Executive & management teams

Executive team

Maurice Taylor - Chief Executive

Maurice V Taylor is Founder and Chief Executive of The Chardon Group.

Renowned and respected both nationally and internationally, Maurice is recognised for dedication to entrepreneurship and innovation, and distinguished by strategic vision.

He directs the strategy, management and development of CML, on a day-to-day basis, with the support of his highly experienced Executive & Management team.

In the recent past, his drive resulted in CML’s successful takeover of the management of seven UK-based Hilton Hotels and their subsequent rebranding as well as the operational take over of the 12 strong Morethan Hotels portfolio in 2009.

Maurice owns a number of Scotland’s most successful hotels and restaurants, including Holiday Inn Glasgow Theatreland and Quality Hotel Edinburgh Airport. Back in 1975 he also launched Glasgow’s original French Mediterranean Brasserie, the award winning La Bonne Auberge, and today diners can still enjoy the delights of its tantalising, ‘in-vogue’ menus at Maurice’s Glasgow & Edinburgh hotels.

In addition he created, developed and ran the prestigious Parklands Country Club in the Newton Mearns area of Glasgow – another first in its class at the time.

Throughout his years in the industry Maurice has been the proud recipient of a plethora of awards including Lifetime Achievement and Entrepreneur of the Year from a number of august bodies. He is currently visiting Professor at the Scottish Hotel School and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Strathclyde.

Cesidio Di Ciacca - Non-Executive Chairman

Cesidio graduated from Edinburgh University in 1975 and worked as a solicitor in private practice until 1994, advising on significant corporate and property matters.

Since then he has worked with the board of various Groups involving principally in Property Development and Investment and Pharmaceutical wholesaling/ retailing .

He has been an advisor to the Chardon Group for 20 years.

Robert Crook - Managing Director

Based in Glasgow, Robert joined CML in 1999. He leads the CML executive team and has been instrumental in attracting and retaining many of the executive and operational team members. He led the team that successfully took over management of seven Hilton Hotels, rebranding all of them - five to Holiday Inn, one to Best Western and one which is now trading independently – as well as the Livingwell Health and Fitness Clubs to Triangle Health and Fitness.

He led the team that opened the Holiday Inn Express hotels in Dunfermline Edinburgh Royal Mile, Glasgow, Perth & Cambridge. Robert also successfully managed the operational take over and integrating of the City Hotel inDerry and Marks Hotel in Glasgow.

Continuing the expansion, he led the team that opened the new Doubletree by Hilton hotel in Milton Keynes in 2009 and also the Hotel Indigo Glasgow, a new boutique brand, due to open in 2011.

Robert was also instrumental in integrating the operational take over of the 12 strong Morethan Hotels portfolio in January 2009, all of which are Holiday Inn Express branded.

Robert has more than 25 years experience in hotel management including executive experience with
InterContinental Hotels Group. He is a member of HCIMA.

David Chapman - Finance Director

David leads the central finance team and has supervisory responsibility over all hotel finance teams. Since joining CML in 2005, he has overhauled and standardised the core accounting and reporting processes, greatly enhancing the quality of management information and accelerating the month-end reporting timetable. His team are currently working on improving owner reporting through the development of a web-based reporting portal.

David has been involved in the hotel industry for over twenty years. Prior to joining CML, he spent seven years with Queens Moat Houses, undertaking a number of senior finance roles. His last role within QMH was as finance director of their Dutch business (Bilderberg Hotels and Restaurants). Previous roles include head of risk assurance services, group chief accountant and head of UK accounting services.

A chartered accountant, qualifying with Ernst & Young, David also has a degree in hotel and catering management and a post graduate diploma in accountancy.

James Ford - Operations Director

James joined CML in 2005 and is currently responsible for the Operations and Asset management of the limited service, (Holiday Inn Express branded) estate.

Has supervised the integration, rebranding and capital projects of the Holiday Inn Express estate and of the seven Hilton hotels, with this he has delivered savings to CML’s clients of £7m in just one year. This has been achieved through the elimination of wastage and the constant application of cost benefit analysis and value engineering strategies as a route to flexible adaptable value-enhancing solutions.

