About this role
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The Director, Culinary - South East Asia (SEA) is a hands-on, hotel-facing role responsible for driving food & beverage (F&B) performance across the region by making the food better. The person in this role will spend significant time on property, in kitchens, and working side by side with hotel culinary and F&B teams to build restaurants and food experiences that guests choose to come back for, and that the local community genuinely loves. A central focus of this role is elevating breakfast across the portfolio, turning a daily routine into a genuine point of differentiation and guest satisfaction. Beyond breakfast, the Director of Culinary will champion the culinary execution of signature, concept-led restaurants, ensuring the food experience brings each concept to life with quality, consistency and relevance. The role will bring an entrepreneurial, owner-operator mindset to restaurant performance and turnaround, driving sustainable commercial returns, while also raising the ambition and execution of culinary events and experiences to create memorable moments that differentiate our hotels from their competitors and support the delivery of outstanding event experiences, a key strategic focus across the region. This role requires extensive travel across SEA and a willingness to work directly and practically alongside hotel teams, general managers and owners to identify what is holding an outlet back and to fix it.
HOW YOU WILL MAKE AN IMPACT Your role is important, and below are some of the fundamental job duties that make your work unique.
• Work directly with trading hotels across SEA to lift F&B and restaurant performance, spending extensive time on property rather than managing remotely.
• Elevate the breakfast offering across the region, developing it as a distinct area of guest satisfaction and commercial opportunity.
• Partner with hotel culinary and F&B teams to improve food quality, menu execution and kitchen standards as the foundation for great restaurant experiences.
• Identify underperforming F&B concepts and take an entrepreneurial, hands-on approach to rebuilding them, from food and concept through to guest experience.
• Build restaurants and food experiences with genuine local relevance, so that outlets are supported by the local community, not only hotel guests.
• Support hotels in translating culinary improvements into commercial results, working closely with hotel leadership on the link between food quality, F&B revenue and profit.
• Act as a working culinary resource for hotels during openings, renovations and concept refreshes, providing on-the-ground execution support.
• Share practical culinary best practice across markets, helping hotel teams learn from what is working elsewhere in the region.
• Partner with the Senior Director, F&B - SEA and the broader Brand F&B team to ensure culinary work is aligned with the region's wider F&B strategy.
WHY YOU’LL BE A GREAT FIT You have these minimum qualifications:
• 10+ years' experience in F&B or culinary leadership, including significant time working directly in hotel or restaurant kitchens.
• Culinary training or equivalent hands-on professional experience.
• Proven track record of improving restaurant or F&B performance through hands-on culinary and operational involvement.
• Experience across multiple markets in SEA strongly preferred.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to work confidently with hotel GMs, owners and cross-functional teams.
• Ability to travel extensively across SEA around 50 to 60%.
• A genuine, hands-on mindset, comfortable working in a fast paced, high volume environment.
• An entrepreneurial, owner-operator approach to building and fixing restaurants and food offerings.
• Strong commercial instincts, with an understanding of how food quality translates into guest satisfaction and revenue.
• High energy and willingness to travel extensively, with comfort operating across many hotels and markets in a short space of time.
• Strong influencing and relationship-building skills, able to earn the trust of hotel chefs, GMs and owners quickly.
• Deep understanding of South East Asian food culture and the ability to translate local relevance into restaurant concepts.
• Practical problem-solving ability, able to diagnose what is wrong with an underperforming outlet and act on this.
It would be useful if you have:
• Proven experience in regional or multi-property leadership roles.
• Strong background with luxury or lifestyle hospitality brands, including delivering large-scale events and high-profile activations.
• Other languages to support SEA region considered a plus.