T
here’s no question mark over Omar Souab’s hunger for his new role as general manager of the newly opened Fairmont Fujairah Beach Resort. “I knew that the Fairmont Fujairah was about to open and I knew that the vice president was looking for a general manager, so I reached out to him and he sat down with me and asked, ‘Who do you think I should give this role to?’” he says. “I said, ‘Have you thought about me?’ and he said, ‘Why not, maybe you should go and have a look at the hotel.’” That level of hunger and drive is unsurprising given Souab’s track record in the industry since he began his journey in 2004 with Sofitel in his native Morocco. “I always wanted to do an international career so I had the opportunity to come to Dubai as an operations manager of Pullman, which was Sofitel and then we rebranded it to Pullman,” he says. “I stayed there for two and half years and then I had an opportunity to move to luxury and that was my goal.” The Fairmont Dubai was next on his list where he went from director of operations to hotel manager during his tenure there before his life-altering conversation with the Fairmont vice president.
April 2017
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