Prior to joining CML, James had executive experience with Sheraton ITT, the World Bank, and Intercontinental Hotels Group. He opened over 70 hotels in the UK, France, Germany, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia and Spain. He has had responsibility for hotel assets worth more than £400m and 6,000 employees. He also handled the £1billion Posthouse acquisition and integration for the Intercontinental Hotel Group. He later had commercial and revenue responsibilities for the estate of 15,000 bedrooms and 95 restaurants.

He was one of the first Holiday Inn franchisees in the UK and holds a Masters degree in business administration and hotel asset management. He is a fellow of the FIM and BAHA, has over 35 years hotel management experience and is based in the Midlands.

Sam Palit - Operations Director

Sam joined CML in 2009, he is a highly motivated senior manager with over 30 years of proven hotel senior management experience.

Within CML Sam assumes operational responsibility for our full service hotels encompassing various international brands including Holiday Inn, Doubletree by Hilton and Best Western.

Prior to joining CML, Sam has had an extensive experience working in senior management positions within the global hotel field with both independent and International hotel companies including Forte Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels, Choice Hotels UK and Compass Group. He also held various executive management position within a diverse set of international locations including India, France and Middle East. Sam has consistently produced excellent results in his prior positions increasing profits whilst managing costs effectively in co-operation with the hotel General Manager.

At Real Hotel Group (formerly known as Choice Hotel ) he led and directed the complete pre-opening tasks of 5 new Purple Hotels from an operational perspective. The process included recruitment of GM and other senior staff, preparing Preopening Critical Path, review the sales and marketing plan with the team and ensuring plan is robust to deliver opening budget.

While working with Intercontinental Hotel Group Sam managed a group of 14 hotels within IHG, earmarked for disposal, with a turnover of over £60 million, as requested by the owner for the group. The key achievement from this project was surpassing the incremental profit target set for the year without compromising brand integrity.

He was educated in India and holds a degree in Hotel Management and is a Bachelor of Science (BSc).

Nicola Taylor - Marketing Director

Nicola joined Chardon Management back in 1993 when they operated 4 hotels. Since then the company has grown and now operates 30 hotels and 5 health and fitness clubs under their own brand ‘Triangle Health & Fitness’.

Nicola covers all aspects of marketing and PR- from actively championing Chardon’s global branded hotels in the UK and working with the global marketing teams at international brands such as Holiday Inn and Hilton to leverage best return for the CML managed hotels. Nicola also has a pivotal role in the development of each hotel’s local marketing and PR plan and any pre-launch marketing for new opening hotels, which will dovetail with any brand marketing activity.

Currently she is working, in conjunction with the CML marketing and brand marketing teams to increase and demonstrate a return on investment from the 'new' marketing channels such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

Nicola began her career in hotel sales and operations, before moving into the media industry where she gained invaluable knowledge of a variety of different categories including the travel and hospitality sectors.

Since joining CML, she has launched two major brands: Triangle Health & Fitness, which was developed when the seven Hilton hotels and their health and fitness clubs were re-branded, and the web site hoteldeals.co.uk which is exclusive to CML-managed properties, allowing CML to market to the hotel's own customer base across all the brands manage. Following the introduction to the CML portfolio of 12 Holiday Inn Express brand hotels Nicola has been instrumental in launching clear marketing plans for these hotels and creating an online presence for them.

 

Management team

Alison Muir - Director of Human Resources & Training

An industry experienced professional, Alison is responsible for the human resources function across all the hotels and the different companies (currently 1,250 employees). She also manages the Chardon Hospitality Training Academy (CHTA) which provides the training and development needed to support the business development and required standards of operation.

Her achievements at CML include establishing the working policies and practices for the company which can be applied to any size or brand of hotel as well as creating a library of on and off-job training that Chardon Hospitality Training Academy provides to CML properties and other third-party hotel-based executives and staff. Alison also managed the TUPE transfer for 1,000 staff who moved over from Hilton under the Stardon partnership and adopted change management training to assist de-branding/re-branding activities for the staff of the seven additional hotels. In addition she ed the recruitment and training for two new hotel openings and tailoring and implementing an HR software package to integrate the payroll, HR and training functions, making management information accessible at both hotel and company level.

She holds a BA in Hotel and Catering Management from the University of Strathclyde and a PGDip in Human Resources.

