The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast

Episode

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  Are Clubs the Last Place Solving Loneliness? 11.08.2026 41mnt

  Clubs remain one of the few places where four to five generations meet face to face. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert, and Clubs New Zealand CEO Lucy Waterreus discuss how clubs are helping rebuild social fabric and address a growing loneliness crisis across every generation, not just Gen Z. So if Gen Z is the most digitally connected generation in history, why are they also the loneliest, and what does that mean for the club down the road? Clubs work as a fix for disconnection because they put people in the same room on a recurring basis. Lucy Waterreus points to this directly when she talks about the small group of regulars who show up at the same time every week, the kind of connection Michelle Pascoe describes as a club's table of knowledge. That connection isn't limited to members. Lucy Waterreus also explains how New Zealand clubs are recruiting staff as young as fourteen through school partnerships, pairing them alongside staff in their seventies, and what that does to the myths each generation holds about the other. Michelle and Lucy also talk through what succession planning realistically looks like when one person is wearing the GM, CEO, marketing and finance hats at once, and why getting governance and management right matters more as regulatory complexity increases. Key Takeaways Why clubs remain one of the few places where four to five generations meet face to face, and what that does to the myths each generation holds about the other. How New Zealand clubs recruit staff as young as fourteen through school-linked programs, and what that means for building the next generation of hospitality leaders. Why New Zealand's club sector is heading into a wave of CEO and manager retirements over the next five years, and what succession planning looks like in a lean-run sector. How the blurring of lines between governance and management stalls progress in clubs, and what the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 means for club boards. Why club boards are shrinking and diversifying, and the tension between relying on good hearted volunteers and building governance expertise. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Lucy Lucy Waterreus is CEO of Clubs New Zealand, where she works across governance, advocacy and operations for the club sector nationally. She began her career working behind the bar in clubs and has spent close to two decades in the industry, giving her a rare view of the sector from the frontline through to the boardroom.  Connect with Clubs New Zealand: https://www.clubsnz.org.nz
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  How Gotcha4Life Is Building Mental Fitness in Schools 04.08.2026 32mnt

  Gotcha4Life's Mentally Fit Primary School program is a whole-of-school, whole-of-community mental health initiative now running in 68 New South Wales schools, largely funded through registered club grants. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and 30-year hospitality industry expert, speaks with Gotcha4Life's Don Tilley about how clubs are building community trust and staff pride through genuine charity partnerships. So how does a club grant actually turn into mental fitness support for hundreds of families? In this episode, Michelle sits down with returning guest Don Tilley, who leads community partnerships at Gotcha4Life, to unpack what club-funded charity work actually looks like on the ground once the cheque has been handed over. The Mentally Fit Primary School program works because it treats mental fitness as a skill to build before a crisis hits, not a service to call in after one. Don walks through the three protective factors the program teaches children, why parents often leave information nights in tears of relief rather than distress, and why the program is deliberately built so schools can eventually run it without Gotcha4Life in the room. Listen to hear why Don believes the mindset in the club industry is shifting, and what that means for the CEOs and GMs listening right now. Key Takeaways Why Don didn't grasp the true scale of club community funding even after five years working alongside clubs. How the Mentally Fit Primary School program builds emotional skills and support networks for children before problems escalate. Why some charities have historically been wary of accepting money from clubs, and what that reveals about the trust gap still facing the industry. How Gotcha4Life designs its programs so schools can eventually run them independently, a key test for any charity partnership built to scale. Why more clubs are now employing dedicated community engagement staff, and what that shift means for the industry. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Don Don Tilley leads community partnerships at Gotcha4Life, a mental health charity delivering the Mentally Fit Primary School program across New South Wales schools. He spent 12 years at Learning Links before moving into the role, and has worked alongside registered clubs on grants and philanthropy for over a decade. Contact: don.tilley@gotcha4life.org or https://www.gotcha4life.org Download Mental Fitness Gym: https://www.gym.gotcha4life.org
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  How Do You Build a Leadership Pipeline in Hospitality? 28.07.2026 9mnt

  Building a hospitality leadership pipeline means identifying your next leaders before you need them. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience, outlines a four-step approach: identify internal talent now, have honest succession conversations with your board, protect your leadership development budget, and broaden your talent pool beyond traditional club experience. Are the clubs around you already running out of leaders, and they just don't know it yet? In this solo episode, Michelle draws on a month of guest conversations to address one of the most pressing structural issues facing Australian clubs right now: the leadership pipeline gap. Senior retirements have already started. GMs and operations managers who built their careers through the club structure of the 1980s and 90s are retiring or burning out, and the generation below them has not been developed to step into those roles. Recruitment alone will not fix this. If you have not built the culture and developed your people internally, you will spend far more time and money recruiting than you would ever have spent on development. A leadership pipeline works because it creates a continuous supply of capable people who are ready to step up before the gap becomes a crisis. The next five years will reveal which clubs were building something and which clubs were just managing. The ones who act now, while they still have time, are the ones who will be ready. Key Takeaways The leadership pipeline crisis already unfolding in Australian clubs as senior retirements accelerate. Why recruitment alone cannot solve a development problem, and what clubs should be doing instead. What a real leadership pipeline looks like in practice, from frontline identification through to board succession. Four practical actions club leaders can take right now to protect their operational future. Why AI is raising, not lowering, the value of strong hospitality leadership development. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms
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  What Does It Take to Become a Club CEO? 21.07.2026 58mnt

