How a Search Begins: The First Conversation with a Hotel Owner

A letter from Larissa Zwart

Rome, 20 August 2025

Dear friends of the House,

People sometimes ask me what actually happens when an owner contacts us about a leadership change at their hotel. What does the first conversation look like? What do we say, what do we ask, what do we promise? I thought it might be useful to write about this honestly, because the popular image of executive search bears very little resemblance to how the work actually begins.

This is what the first conversation looks like at the House of ESI.

The setting

The first conversation almost never happens by email. It happens by telephone, sometimes by video call, occasionally in person if the geography and timing allow. There is a reason for this. A leadership change at a hotel is a sensitive matter, often involving a current general manager who does not yet know they are being replaced, an owner who is wrestling with a decision they may not have fully made, and possibly a board or family with differing views. None of this travels well through email. The first conversation needs the texture of voice, the pauses, the occasional silence.

If an owner contacts us in writing, our first response is to suggest a call. Almost always, this is welcomed.

What we listen for

The first conversation is mostly listening. There are three things we are listening for, and each takes time.

The honest reason for the change. Owners often begin with the official reason. The current General Manager is moving on, the contract is ending, there is a strategic shift, the property is repositioning. These reasons are usually true, but they are rarely the whole story. The real reason often emerges twenty minutes later, when the owner has settled into the conversation and begins to speak more freely. The real reason might be a slow erosion of guest experience, a difficult relationship between the GM and the family, a quiet financial concern, an opportunity that has not been fully grasped. None of this is in the brief. All of it shapes the search.

We listen for the real reason because the next leader needs to be chosen for the actual problem, not the official one.

The owner's image of the right person. Almost every owner has, when they first call, a picture in their mind of the leader they want. Sometimes this picture is helpful. Sometimes it is a description of the previous GM with the difficulties removed, which is to say a description of nobody. Sometimes it is a description of someone the owner met at a hotel last summer who left a strong impression. Sometimes it is a list of credentials that, on closer inspection, the owner does not fully need.

We listen carefully to this image, both for what it reveals about the owner's true priorities and for what we will, gently, need to challenge in later conversations.

What is unspoken. The most important things in a first conversation are often the things the owner does not say. The colleague whose name keeps coming up but is never explained. The former GM whose departure is described in vague terms. The financial pressure that is only hinted at. The family disagreement that is referenced once and then dropped. We do not press on these, but we hold them quietly, because the search will eventually need to address them.

What we ask

The questions we ask in the first conversation are simple in form and difficult in substance. A few examples.

What does the next twelve months look like at this property if you make the right appointment? This question, properly answered, reveals the owner's real ambition far more clearly than any list of competencies.

If you could only specify three qualities of the next leader, which three? Owners often want twenty qualities. Forcing the choice down to three reveals the actual priority, and shows us what we will need to test for.

What would the current team need to see in the new leader for the transition to succeed? This question moves the conversation from the owner's perspective to the team's, and is often the most useful question of the entire call.

There are other questions, but these three almost always open the conversation in productive directions.

What we never do in the first conversation

We do not name candidates. We do not propose a fee. We do not promise a timeline. We do not ask for a contract.

We listen, we ask, and at the end of the call we offer a simple proposal: that we take a week to reflect on what we have heard, and then return with our reading of the search, our recommendations on how to structure it, and our honest assessment of whether ESI is the right firm for this work. If both sides agree to proceed after that second conversation, we move forward. If not, we part with mutual respect.

This rhythm, slow but careful, has served the House for forty-eight years. It is not the fastest way to begin a search. It is, in our long experience, the way that produces the appointments owners look back on with gratitude five years later.

If you are an owner considering a leadership change at your hotel and would value such a conversation, you can reach me at the House. Everything we discuss begins, and remains, in confidence.

With hospitable regards,
Larissa Zwart
President, ESI Executive Search International