Vanessa Jackman - Director of Sales

Vanessa leads the CML central and regional sales team and directs and supports the unit based Sales Managers to retain and grow the customer base across all market segments.

Vanessa has over 18 years experience leading and managing central and unit based sales teams, including 6 years with Millennium and Copthorne Hotels and 4 years with InterContinental Hotels where she was Director of Sales Development. During this time, Vanessa was responsible for 36 hotels, along with a national key account management team, and played a pivotal role in the restructure and strategic direction of the UK sales force, following the acquisition and integration of the Posthouse chain.

Before joining CML, Vanessa worked for two of the UK's largest training providers and, as Regional Director at JHP, Vanessa led her team to win new contracts which resulted in her region growing from 9 to 21 branches and turned a loss making operation into a highly successful and profitable business.

Vanessa joined CML in January 2012 and is based in the North West. Her key priority is to improve revenue and profit results by directing the sales strategy for the portfolio and leading and developing a top class, performance-driven sales team.

Carol Dodds - Director of Revenue Management

Based in the North East, she leads the revenue management specialist function across all brands within the portfolio. This is delivered through directing the team of unit-based revenue managers along with the support of two area revenue managers covering multiple properties.

Since joining CML in 2005, Carol has recruited and developed the revenue management team to establish the relevant core disciplines into the business. In 2005, this involved the integration of the Hilton group business systems through rebranding into five properties into the Holiday Inn chain and the implementation of standalone solutions for two properties going unbranded.

Her key focus is driving revenue strategy to improve revenue performance and gain market share growth.

Carol has been working in the industry for 18 years, covering both the London and provincial markets. Prior to joining CML, she spent ten years with Forte Hotels and five years with Intercontinental Hotels. Working through the front-office environment, she held a post of general manager before specialising in the revenue management discipline for the last seven years. Her role immediately before joining CML was as regional revenue manager for Intercontinental Hotels Group covering 36 hotels and playing a key role in the revenue management strategic direction of the group across the EMEA region.

Matt Stray – Director - Health and Fitness

Based in the Midlands, Matt is currently responsible for the strategic direction, operation and profitability of the Triangle Health & Fitness and Tri Health & Beauty brands, he also heads up the group's H&S strategy.

Matt joined CML in March 2007 coming from an extensive Health and Fitness background. He has worked within the industry for a number of year,s starting off as a Club Manager, then working through the ranks to regionally manage hotel based Leisure Clubs for Thistle Hotels, Choice Hotels Europe, London & Edinburgh Inns and Radisson SAS. During this time he was involved in several new builds right from design and build to pre-sale and the direct management of beauty spas across the brands.

Matt then moved into the private sector and worked within the Livingwell Premier Brand and most recently with Bannatyne Fitness Ltd.

Matt has a BSc (Hons) in Exercise and Health Science, NEBOSH General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety and has recently completed Prince 2 Practitioner project management certificate.

 

Tony Wright – Operations Director Limited Service

Tony has nearly three decades of management experience within the hotel and leisure industry. He has successfully helmed the opening of six hotels and taken another three through major refurbishment and re-branding.

He was integral in the successful launch and operation of Intercontinental Hotels Group (ICHG) world’s first Garden Court Hotel at Warrington and has a remarkable track record of achievements for the Group.

Tony’s experience was also instrumental within the Holiday Inn Express brands, overseeing launches and working across a handful of the sites including Glasgow, Croydon, Stevenage and Stansted Airport. The 254 bedroom Holiday Inn Express at Stansted Airport received eight awards over his four year reign. Tony consistently performed throughout his time with the Holiday Inn Express brands and gained top ranks for quality and service, managing pre-opening budgets and achieved market leader status within his comp-sets. Following on from his success at Stansted Tony went on to open the 218 bedroom Courtyard by Marriott London, Gatwick Airport.

Tony’s most recently success is the £27.5 million redevelopment of a hotel and former 18th Century manor house, the DoubleTree by Hilton Chester. The hotel, under Tony’s management, went on to be recognised as the brand’s number one establishment in the EMEA region and was placed in the worldwide top ten DoubleTree by Hilton hotels, based on quality, service and performance.