  Becoming a club CEO takes practical experience built from the ground up, not a straight line through university. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional, talks with Young Services Club CEO Lewis Butterworth about the journey from bar work in Manchester to running a growing regional club, and what it actually takes to get there. So what actually separates someone who spends a career behind the bar from someone who ends up running the whole club? Michelle Pascoe is a Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience helping clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues build service cultures that retain staff and delight guests. In this episode, she sits down with Lewis Butterworth, who started behind a bar in Manchester at 15, dropped out of law school in his early twenties, and moved to Australia with nothing more than hospitality experience and a willingness to work. Today he is CEO of Young Services Club in regional New South Wales. Becoming a club CEO works because Lewis treated every step of the journey as a deliberate skill building exercise, not a fallback career. He explains how interviewing for jobs he did not necessarily want gave him honest feedback on where he stood, and why he chased opportunities a pay grade above his own rather than waiting to be handed one.  The conversation moves through why hospitality's middle management pipeline has thinned since COVID, why staff have to ask for opportunity rather than wait for it, and why a club CEO's job is closer to custodian than owner. Lewis also makes the case for regional hospitality careers, comparing the real cost of a city apartment against a 115 acre regional property, and argues the industry needs to stop treating "club" as separate from "hospitality" altogether. Key Takeaways Why becoming a club CEO rarely follows a straight or predictable path. How interviewing for jobs he didn't want gave Lewis the feedback he needed to grow. What Lewis inherited from predecessor Dean Cave's 20 year tenure at Young Services Club. Why hospitality's middle management pipeline collapsed after COVID and how to rebuild it. Why a club CEO's role is closer to custodian than owner. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Lewis Lewis Butterworth is CEO of Young Services Club in Young, New South Wales. He began his hospitality career behind a bar in Manchester at 15, moved to Australia after leaving law school in his early twenties, and worked across private hospitality groups, cocktail venues and TV chef restaurants before building a full time career in the club industry. He has grown Young Services Club's community footprint to include the Golf Club, Sporties Bowling Club and the Federation Motor Inn. Website: https://www.youngservicesclub.com.au/
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  Why Boards Keep Hiring the Wrong Person for the Top Job 14.07.2026 38mnt

  Boards keep hiring hospitality leaders for operational experience instead of leadership capability, according to recruitment specialists Ian Stazicker & Grant Taylor of White Now, speaking with Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert. The right club CEO needs strategic thinking, critical thinking and genuine leadership, not familiarity with gaming machines or years behind the bar. So what should a board actually be looking for when they hire their next CEO? In this episode, Michelle Pascoe sits down with Ian and Grant, the new owners of White Now Recruitment, the long-standing recruitment agency for Australia's registered clubs and hospitality industry. Ian and Grant bring something most recruitment consultants don't have: genuine operational experience inside a club, having turned around a struggling regional club together before taking ownership of White Now. That background changes how they work. The conversation also gets into why boards keep making the same hiring mistake. Boards work because they hire for leadership, strategic thinking, and critical thinking, not for familiarity with gaming machines or years spent pouring beers. That distinction matters more as clubs face a wave of senior retirements and a middle management gap that opened during Covid and never fully closed. If you're a CEO, board member, or people leader in hospitality, particularly in a regional club, this conversation will change how you think about your next senior hire. Key Takeaways Why accommodation is the first question regional club candidates ask, before anything about the role itself. How clubs can use spare land and repurposed property to solve the regional housing problem for incoming staff. Why boards keep hiring for operational familiarity instead of leadership, strategic thinking, and critical thinking. How the hospitality leadership pipeline is thinning as senior leaders retire and middle managers who left during Covid haven't fully returned. Why bringing in leaders from outside the industry, including regulated sectors like aged care, can solve the talent gap boards are afraid to address. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About White Now Ian and Grant are the owners of White Now Recruitment, the leading recruitment agency for Australia's registered clubs and hospitality industry, and operate under their parent company ETE Hospitality Solutions. Ian brings over 30 years of senior leadership experience across tourism, hospitality, destination marketing, luxury retail, and real estate development in global markets, and previously served as president of the Bermagui Country Club board. Grant has spent 20 years working in clubs and hospitality in regional areas, including a senior finance role in consulting, and now leads the operational side of White Now. Find them at https://www.whitenow.com.au
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  How Do You Manage Staff Who Won't Wait for You? 07.07.2026 44mnt

