My Story
My Story
How I Went From Diswasher to CEO of an International Hotel Company
My name is Helmut Meckelburg, and I am a classic Career Hotelier. I worked my way up from washing dishes at 16 to becoming the CEO of an international hotel company. My journey wasn’t easy, but it was fueled by a passion to see the world, and I found that the hotel industry was the perfect gateway to make that dream a reality.
Over the years, I’ve had the thrill of working on four continents, leading iconic hotels in some of the world’s most exciting cities. Along the way, I’ve had the privilege of crossing paths with world leaders and celebrities—more than just shaking hands, I’ve had fascinating, sometimes life-changing conversations with them.
Throughout my career, I’ve been honored to receive awards and recognition from some of the most respected figures in the business world, including Sir Ratan Tata, Barron Hilton, Raymond Bickson, Franz Zeller, and Anand Mahindra.
The road to the top was far from smooth. I made many mistakes along the way, and there were countless things I didn’t know in the beginning. It was only later in my career that I found mentors who had a profound impact on my life and career, guiding me with their wisdom and experience. Their influence was instrumental in helping me reach heights I never thought possible.
Now, I’m passionate about helping others navigate their own journey in the hospitality industry, so they can learn from my experiences—and avoid the pitfalls I encountered.
My Vision
When I was 16 years old I had no idea of what exactly I wanted to do with my life. There was one thing however I knew. I wanted to get away from my home as far and fast as possible.
I wanted to see the world, explore different countries and live there. How I would do this never came to my mind. I think. I remember packing an old army backpack with some essential items, my passport and 40 Deutsch Mark.
By the end of the day I spent my first night in “freedom” under a tree, close to a highway 100 miles away from home. Looking back, this was pretty crazy for a 16 year old but I remember the burning desire and my readiness to burn all bridges behind me.
My plan was to get on a ship and get out of the country, where to I did not care. A few days later I arrived in harbor town on the baltic sea but no ship would take a 16 year old on board. I had no other choice to get myself a job immediately otherwise my adventure would be over before it really had begun.
An employment agency referred me to a hotel in “South Beach” where they were looking for kitchen-helpers. I walked the 4 Miles to the South Beach Hotel, asked the doorman for the personal office. He directed me to a gentleman in a black velvet suit jacket. He was the Personal Manager and happened to be in the middle of an interview...
When he was finished I did not waste time, walked right over to him, introduced myself and told him that I “really needed a job and would do it really well”.
A brief face to face interaction, a few questions and I was hired. Work would start the next day and my life had changed within a week. I was a 16 year old, had a job, a small studio, 3 meals a day and monthly salary of 900 Deutsch Mark, which was not bad for a 16 year old in those days. I felt like a king and I fell in love with the hotel industry. Right here and then I decided that I would work from now on in the hotel industry and turn it into a life long career.
The Journey to Junior Management
My days at the South Beach Hotel would come to an end eventually.
With 16 I still had to go to school and graduate. In order to make a living I worked in the evening and studied during the day.
It was a hard time. I had my own apartment, had to take care of my own affairs and learned early on the meaning of self-sufficiency. Yet, I was able to enjoy life and started to develop my mini- master plan.
After graduation I I started my first apprenticeship.
I worked and learned, worked and learned and did a second apprenticeship as cook in a famous Bavarian Resort Hotel.
I had made up my mind for good. I was going to become a General Manager and I anchored this idea firmly into my mind.
My colleagues laughed about it and told me to stay grounded instead of dreaming. But I had made up my mind. I was going to see the world and become a 5 star hotel General Manager.
After the second apprenticeship I moved to Berlin and worked at the Intercontinental Hotel and later the Steigenberger Hotel in junior management positions. I knew in my mind, that Berlin would be my last German city.
No Plan B
I had to get moving!
My job in Berlin was great. I had good colleagues and a really flamboyant General Manager. But I did not allow myself to get to comfortable.
I sent out a few applications to test for opportunities. However, one ended up on the desk of my General Manager. A colleague had asked for references about me. This made him (surprise) really upset. Yes, he had his reason. I had just been promoted. Yet my resolve became only stronger.
On a cold February day I bought a ticket and flew to New York. For the first time I applied my (until now) successful strategy. It took a full week, disappointments and frustration but I succeeded eventually (with a little help from my friend and returned to Berlin with a job offer as a manager at the famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel. My strategy had worked indeed.
The New World
If I had known, what was ahead, I might not have left the safety, comfort and routine of the old world back in Berlin. The change was instant and hit me like a brick. It took 4 month and a lot of “Quick Learning” to become a “Proud New Yorker”. A new chapter of my life and my career began. This was what I had always dreamed of. Having a management position abroad. Ending up at the Waldorf Astoria was no accident. It was a combination of knowing what I wanted, a deep desire to get it and my willingness to pay the price. Burn all bridges behind me was essential. There was no plan B. I was totally committed, just the way I had been at age 16.
With working at the Waldorf Astoria also came new job offers but working in this iconic hotel fulfilled me with pride. My experiences would fill a book alone and being exposed to New York, the Hilton Company and this great hotel initiated changes also in the way I would look at the world. My resume which I had written 6 years earlier had now additional positions, a much more refined profile section and some impressive names. I had never spent much time on it, I just updated it when necessary and kept it ready for the right moment. I sticked with my timeless design and stayed away from fancy layouts. The right moment arrived when I saw an article in the New York Times about the opening of the El San Juan Hotel in Puerto Rico. I followed an impulse, called the hotel and asked for the General Manager. How I got to speak to him is part of my personal strategy I use to gain direct access to decisionmakers. It still works in the 21st century. After a phone interview, he offered me a job and one month later I began working at the iconic El San Juan Hotel & Casino in Puerto Rico. The resume was a simple formality.
