodus, or shall I call it Odyssey, was not invented by myself, but originated and guided by vacant positions with increasing challenge and responsibility, for which I applied and got the job. Based on my growing experience and knowledge of hotel management disciplines, mainly via competence in F&B , training, people management, quality insurance, industrial work flow scheduling, and hard work in difficult situations, I went also for a specific new objective, each time on a higher level. In the Hilton on Park Lane and in the Royal Garden Hotel (two five star hotels) in London, I was in charge of the Classical French fine dining and later on also of a multicultural kitchen with even Arabic and Asiatic specialties. My specific objective was the organisation and running of promotional events, like theme nights and food specials with guest chefs of even 3 Michelin stars European restaurants. The underlying hotel objective was of course to increase the revenue of all the restaurant and banqueting operations. “Everybody can cook with unlimited means”, but my responsibility was soon extended to cost of goods, food ordering and supplies, and relationship with the suppliers. In these positions I also started, on my own initiative, to train the whole kitchen staff, mainly on quality improvement and cost-consciousness, and thought them that waste is the enemy of the kitchen and just in time delivery a must. Our team succeeded: we improved the revenue substantially, and I was awarded for my contribution in the outcome. My mission was accomplished and I had to go for something new. Based on a vacancy in the famous Hyatt Regency hotel (with the big revolving restaurant on top), in Dubai, my next expatriate-move was easily decided upon. My specific objective was here to re-establish the Focaccia restaurant. It was a mess. Nothing of the former glory and fame of Mediterranean Cuisine was left when I arrived. I started to do a real management job by bringing all the necessary means in function: staff, food supply, the menus, the promotional activities, the training. I thought Indians, Pakistani, Arabic and even a few Chinese on how to cook and serve delicious Mediterranean dishes… Of course, I did all the jobs first on my own in order to show them how to do it. And after that I delegated systematically all the tasks and responsibilities to them. Focaccia was there again. Not only my staff was happy, but also my boss. He promoted me to the respectable responsibility of all banqueting operations, which means a lot in the UAE. The Hyatt was housing a ballroom for up to 1400 people. Serving them succulent dinners with each and every course hot and at the same time for all participants is a hell of a job to organize. External events in the desert, for several hundreds of Arabic High Society People and their guests, invited by the Sheik, were other of our activities. Many times they did not consider me as “the cook”, but as the inventor and organizer of their events. They looked at me as one of them and were grateful, not only for the delicate dining and desserts, but also for not finding one single grain of sand in the food. My boss was in heaven and I could not find enough hours in a day to continue to pour all my personal engagement in all the activities: cooking, menus, supply, training, demonstration cooking like for TV, and so on… And he decided to promote me to a manager: Executive Sous-Chef. In this responsibility, and as from then, I had to focus my attention more to company economic figures and results and less to lambs and lobsters, but still and even to a larger extent also to people and their assembled work-flows. The spoons and knifes were taken away from my hands and I had to communicate, lead and convince a large brigade of people how to use their skills and motivation to serve the objective of making others happy, by fine dining … at acceptable food costs and maximum revenue for the hotel. There was not any possibility for further growth for me in Dubai. I found a vacancy on my level in Beijing and decided to move. This brought me to be “the” Executive Chef of The Great Wall Sheraton. This is a mammoth hotel with five stars and thousand rooms, five top-quality restaurants; Giga-multicultural. I headed an army of 140 cooks and 45 stewards. I was their boss. Many of them of course authentic Chinese, not knowing one single word of English, not really liking Western food and not knowing how to eat with fork and knife. My task was to teach them everything. This was so difficult and so demanding that I compared it with how to learn a cat to milk a cow; without hurting the cow. I thought them hygiene, safety, constant quality and quantity, decoration of plates Western style, the concepts of Western cooking, roasted beef , medium rare with baked potatoes … the Chinese run away from this. I managed to keep them in position. I redesigned all the menus, including those of the Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Indian kitchens. I was lucky to have a good Chinese and a good Japanese sous-chef and later on I could also engage a real Indian Chef and an Italian Chef. I could delegate full responsibility to them and was happy with their job satisfaction. We were recommended by the Belgian Embassy to receive and lodge our prime minister with the Belgian delegation on their tour trough China. After his dinner Guy Verhofstadt asked me to sit next to him for an evening drink. We had excellent Italian wine. When I finished my story he said with a large gap-toothed smile: “Fantasties joeng”. I started to organize “Theme nights”. One week Chinese, the next week Indian, then French, and so on. I did even a Belgian night, with “stoofvlees met frieten” and with “Gentse waterzooi”, and “witloof rolletjes in kaas saus”, and of course: our well known typical Belgian chocolates were not absent on the buffet of desserts. More than ever before I did the management job: the budgeting, the staffing, the supplier-relationships, I implemented systems like HACCP. I was always active to improve my performance figures and managed to increase the F&B revenue (8 % up) and lowered the cost of goods (6% down) and consequently the gross margin of our department increased like never before. I became also a regular member of the management committee and contributed in defining and effectuating the tasks to reach the highest company objectives, as a team player. But after three years, I felt that the “end of my line” was coming. I could not do more than what I did and decided to look for something closer to my home. Back to Europe I found a position in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, one of the “new” European countries. And I was employed as executive Chef, banqueting and F&B manager. From day one I was a member of the management committee and directly referring to the GM and to the owner of the hotel; The Le Meridien Villon of the Baltic States. It is if not the biggest, then one of the biggest Convention and Conference hotels of Lithuania. When I arrived, I was surprised by its size and glamour. The hotel is very nicely positioned in the Northern territory of Vilnius. The accommodation was excellent, the rooms and suites well-equipped and decorated with real wooden furniture. But what I found in the kitchens was disappointing. After the first shock, I realized that I had to start from scratch to bring this F&B operation to advanced level. Although European… the situation was still like in the former USSR period. The staff was not work-minded, not flexible, and certainly not customer-oriented. The infrastructure and the equipment of the kitchens were far below the level of Western standards. The kitchen staff did not match average requirements to perform. Their hygienic maturity below what I expected. And not matching the European Le Meridien standards. Some of the cooks (all women) could cook; but everybody on his own. Not organized. They helped each other incidentally but were not organized at all in an industrial workflow, not disciplined and unprepared to tackle the arrival of three buses with 150 people at once for lunch or dinner. My specific objective was to bring the level of all tasks of all F&B operations to Western standards, change the communistic mindset of the staff and make them aware that the customer is the first and most important asset of the company. By the way, in the restaurant, there were no adequate dinner-service tools. Many of them were “lost”… I convinced the owner to invest in infrastructure and equipment. I reshaped and reorganized the kitchens and divided responsibilities in workflows. I introduced seasonal menus, local dishes and international classics. We convinced the management committee to promote the “new“ restaurant ‘Le Paysage’ in all the Baltic lifestyle magazines, we contacted the embassies in the capital, to convince them of the new generation of wining and dining in the Le Meridien Villon… The customers came back and also new visitors from overseas. The hotel room occupation went up and events like a worldwide cardiologist’s convention took place in our hotel. Even once the Belgian national football team lodged on our premises on the occasion of an encounter with the Lithuanian team. I continued to train my ladies in the kitchen. I managed to organize a staff canteen for all the hotel workers so that everybody could have at least one decent meal every day. They started to trust me and came to me asking for help from their own accord. We implemented the highest hygienic standards. Organized workflow of different kinds adapted to the size of the operation. We hired temporarily people in case of a big “coup de feu”. My ladies are now in a position to run the operation on their own under the leadership of one of them. They can do everything without me. I managed myself out of the picture. They feel confident and still ask me politely for inputs as a consultant; especially on the design of the menus. They are aware of the fact that I know more than just cooking good food. I give them inputs on nutrition, on what the influence of food-components is on the human body. Including blood-circulation, heart and liver… I know what fatty-acids are, and how they have to be “managed” by healthy food. I redesigned many menus to reduce fats, sugars and salts, replacing them by natural herbs. And this is done without killing but even improving the taste. My ladies trust me in all this and they are convinced because they now taste themselves the “food“ they prepare. And they are capable of self controlling the quality of their end-products. Because I could delegate more and more in the course of last years, I could organize my own time management in such a way as to use some hours to study. I was accepted by the University of Liverpool for an MBA program. I could finalize this rather demanding program successfully with a distinction. I have finished all the courses, case studies, and tasks and improved my company management skills in other disciplines like marketing, quality insurance, management accounting, finance, organization theory and production. I can speak now in terms of cash flow, return on investment, marketing mix, efficiency, effectiveness and so on. This expertise enabled me to change course and become the food and beverage manager at the Hilton Brussels, one of the top flagship Hiltons in Europe. The strong team needed a strong leader and having worked hard on the leadership skills I was able to turn ideas into profits. Motivation was high, lots of creativity going on and the results for the first year as a manager were promising. I was then promoted to the person that runs the hotel, the Operations Manager; a key player in the “4D” structure at Hilton. For almost two years I managed 16 direct reports and a full operational team of over 250 team members. All the skills I had were used in order to keep this rather old and outdated building shine. Which it did! The second year 2008 was a top year, in regards of revenues, creativity and motivation. Again here during this period I coached and managed different individuals and teams and was internship mentor for several interns. Most of them are now themselves in interesting hotel careers. At the Hilton things started to change, we managed several due diligences and just after I left it was bought by Pandox which turned it into The Hotel. The move that came after; General Manager at Hotel Metropole, this would become a mind changing experience. In the first 3 months I had to find a full new sales team, a financial director and create a budget; there was none. This extreme situation made for me to become very fast fully integrated in the structure. However the owning families ruled over and in their hotel in such a way that I could not use my creativity. Actually nobody in the team was able to do so. In an environment like this I could not prosper nor was I able to motivate the individual members of the team. Being more occupied with details and nitty gritty stuff made for me to leave after a year. To be honest I was de-motivated and disappointed of myself and the environment I was in. I was not happy and knew that I could do a lot more. It is here that in me the reality of things became clear and that I had to break out. Then a new idea came to mind the creation of my own company CHERTO!