  Managing Gen Z hospitality staff means offering skills and purpose instead of a career ladder, says business futurist Kim Seeling Smith on The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast. With 72% of Gen Z running a side hustle, old-school carrot and stick management only produces short-term compliance. Michelle Pascoe, a Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in hospitality, says leaders who replace it with purpose, community, and AI-ready skills keep people longer. So if the career ladder isn't the hook anymore, what actually keeps a Gen Z hospitality worker showing up on a Friday night? In this episode, Michelle sits down with business futurist Kim Seeling Smith to unpack the three disruptions reshaping hospitality right now: the AI revolution, the polycrisis, and the rise of the empowered workforce. Kim has advised organisations globally on the future of work, appeared on the Today Show more than 30 times, and reverse-engineered over 5,000 exit interviews into her Nine Currencies of Choice framework. Her point for hospitality leaders is blunt. Old-school management, built on the promise of climbing a ladder, does not land with a generation that has already priced that ladder out of reach. Carrot and stick works, in the sense that it gets fast compliance. It just doesn't build loyalty. Kim explains why that approach only ever produces short-term behavioural change, and what replaces it: consequences framed around real people, not policy. The conversation also covers what AI is already doing inside hospitality operations, from automating rostering to changing how job interviews are run and scored, plus Kim's practical first steps for any club CEO or hotel GM who wants to start using AI properly without an enterprise IT budget. Key Takeaways Why 72% of Gen Z having a side hustle changes what loyalty and career development actually look like in hospitality Why carrot and stick management gets short-term compliance but loses good people over the long term How AI is already automating the dull, dirty, and dangerous work inside hospitality operations, and what that frees middle managers up to do instead Why AI screening tools and real-time interview-cheating apps are already changing how hospitality venues need to hire Kim Seeling Smith's practical first steps for any hospitality leader ready to start using AI properly Next Steps Listen to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Kim Kim Seeling Smith is a business futurist who helps organisations navigate the AI revolution, the polycrisis, and the rise of the empowered workforce. She has held a seat at the table with Sir Richard Branson for her work on the future of work, was named a top 101 global influencer on employee engagement, and spent 15 years as a recruitment consultant reverse-engineering 5,000 exit interviews into her Nine Currencies of Choice framework. Kim appears regularly on the Today Show, in Forbes, Fast Company, Smart Company, CEO Magazine, CNBC, the Australian Financial Review, and the Sydney Morning Herald.  Find her at https://www.kimseelingsmith.com or get Kim's white paper, The C-Suite's AI Playbook: From Pilot to Performance, at https://kimseelingsmith.com/the-c-suites-ai-playbook-b/
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  Why the Best Leaders in Hospitality Are Unforgettable 30.06.2026 44mnt

  Real hospitality leadership reduces staff turnover, lifts team productivity, and builds guest loyalty — and according to Eoin Clancy, Principal Associate at Galileo Hospitality Consultants and a 40-year veteran of Hilton, Marriott, and the Cheesecake Factory, the clearest measure of a great leader is simple: would your team drop everything to work with you again? Would you pass that test? Michelle Pascoe is a Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience helping clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues build service cultures that retain staff and delight guests. In this episode, Michelle sits down with Eoin Clancy for a candid, experience-rich conversation about what servant leadership looks like in practice, why the hospitality revolving door keeps spinning, and what it actually takes to slow it down. Servant leadership works in hospitality because it creates the conditions where people stay longer, work harder, achieve their KPIs, and genuinely enjoy their jobs. Eoin learned this first-hand under a general manager at a 1,674-room Marriott in Atlanta who knew the names of all 1,800 staff members. Not from name badges. He actually knew them. That is what retention looks like in practice. Michelle Pascoe and Eoin also explore the multigenerational workforce challenge facing hospitality operators right now, and why blending age groups on the floor creates a stabilising dynamic that younger-only or older-only teams simply cannot replicate. Key Takeaways Servant leadership in hospitality is more aspirational than practised, and the gap between the two is costing operators staff, guests, and profitability. A leader who genuinely knows their team by name — not from badges — creates a level of loyalty and productivity that no KPI framework can manufacture. Reducing staff turnover starts with understanding the season of life each team member is in, and adapting how you support them accordingly. A blended multigenerational workforce is a deliberate retention strategy, not a compromise — experienced staff stabilise younger team members and reduce the speed of the revolving door. Consistency in systems, standards, and service is the foundation every successful hospitality operation is built on, regardless of format or price point. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry and Disney Institute Alumni credentials, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Eoin Eoin Clancy is the Principal Associate at Galileo Hospitality Consultants and a seasoned hospitality professional with 40 years of hard-won experience across Hilton, Marriott, the Crowne Plaza, and the Cheesecake Factory. He has designed, built, and opened operations across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, including his own multi-unit ventures. Eoin now brings that operational depth to hospitality businesses navigating leadership, culture, and performance challenges. Website: www.galileohospitality.co.uk
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  Why Poor Service Keeps Winning in Clubs (And What It Actually Takes to Change It) 23.06.2026 13mnt

