Samantha Muna — transcript

Trianum

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:06 Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to episode 58 of the African Do podcast. Today, we're very privileged to have a very good friend of mine, uh, fellow colleague in hospitality, Samantha Muna, h, founder and managing director of Trian Hospitality. Samantha, welcome to the African Do podcast.
Thank you, Leonard. It's a pleasure to be here.
Yes. So, let me tell you something. I don't think I've told you before. Um, before I got to know you and meet you, I got two phone calls. One from my good friend, a good mutual friend of ours,
Camo,
and the other from my sister and her husband who were both based in the States at the time. And the phone call went like this. They said, we were talking, you know, catching up. And then they said, you know what? Um there's someone who you need to meet and her name is Samantha and she's the only other person we have met who is as passionate about hospitality as you are. And so I heard that once um from Camo and then I was like oh yeah and then I

1:14 heard it from my sister and her husband in one conversation and I was like okay maybe I need to meet Samantha and we met and we've been friends since then. So Samantha, maybe we can start by by you telling us about yourself and where do you start? How where does this passion for hospitality come? Where where did you go to school? What what inspired it? Just tell us about your early days and what led you to a career in hospitality.
Well, thank you Leonard. Um allow me to just go back to your opening story. When I met your sister and your friend Camo in the states, both of them separately, but both of them told me, "You are a copyright of our brother, you know, or our friend." And I'm like, "Well, if Leonard's a dude, how am I a copyright?" They're like, "You sound like him. You talk like him, you're passionate about hospitality like him." So, it was

2:04 inevitable that we were going to meet and um thank God we did just a few years after that. Um so my background has been in hospitality 33 years today. Um but it goes a little before that. When I was in primary school I had a father who would travel for work. And so over the holidays we'd be like dad where are you going this holiday? And he'd tell us and if it sounds exciting we'll jump in and go with him. So he would travel across Kenya. um he was in agricultural finance corporation and so he would travel throughout Kenya looking at different farms AFC was working on and so we would go with him and stay in the hotels um and he would forbid us to leave the hotels and so we would do a stunt of a week or two weeks sometimes at a hotel and when I was 12 years old we were in Kisumu and stayed at Imperial Hotel in Kisumu um we were there for 2 weeks and

2:59 we're not allowed to leave the hotel premises so during the day when he's working we're just roaming around the hotel and um I you get to observe a lot when you're just sitting.
So I observed the GM walking around doing a walk around of his property um and he was doing it with one or two employees who were taking notes and I thought he looked kind of cool, you know, he's just walking around pointing at things and people are writing and so I said I wanted to meet him and um
How old were you? You said
I was 12.
12. So I asked the waiter who was serving us and he said I can introduce you. So he did and the GM offered me a chance to shadow him the next day.
Wow.
So very excited put on the best dress that I had and he met me at breakfast and we spend the day together. He allowed me to sit in his very big corner office uh answering phone calls, you know, um attending meetings with him and I was hooked and I knew when I grow up that's what I want to do. So fast forward years later, I go to high school. Um in high school I'm asked, "What do you want to be?" And I tell people, "A hotel year." I had

4:10 learned the term
and my teacher said, "No, but that's just a kit. You're in a school where we produce lawyers, doctors, and architects. How can you choose to be a kater?"
Um and so sad to say, I really didn't have the support of my teachers in school,
in high school. in high school in high school uh finish high school and I'm very determined um at the time I really wanted to go to college in Switzerland
um but my folks were like no we think you should start here in Kenya for your first degree so we ended up applying to Tali
Mhm. Now there's another story there that also is part of my journey. I had passed with a B plane.
Then I applied to Utali. I got selected for interviews. And when I go for the interviews, a panel of five lecturers interviewed me and they liked what they had but they told me, "Sorry, we can't take you. You've passed to go to university. We can't have you in Utali." Wow. because you'll take the spot of somebody who didn't make it to university,

5:15
but you have a chance to be in university. So, you have to go to university and so we are not going to recommend you.
And it broke me um and that has stayed with me to this day is that hospitality at the time and this is in the '9s was considered sort of a career for failures from what my high school teachers told me to that interview. Um, interestingly then we appealed to the principal. Uh, the principal asked to meet me. He was Makai CEO at the time and when we met he said I will actually give you a spot in Utali because you're very passionate about this industry. And so that's how I ended up going to Utali College for 4 years. um graduated near top of my class and it was it stayed with me the fact that you look at the people who haven't made it for university and so college became somewhat easy because then when you take a few bright students you know um the industry um sort of looks at you differently then uh because there were no degrees in Kenya at the time in

6:21 hospitality I transferred my credits to Switzerland um to Laros and that's where I got my bachelor of science a year later. So it ended up taking me five years um to finish my bachelor's.
So at the end of those five years you have your diploma from Utali at that time and a degree from a degree from
from Switzerland an additional year to get a degree from Switzerland. Um and then I got um hired by Walt Disney World.
Now during Utali years we had to do internships. So I set out to do internships at only internationally branded properties. So I did one at Intercontinental and one at Hilton.
By the time I was then graduating from Switzerland, I had a decent CV for, you know, a fresh college grad. And so I got hired by Walt Disney World um to go work in Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida as a restaurant manager,