This General Manager became my second mentor. He became part of my career development with lots of advise and also connections. He was also a close friend of Horst Schulze, the founder and CEO of Ritz Carlton Hotels, whom I would meet years later in Dubai. With this mentor and my growing international network I did not apply for jobs anymore. The jobs started to come to me. This little secret for career success and career growth was not given to me in a book. I learned it over the years thru subconscious application of the same repeating process. With this refined and quite strategic career planning methodology everyone can have a successful career as long there is ambition, willingness to go the extra mile, pay the price and be willing to take a chance once in a while. The ingredient what holds all this together is unconditional faith.
The Summit
Over the years the number of offers grew. It was not necessary for me to apply anymore. I would be called, at times I would be “traded”. My career took me to Korea and Egypt, Los Angeles and Dubai, to the Caribbean and to India.
Indeed. During these years I began to meet many influential people, heads of state and celebrities like Hosni Mubarak, Hafez El Assad, Hans D. Genscher, Olaf Palme, the famous Sumo wrestler Akonishima, Jilly Rizle with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Paris HIlton, George W.Bush, the President of the United States, the Primeminister of India, Atal B. Vajpayee, the President of India Abdul Kalam, Sultan Kabooz of Oman, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum from Dubai, Sir Ratan Tata Tonino Lamborhini, the King of Thailand, Archbishop Desmond Tuto from South Africa and many others.
Some I met only procedurally, with some I actually had conversations and even discussions. Meeting these world leaders left me with lasting impressions and a different look at life.
At this stage of my career I was deeply involved with running either hotel operations or during my CEO time the entire company. I was living my ambition and also my dream.
From humble beginnings as a dishwasher I had arrived at the top of my career. I had reached the summit. Colleagues began to ask me about my career and how I had done it. It seemed strange. By now I knew many really successful hoteliers and hotel company leaders and I began to read their resumes and their career history. These histories were colourful, impressive and all very different from each other, but they all had the same ingredients and personal beliefs.
Arrival and Crossroads
I did not apply for the CEO positon. I had been shortlisted by the company for 2 years. It was a crucial decision for me to accept the job and my career did take a turn.
While it was a most interesting and rewarding position, it was not really what I had planned for initially. This position was also not part of my plan.
Money and title are major influencers when making a choice. Often emotions enter the equation. Career Decisions at this stage must be taken with a grain of salt. The right decision will reward You and the wrong decision will cost you. Its as simple as this and you should at any price talk to a mentor or advisor on this. Do not rely on friends, family or even your boss. Even if they share your best interests, they might not understand your own personal thoughts.
When working as CEO in Kuwait my time came also to prepare for the decent. I have had a good career, had seen many countries and had my fair share of General Management posts in my professional portfolio. Based on my career plan I had projected to retire between the age of 55 and 60.
In the year 2010 a Black Swan in form of the Arab Spring emerged in North Africa and the Middle East. The Arab Spring did shut down all our companies hotels with the exception of the the Hotels in Kuwait and Qatar. Because of my careful planning I was always prepared for a “Black Swan.” I was in the process of leaving Kuwait and start preparing for retirement when I received another offer from a large Indian company as their Chief Operations Officer.
Instead of thinking it thru I moved with my family to Mumbai and continued working for this company for another 4 years. It was a good company overall, however not the kind of company I had associated myself with in all the years before. This kind of move can have an impact on future opportunities and should be well thought over.
The Future
In all the years operating hotels I helped and coached many of my managers and supervisors to program their careers the right way. It was always important to me to help them avoiding some of the mistakes I had made during my journey. All of them have come a long way and those following my program did very well over the years. Many hold high and also influential positions. They are working with some of the largest and best companies out there. Recently I am also receiving inquiries from colleagues in various stages of their career. They are not sure if they are on the right path or it they should consider alternatives. They all have been hit by the global pandemic and loosing the job is not only a traumatic experience but also changes one´s outlook and perception of opportunities. It also shows, how many colleagues are not prepared for a Black Swan experience.
During my career I experienced a few. If you choose to become a successful Career Hotelier, you will encounter situations you never expected. When I left home with 16 I did not expect to be in an earthquake, hurricanes, tsunamis or hotel fires. I did not expect to meet the President of the United States or India. That is however the “normal life” of a Career Hotelier and you should keep this in your mind. I have developed certain strategies which will protect hoteliers from certain scenarios. However these are no quick fix solutions, you can apply when a Black Swan crosses your path. You need to prepare to “Be Prepared”. The earlier you start, the better of you will be in the long run.
If you have an ambition or a dream to make it in the hotel industry, it is my 100% conviction, that you need a good mentor. This mentor can be your own boss of course. However you need to consider that a mentor should be someone whose career is not connected to your own.The right person is a mentor who stands outside the circle of family, friends or colleagues and will provide you with a holistic recommendation based on his or her professional- and life experience.
I have seen hardworking and talented people all over the world struggling in their career, not because they were not doing a good job, but because mindset limitation and wrong approaches. They would not get the opportunity, others were given. There is a reason for this and you want to remove the obstacles strategically one by one. This is why I have created “Thecareerhotelier.com” to provide not only complimentary “Know How” and valuable tips but also to open the door of possibilities and potential if you just want to take a look.
If you came to my website and have read until now, I know that you have ambition and that you want to make it in the hotel business. You want to steer the ship through the currents and not be a piece of driftwood in the sea. If you want to know more, follow my blog m follow my advise, read the books including mine and get in touch with me.
The Career Hotelier
Book A Free Career Call
Facing a challenge in your career or don’t know where to start? Book a call today to get my free expert advice now. I have helped many hoteliers, and you have nothing to lose.