  Poor customer service keeps winning in registered clubs because the cost of inaction is invisible. Hospitality training expert Michelle Pascoe, a Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the industry, explains that until club leaders build a single service liability number, training investment stays optional, budgets stay cut, and service standards keep drifting.What would change at your club if the board could finally see what poor service is actually costing them?In this episode, Michelle identifies the structural reason service training doesn't stick: the environment it lands in was never designed to hold it. Training works because the culture surrounding it reinforces it. When middle managers aren't modelling the same standards, when recognition systems only notice what goes wrong, and when frontline staff intelligence never reaches the decision-making level, even the best workshop evaporates within weeks.The same revolving door that loses members also loses good people. Every time a service-oriented team member leaves, they take with them the member relationships they built, the institutional knowledge they developed, and the standard they were holding.Key Takeaways Poor service persists in clubs not because nobody cares, but because the cost of inaction never appears as a single number alongside the cost of acting. Service training fails to stick when the middle management layer hasn't been developed to reinforce and model the same standards on the floor. A recognition culture that only notices what goes wrong actively undermines what training is trying to build. The intelligence frontline staff gather about member experience rarely reaches decision-making level because the loop is structurally broken. Changing club service culture requires three things operating together: leadership that understands service as a commercial priority, a visible recognition culture, and training that is reinforced rather than delivered and forgotten. Next Steps Reach out to michelle@michellepascoe.com for a free copy of The Real Cost of Poor Service Calculation Guide - a practical tool for club and hospitality leaders who've ever hit budget or board resistance when making the case for training investment. Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprogram About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms
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  Is Customer Experience Dead or Just Changing in Hospitality? 16.06.2026 39mnt

  Is customer experience dead? No -- but the way hospitality leaders have been managing it is. Rick Denton, host of CX Passport and a 30-year corporate customer experience veteran, joins Michelle Pascoe to explain why CX as a discipline isn't dying, but the branding around it is -- and what hospitality leaders must do differently to stay ahead. Are your venues investing in the right things, or are you cutting the very people who make the guest experience worth returning for? In this conversation, Michelle and Rick get specific about what hospitality leaders are getting wrong right now -- from over-relying on data dashboards without acting on them, to cutting frontline staff in the name of efficiency and wondering why revenue is falling. Rick's view is direct: CX will never die because customers and experiences will always exist. What's dying is the version of CX that couldn't prove its value in dollars. Key Takeaways Why the branding of customer experience is fading and what hospitality leaders should focus on instead. How AI is freeing frontline staff to spend more time with guests -- and how companies are getting that trade-off dangerously wrong. Why CX data and dashboards are worthless unless leaders take meaningful, revenue-linked action on what they find. How frontline teams hold the most valuable guest insight in any venue, and why most leaders never access it properly. What hospitality leaders must do to stay relevant as AI, cost pressure, and the polycrisis converge. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Rick Rick Denton is the creator and host of CX Passport, a global customer experience podcast with more than 250 episodes and listeners in over 100 countries. Before podcasting, Rick spent three decades leading customer-focused initiatives inside large organisations. He is also the co-host of The Loud Quiet, a podcast and community he launched with his wife Clancy for empty nesters navigating a major life transition -- which became the basis for their 2026 book, The Loud Quiet: Love, Laughter and Life in the Empty Nest. Rick is based in Dallas, Texas. CX Passport: https://www.cxpassport.com CX Passport on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cxpassport The Loud Quiet: https://www.theloudquiet.com
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  Your Guests Loved Their Stay. So Why Don't They Come Back? 09.06.2026 18mnt

  Guest loyalty in hospitality breaks down when operators rely on third-party booking platforms and treat checkout as the end of the guest journey. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience, explores how hospitality operators can own the guest relationship, reduce platform dependency, and build the direct connections that turn one-time guests into loyal repeat customers. Are your guests leaving happy and never coming back -- and you don't even know why? In this episode, Michelle sits down with Carlos Castillo, founder of DirectBookMe, to examine the service gap that opens after checkout and what smart operators are doing to close it. Guest loyalty in hospitality is built or lost after checkout. When operators hand the guest relationship to an OTA or third-party platform, the guest remembers where they booked -- not where they stayed. The data to fix this already exists inside most hospitality businesses. It simply isn't being used. Michelle and Carlos discuss why the post-checkout gap is where loyalty disappears and how to close it with direct, intentional systems. Key Takeaways Why third-party booking platforms own the guest relationship -- and what operators must do to take it back. How checkout is the beginning of long-term loyalty, not the end of the transaction. Why existing guest data is worth gold and how to use it to drive repeat bookings through personal connection. How a shift in team mindset from delivering a stay to starting a relationship changes the entire guest experience. How hospitality operators can start building direct booking infrastructure without overhauling their entire business. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Carlos Carlos Castillo is the founder of DirectBookMe, a platform helping hospitality operators increase direct bookings, build stronger guest relationships, and move beyond third-party platform dependency. Based in Arizona, Carlos works with property owners and operators globally to create repeat, direct business. Website: www.directbookme.co | Email: carlos@directbookme.co
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  Can AI Replace the Human Touch in Hospitality? 02.06.2026 50mnt

