Northstar

www.travelweeklyweb.com www.travelweeklyweb.com 16 | ■ TRAVELWeekly AsiA | JUNE 2014 PeoPle BANGKOK – Anantara Vacation Club (AVC) has made several changes to its executive team to support the company's continued growth and success. Hotel industry veteran Howard Leigh has been appointed Chief Financial Officer, while Melanie Smith will now oversee Club Operations. June Harrison, the outgoing Senior VP of Club Operations will become a consultant for the vacation club. Anantara Vacation Club (AVC) has made several changes to its executive team to support the company's continued growth and success. Hotel industry veteran Howard Leigh has been appointed Chief Financial Officer, while Melanie Smith will now oversee Club Operations. June Harrison, the outgoing Senior VP of Club Operations will become a consultant for the vacation club. Howard Leigh will assume the role of CFO for Anantara Vacation Club, overseeing the finance functions in all of AVC's markets. A seasoned financial professional, Leigh has decades of experience managing finances for some of the world's top brands. Howard started his career with KPMG in the UK. He then moved to the Coca Cola Company and later Marriott International as Vice President Global Asset Management. Most recently, he served as CFO at Outback Steakhouse International, a network of over 200 owned, joint-venture and franchised restaurants in 25 countries with over $750 million in sales. Melanie Smith will now oversee Club Operations, a position she has been training for under the leadership of outgoing Senior VP, June Harrison. Smith will lead Club Operations, which includes the Club Services reservation centres in Bangkok and Shanghai as well as the current club resort properties in Phuket, Koh Samui, Bali, Queenstown New Zealand, Bangkok and Sanya China. She will be responsible for on-time/on-brand openings of future club resort properties. At the same time, June Harrison, a 28-year veteran of the vacation ownership industry, will be leaving her full-time position as Senior VP of Club Operations to semi-retire and become a special project consultant for AVC. She was a member of the original core launch Anantara Vacation Club makes key appointments team for Anantara Vacation Club, responsible for developing and proposing the company's five year business plan that has set the stage for solid growth and increased customer satisfaction. Howard Leigh will assume the role of CFO for Anantara Vacation Club, overseeing the finance functions in all of AVC's markets. A seasoned financial professional, Leigh has decades of experience managing finances for some of the world's top brands. Howard started his career with KPMG in the UK. He then moved to the Coca Cola Company and later Marriott International as Vice President Global Asset Management. Most recently, he served as CFO at Outback Steakhouse International, a network of over 200 owned, joint-venture and franchised restaurants in 25 countries with over $750 million in sales. Melanie Smith will now oversee Club Operations, a position she has been training for under the leadership of outgoing Senior VP, June Harrison. Smith will lead Club Operations, which includes the Club Services reservation centres in Bangkok and Shanghai as well as the current club resort properties in Phuket, Koh Samui, Bali, Queenstown New Zealand, Bangkok and Sanya China. She will be responsible for on-time/on-brand openings of future club resort properties. Howard Leigh Melanie Smith BALI – GHM has appointed Walter Hess as General Manager of The Chedi Club Jimbaran Bali. The group's fourth luxury hotel in Bali is set to open its doors later this year. Hess will draw on more than two decades of experience at a constellation of five-star hotels on four continents to shepherd the debut of the 34-villa property at Jimbaran Bay. A 4 4 - y e a r - o l d S w i s s n a t i v e w i t h a prominent career in destinations as diverse as the Caribbean, Canada and Costa Rica, Hess arrives in Bali off his most recent post as Resident Manager at the highly acclaimed Nam Hai in Hoi An, Vietnam. He received his hospitality training in Hotel and Restaurant Management from the Walter Hess appointed as GM of Chedi Club Jimbaran prestigious École hôtelière de Lausanne, and spent five years honing his skills in the food and beverage arena at hotels in Geneva and Bern before relocating to Malaysia to work at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Johor, Malaysia. Between 1997 and 2009, Hess was in key positions in the rooms divisions of a string of five-star Four Seasons hotels, where he climbed the ranks from front desk supervisor to director of rooms. After a two-year stint as Executive Assistant Manager of the One & Only Reethi Rah in the Maldives, Hess joined Singapore-based hotel group GHM in 2012. Hess is fluent in German, French and English, and conversant in Spanish and basic Japanese.

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