  Human connection cannot be automated away in hospitality. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience, sits down with Brian Vujnovic, CEO and Co-Founder of MIA Hospitality Management, to explore how AI is reshaping hotel operations and guest experiences while the human touch remains the irreplaceable core of the industry. Can technology make us more human in hospitality -- or does it risk taking away the very thing guests come for? Michelle Pascoe is a Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience helping clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues build service cultures that retain staff and delight guests. Michelle brings together global voices to explore what it really takes to lead, connect, and deliver excellence in hospitality. Brian Vujnovic brings 25+ years of hotel operations, development, and asset management expertise. His view is clear: AI will automate the administrative so that hospitality teams can invest more in the experiential. The guest who wants a seamless text interaction gets that. The guest who wants a human moment gets that too. Both are possible -- and both are necessary. Key Takeaways AI is most actively reshaping hospitality through marketing search optimisation and front-desk administrative automation, not yet through robotics or culinary replacement. The ultimate goal of AI in hotels is to remove administrative burden from guest-facing staff so they can dedicate more attention to the person in front of them. Leadership in hospitality has grown harder post-Covid, with leaders now required to be more patient, more present, and more invested in training multigenerational teams. Ambition is the quality that cannot be trained or installed -- and it is the number one thing emerging leaders need to go counter to the trend and build a meaningful hospitality career. Off-site community connection, particularly giving back locally, is proving to be one of the most effective retention tools for Gen Z hospitality teams. Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms  About Brian Brian Vujnovic brings 25+ years of hotel operations, development, and asset management expertise. He previously led asset management at Robert Finvarb Companies, overseeing 10 new hotel developments, and played a key role in launching award-winning rooftop venues Rosa Sky in Miami and Charlie Park in Tallahassee. He now leads MIA Hospitality Management, a Marriott and Hyatt-approved platform driving operational excellence and portfolio growth across the US. Website: https://miahospitalitymanagement.com/
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  Could You Replace Your Best Manager From Within Right Now? 26.05.2026 7mnt

  Building a leadership pipeline in hospitality means investing in your managers' skills, confidence, and capacity before a crisis forces your hand. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the Australian hospitality industry, explains why promoting without a development plan sets managers up to struggle and clubs up for costly, avoidable turnover. If your best manager resigned tomorrow, who would step up — and are they actually ready? In this episode, Michelle draws on conversations with three of the sharpest leadership minds she has interviewed this month — Christin Marvin, Hanna Bauer, and Rich Ellis — to bring together a practical three-layer framework for building leaders who last. Michelle Pascoe's core argument is this: a leadership pipeline is not a spreadsheet or a succession chart. It is a living, breathing investment in your people. When clubs promote the most loyal person in the room without a structured development plan, they are not building a pipeline — they are setting that person up to struggle and the venue up for the consequences: manager burnout, team turnover, culture drift, and the CEO back in the weeds handling issues that should have been resolved two levels down. The clubs that will thrive over the next five years are the ones building their leaders now, not when the crisis hits. Michelle Pascoe's Middle Management Movement and Executive Leaders Movement programs are built specifically for registered clubs and hospitality venues that are ready to make that investment. Key Takeaways Why promoting loyalty without a leadership development plan sets managers up to struggle and clubs up for avoidable turnover The framework that reframes the order in which clubs should invest in their teams Why middle managers are the critical connector between strategic leadership and frontline performance, and what happens when that layer breaks down Why burnout is a leadership pipeline problem, and the early warning signs that a manager is running on empty before the dramatic crash The three-layer framework combining energy, connection, and process that underpins a sustainable leadership culture Next Steps Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for hospitality leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book workshops and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues — including the Middle Management Movement and Executive Leaders Movement: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms Resources & Links Christin Marvin: https://www.columbinehospitality.com/ Hanna Bauer: https://heartnomics.com/ Rich Ellis: https://www.richellis.nz/ About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms
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  The Silent Signs Your Hospitality Team Is Running on Empty 19.05.2026 31mnt

  Burnout in hospitality teams shows up long before the dramatic crash — in dropped shoulders, extra coffees, and withdrawal from team conversations. Michelle Pascoe, a Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years' experience in hospitality, and energy coach Rich Ellis share practical tools for reading early warning signs and embedding a simple 1-to-10 check-in system that prevents burnout before it becomes a resignation. Are you seeing the signs in your team — or are you too busy to notice them? If you have ever ended a busy season wondering how your team made it through, or found yourself managing someone's exit that you never saw coming, this episode is worth your full attention. Rich Ellis has spent nearly two decades helping leaders understand that energy is not a wellness topic — it is a performance discipline. He and Michelle Pascoe explore what burnout actually looks like in a hospitality environment, why the standard responses rarely work, and what small, sustainable changes make a real difference over time. This is not a conversation about self-care programs or office fruit bowls. It is a practical framework for leaders who are serious about retaining their best people. Key Takeaways The body language and behaviour shifts that signal a team member is depleting — weeks before they say a word. The science behind morning light exposure and why 7-10 minutes outdoors is the single highest-return daily energy habit. How the 1-to-10 check-in system works in a team setting, and why it becomes self-managing once it is embedded in the culture. Why building a genuine wellness culture requires a 12-month commitment — and how to demonstrate return on investment to a board or owner group. A practical mindset for helping frontline staff deflect disrespectful customers without absorbing the impact. LINKS AND RESOURCES  Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast  Join Michelle's newsletter for hospitality leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms WORK WITH MICHELLE  Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms ABOUT RICH ELLIS  Rich Ellis is an energy, resilience, and wellbeing coach with nearly 20 years of experience working with business owners, leaders, and corporate teams. Known as The Energy Coach, Rich helps organisations take control of their energy through practical, sustainable habit change — combining his background in fitness coaching with workplace wellbeing strategy to reduce burnout and build cultures where people genuinely thrive.  Website: https://richellis.nz/
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  Why Leading with Love Actually Lifts Your Standards 12.05.2026 44mnt

  Middle management in hospitality is the critical connector between leadership vision and frontline guest delivery. Certified Speaking Professional Michelle Pascoe and leadership expert Hanna Bauer of Heartnomics agree: middle managers who make daily trust deposits, hold non-negotiable service standards, and champion psychological safety are the primary defence against team burnout and high staff turnover in clubs and hotels. What if the gap between your service vision and the experience your guests actually receive comes down to one overlooked role in your organisation? Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. In this episode, Michelle sits down with Hanna Bauer, founder and CEO of Heartnomics, to explore why love and excellence are not opposing forces in leadership, and why the middle manager holds the heartbeat of any hospitality organisation. The conversation covers a critical truth: you cannot consistently meet high service standards without first acknowledging the human delivering them. As Hanna explains, love in leadership is not about softening standards. It means holding them with consistency, because inconsistent standards are not kind, they are confusing. The standard does not change to fit the person. What changes is how leaders communicate, support, and see the people upholding it. Michelle Pascoe has spent decades working with hospitality venues that confuse having standards with communicating them. This episode tackles exactly that gap, with practical insights on how to stop burnout before it starts, how to lead through rapid change without burying your team, and how to make the daily trust deposits that mean your people show up for the hard moments. Key Takeaways Middle managers are the human connector in every hospitality organisation, bridging leadership vision and frontline delivery in ways no system can replace. Love in leadership means holding consistent service standards without exception, because it is precisely that consistency that creates psychological safety and trust. Burnout in hospitality teams most often stems from misalignment, not workload: team members who do not understand the standard, or who feel unseen, disengage first and leave second. The trust deposit principle holds that leaders must make daily investments in recognition, communication, and visibility before pressure arrives, not during it. Rapid change adoption without the deliberate removal of old processes is a leading cause of team overwhelm and cultural breakdown in hospitality venues. LINKS AND RESOURCES Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and leadership programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms WORK WITH MICHELLE Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and leadership programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms ABOUT HANNA BAUER Hanna Bauer is the founder and CEO of Heartnomics, a leadership and organisational transformation firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. A Maxwell Leadership faculty member, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and Baldrige examiner, Hanna blends human-centred leadership with practical systems to help organisations eliminate burnout and align culture with purpose. Her Heartnomics framework draws on her experience as a childhood heart disease survivor to reframe love and excellence as the twin foundations of sustainable leadership performance. Website: www.heartnomics.com Complimentary Alignment Assessment: https://heartnomics.com/assessments/
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  How Do I Scale My Venue Without Burning Out? 05.05.2026 42mnt

  Effective restaurant leadership means moving beyond survival mode into a CEO mindset built on three pillars: people, process, and profit. Michelle Pascoe, a hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience helping clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues build service cultures that retain staff and delight guests, sits down with restaurant coach Christin Marvin to share how independent operators can scale intentionally, reduce staff turnover, and build culture-led teams that run without the owner present.  Are you building a business, or building a trap for yourself?  Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.  In this episode, Michelle is joined by Christin Marvin, founder of Solutions by Christin and creator of the Independent Restaurant Framework. Christin has helped restaurant groups scale from six to 48 locations in seven years. Her message is direct: hospitality businesses cannot cut their way to profitability, and prioritising wellness is not a weakness. It is the competitive edge most owners are still missing.  Cutting staff to save money does not save your business. It destroys the guest experience, drives customers away, and creates a spiral that is far harder to recover from than the original cost pressure. The answer is smarter labour scheduling, stronger leadership development, and the discipline to step back from operations so your team can step up.  Key Takeaways    How the three pillars of people, process, and profit provide a structured path to scale without losing culture or control.  Why promoting loyal staff into management roles without clear development plans is one of the most costly mistakes in independent hospitality.  How restaurant owners can recognise burnout before it becomes a health crisis and build boundaries that make leadership sustainable long-term.  What the shift from operator or chef to CEO actually looks like in practice and why most owners resist making it.  Why smarter labour scheduling, not staff cuts, is the real key to reducing labour costs without sacrificing service quality.  🎙️Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast 📖 Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: https://www.michellepascoe.com/blog 🎓 Book customer service workshops and leadership programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and leadership programs: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Christin    Christin Marvin is a restaurant coach, speaker, and author based in Denver, Colorado. As founder of Solutions by Christin and creator of the Independent Restaurant Framework, she specialises in helping independent and multi-unit restaurant owners scale without losing their minds or their culture. With over 20 years of hands-on experience across fine dining and high-volume growth concepts, she has helped restaurant groups scale from six to 48 locations in seven years and has opened 13 restaurants. Christin is the author of Multi-Unit Mastery: Simplify Operations, Maximize Profits and The Hospitality Leaders Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary, and hosts the Restaurant Leadership Podcast.  Find her at https://www.columbinehospitality.com/. Or book a FREE coaching session here: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/christin-marvin-personal-calendar-r1jjarmnw
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  What Is Your Venue Actually Doing for Your Community? 28.04.2026 26mnt

  When was the last time your venue did something for your community because you decided it mattered — not because a grant required it? In this month's solo recap, Michelle draws on four extraordinary conversations to make the case that community is not something you bolt onto the bottom of your annual report. Community IS the job. Christopher Hill of Hands Up Holidays and Impact Destinations has spent twenty years proving that when you give people the opportunity to contribute to something beyond themselves, it changes them. His framework — that meaningful luxury means both parties leave better than they arrived — applies directly to every hospitality service interaction. Damien Schofield, founder of the Younger Heroes, built nature-based programs reconnecting veteran families because he lived what happens when community breaks down. His insight that resilience spreads through a team from the leader down is one of the most important leadership principles covered this month. Debbie Dickson at The Ary Toukley turned a domestic violence hotspot ranking into a board-adopted action plan, eight years of specialist staff training, and a statewide committee role. Her team didn't wait for permission. They saw the need, they had the platform, and they acted. Jenny Holt at Club Rivers has built a community culture so embedded that her team volunteers over 1,000 hours a year — not from mandate, not for pay, because the culture makes it feel like the obvious thing to do. In this episode, Michelle Pascoe covers: Christopher Hill's philosophy that mutually enriching experiences — where both the guest and the venue leave better than they arrived — is the benchmark every hospitality leader should apply to service culture and daily team interactions. How Damien Schofield's Younger Heroes program demonstrates that resilience spreads through a team from the leader, and what that means for how you lead under pressure on a short-staffed Saturday night. The Ary Toukley's eight-year domestic violence action plan and why registered clubs are safety zones with both the responsibility and the resources to act before a crisis forces their hand. How Club Rivers logs over 1,000 volunteer hours a year by building community connection from the inside out, starting with culture rather than a calendar of events. Five practical actions you can take back to your venue this week: audit your internal community first, stop writing cheques and start building relationships, tell your stories, find your Caitlin, and act before the crisis. Links Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: ⁠michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast⁠ Join Michelle's newsletter for hospitality leadership, culture, and service excellence: ⁠michellepascoe.com/blog⁠ Book customer service workshops and leadership programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: ⁠michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms⁠ Work With Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally.  Book customer service workshops and leadership programs: ⁠michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms⁠
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  Why Your Club's Community Program Might Be Missing the Point 21.04.2026 36mnt

  Community engagement in registered clubs works when clubs go beyond writing cheques and build genuine relationships with the organisations they fund. In this episode, Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional with 30+ years in the hospitality industry, sits down with Club Rivers community engagement leader Jenny Holt to explain why showing up in person — and connecting your community stakeholders with each other — is what transforms a club into the true heart of its community. Is your club writing cheques and waiting for acquittal reports — or are you actually getting in the door? Jenny Holt has worked in the registered clubs industry for more than 25 years and has led community engagement at Club Rivers for over a decade. Her team logs over 1,000 volunteer hours and 50+ community events every year — all in staff's own time. From sailing days with Sailability and sleeping rough for Georges River Lifecare, to climbing Mount Kosciuszko for the Autism Community Network and a Tough Mudder for Waterfall Rural Fire Service, Club Rivers has built a community model that goes far beyond the grant cycle. Community engagement works because it is relational, not transactional. As Jenny explains, the moment a club grant is approved, she is on the phone asking: "When can we come along and see your program?" That one step builds the rapport that makes future funding almost automatic — and gives the board the stories they need to approve the next round with confidence. Michelle and Jenny also explore how Club Rivers is now funding swimming lessons and school camp places for children in public schools that can no longer afford them, why their in-venue CRCTV screen keeps older members connected to the club's community story, and what tips Jenny would offer any club just starting its community engagement journey. Key Takeaways In this episode, Michelle Pascoe sits down with Jenny Holt, Community Engagement Leader at Club Rivers, to discuss: Community engagement in registered clubs is most effective when clubs attend the programs they fund, not just write the cheques — this single shift builds stronger board support, deepens relationships with grant recipients, and positions the club as a genuine community partner rather than a funder. Club Rivers logs over 1,000 volunteer hours and 50+ community events per year in staff's own time, including sailing days with Sailability, a Tough Mudder for Waterfall Rural Fire Service, sleeping rough for Georges River Lifecare, and climbing Mount Kosciuszko for the Autism Community Network. Supporting local schools with funding for swimming lessons and school camps has become a growing priority for Club Rivers, reflecting the reality that public schools can no longer afford these experiences for every child — and that every Australian child has the right to learn to swim. Connecting funded organisations with each other — using the club as the anchor — multiplies community impact well beyond what any single grant could achieve, as demonstrated when Lugarno Lions stepped in to support an ACN event at short notice. Clubs starting their community engagement journey should begin with existing grant recipients, tell their stories across every available channel, and build outward from a strong local foundation. Next Steps & Resources Subscribe to The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify: michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast Join Michelle's newsletter for leadership, culture, and service excellence: michellepascoe.com/blog Book customer service workshops and middle management programs tailored to clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues: michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality leaders build multigenerational teams, lift service standards, and embed values-led culture. A Certified Speaking Professional with over 30 years in the hospitality industry and Disney Institute Alumni credentials, Michelle delivers bespoke keynotes, workshops, and leadership programs for clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia and internationally. Book customer service workshops and middle management programs: michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms About Jenny Jenny Holt has worked in the registered clubs industry for over 25 years and has led community engagement at Club Rivers — located on the MacArthur railway line in Sydney's south-west — for more than a decade. Her community team logs 1,000+ volunteer hours and 50+ events per year, supporting local schools, disability organisations, youth programs, domestic violence services, and rural fire brigades. Jenny's philosophy: it's not about writing cheques. It's about getting in the door. Connect with Club Rivers: https://www.clubrivers.com.au/
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  Safe Venues Start With Visible Leadership 14.04.2026 31mnt

  In this episode, I’m joined by Debbie Dickson from The Ary Toukley for a thoughtful and deeply grounded discussion about what community leadership really looks like in clubs and hospitality. We talk about responsibility, visible leadership, staff education and why venues can play such an important role in helping people feel safe, seen and supported. Debbie shares how her club responded to the reality of domestic and family violence in their local area, the steps they’ve taken to educate staff, and why culture and leadership inside a venue matter so much. This is not about grand gestures. It is about being intentional, practical and willing to lead in a way that builds trust across your team, your customers and your wider community. This episode will resonate with hospitality and club leaders who want to build stronger teams, safer spaces and more meaningful community impact through everyday leadership. If you enjoyed this episode: ⭐ Follow the podcast on Spotify⭐ Share this episode with a hospitality leader⭐ Leave a review to help more hospitality professionals discover the show Connect with Michelle 🌐 Website: https://www.michellepascsoe.com💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellepascoe🎧 Podcast: The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast Michelle is a customer experience strategist, speaker, and leadership consultant who helps hospitality organisations transform service culture, strengthen leadership capability, and build teams that deliver exceptional customer experiences. Connect with Debbie 🌐 Website: https://www.thearytoukley.com.au/
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  How Hospitality Leaders Build Calm and Resilient Teams 07.04.2026 30mnt

  When service pressure builds, leadership matters more than ever. In this episode, Michelle Pascoe speaks with Damien Schofield about resilience, calm leadership, communication and team connection in high-pressure environments. Drawing on his experience across security, military support and the Younger Heroes program, Damien explains why teams look to leaders for tone, stability and trust when things get tough. For hospitality and registered club leaders, this episode offers practical insight into how customer service, staff culture and visible leadership shape team performance and community impact. From supporting people under pressure to building stronger internal culture, the conversation shows that connection starts inside the team before it is ever felt by customers. This is a powerful episode for venue leaders who want to create calm, capable teams and stronger community reputation through leadership that is steady, human and values-led. If you enjoyed this episode: ⭐ Follow the podcast on Spotify⭐ Share this episode with a hospitality leader⭐ Leave a review to help more hospitality professionals discover the show Connect with Michelle 🌐 Website: https://www.michellepascsoe.com💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellepascoe🎧 Podcast: The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast Michelle is a customer experience strategist, speaker, and leadership consultant who helps hospitality organisations transform service culture, strengthen leadership capability, and build teams that deliver exceptional customer experiences. Connect with Damien 🌐 Website: https://theyoungerheroes.org/
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  How Community Connection in Hospitality Builds Loyalty and Legacy 31.03.2026 30mnt

  Community is often spoken about as a brand value, but in this conversation, Michelle Pascoe and Christopher Hill unpack why it is also a practical strategy for creating better experiences, stronger leadership and deeper loyalty. Christopher shares how his work in purpose-led travel was born from a life-changing moment in South Africa and how that experience shaped a business model built around connection, contribution and legacy. While his world is travel, the lesson for hospitality and clubs is clear: people want to feel part of something meaningful. This episode explores the idea that connection starts internally first. When teams feel purpose, belonging and care, that culture flows outward into the customer experience. Guests feel it. Communities notice it. Reputation grows because people trust what feels genuine. Michelle also draws out a valuable lesson for venue leaders: community is not separate from service. It is part of service. It is found in how people are welcomed, how teams are led, how safe and valued customers feel and how venues show up in the lives of the people around them. If your venue wants to create experiences that people return to, recommend and respect, this episode is a strong reminder that the most powerful connection is always human first. If you enjoyed this episode: ⭐ Follow the podcast on Spotify⭐ Share this episode with a hospitality leader⭐ Leave a review to help more hospitality professionals discover the show Connect with Michelle 🌐 Website: https://www.michellepascsoe.com💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellepascoe🎧 Podcast: The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast Michelle is a customer experience strategist, speaker, and leadership consultant who helps hospitality organisations transform service culture, strengthen leadership capability, and build teams that deliver exceptional customer experiences. Connect with Christopher 🌐 Website: www.handsupholidays.com 🌐 Website: www.impactdestinations.com 🌐 Website: https://handsupincentives.com/