7:15
which was just uh it was it was relatively new then. Yeah,
brand new. It had just opened. Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park, which was the fourth theme park, had just opened.
And where are we from a year's perspective?
1999. This is um I graduated May of 99.
Um had the job offer, came back to Kenya to process a visa and then started work in August of 1999.
Okay. Um, we go to Disney and we discover another lesson that has stayed with me is that hospitality knows no boundaries. We were students from almost all the world's top hotel schools from Africa to Asia, Middle East, um, Europe and even within the US. And Disney has works with a lot of interns, a lot of fresh college graduates. Um and because we on a given day we were about 50,000 interns or so and so you know it was quite an eye

8:14 openener. It was also a good job because for a big theme park like that to operate systems and processes have to be defined fully defined from the smallest detail to the largest including smiling being part of the job. And if you came onto the job and you're not smiling, you could actually be asked to leave.
Um, so from uniforms to theming to the entertainment factor, merchandising, food and beverage, everything was very well scripted. And so another key lesson that I learned is that for you to achieve hospitality excellence, you must think of the smallest details. The details matter and the process processes and procedures really matter. um you can't achieve it without, you know, by winging it. Um and and that's something that I still bring to work

9:08 today. Um is that we have to think of every system, every procedure, every process. You can't leave it to chance. You have to plan and plan and plan and execute well.
Okay.
So, good lessons. Let
let's stop there and and just come and unpack some of the things that you've told us. Maybe maybe you can tell us a bit about your your um Utali experience
because as a as a hospitality professional myself who did not get into
um not for a lack of trying but did not manage to get into Utali. Um I think a lot of Kenyans underestimate what Uti as an institution means to Kenya.
Mhm. and why Kenya is at the forefront of hospitality um I would say training uh forefront of hospitality talent um on the African continent and I would even argue on the globe you know um we are right up there among the best in in in terms of hospitality and a lot of that starts with of course now there are other institutions that have come up and and and have similar models

10:18
but maybe you as a graduate of Kenya um in the '90s. Um maybe tell us about that experience. What did you do? And and clearly you fought to get in. You know, you were not handed a slot even though you had qualified for a slot. You actually had to fight to get in. So maybe you can walk us through the institution, your experiences there and and what it meant to you as a professional. So at the time um I joined Utali in October of 1994 um and the institution the following year was celebrating 20 years was it celebrating its 20th year anniversary um having been set up in 1975 by the Swiss hotel administration. So it was a partnership between the Swiss government and the Kenyan government to set up the institution and it was an institution of excellence. It was a one of the leading hospitality institutions on the African continent. Um and it was a member of an

11:20 organization I remember called uh
which is um European Association of Hotel Training Institutions. So it had excellent standards. Um it was the benchmark for hospitality training and you know across all the spheres all the different areas um in hospitality from food and beverage service to kitchen housekeeping and laundry tour guiding um travel operations which is IATA and um front office and management. So I was in the hotel management course which was a 4-year course. um it had all the credits that you needed to get a degree but because it wasn't set up under the ministry of education it's under the ministry of tourism could not offer a degree so it would offer a diploma
um however that quickly translated when I went to Switzerland that translated and I had to do another year with uh 12 subjects seven of which I had done in Utali and therefore it enabled me to graduate with a first class honors because I was doing seven of 12 subjects that I had already done before.

12:26
So that tells you that even the standard of teaching um was up there. It was excellent. Um and a lot of um institutions would come and recruit from Utali for hospitality excellence. Um Utali graduates readily got jobs. I'm not sure if the same still applies today. I must say I
to an extent it does. Yeah,
I've been a little bit out of touch. But you got worldclass hospitality education in a Kenyan context. Um and and today whenever you say you're a graduate of Utali, people always you know respect that fact. They look they think you know and believe that you're well trained. And we had a running joke in the college. Um you tell people you're in Utali, they're like oh so you can cook. But only really two courses would cook

13:14 food and beverage production or kitchen production and hotel management. the rest of the other courses never set foot in the kitchen. So imagine you're a tour guide and you tell someone I went to Italy and they're like so you can cook. Um but that's you know that was the excellence that was set up. Um
I still get that today. You know friends say hey you're a chef you're a chef and say no I'm not a chef.
Yes. Yes. So I guess hospitality is part and parcel. It's always perceived to be part and parcel of food and entertainment which is a big part of the hospitality experience. Um but Utali remains a standard um of African hospitality excellence till today um and continues to produce graduates who are absorbed readily absorbed into the job market and quickly rise to the top of their career. I look at some of my classmates today leading GMs here in

14:07 Nairobi and across Africa and that network we've retained that network um to date. One of my classmates is the head of faculty of hospitality training at the Namibia Institute of Science and Technology and he's brought me on board to be an advisory member
um for his course. So that just shows you how far and wide the you know the reach of Utali is and the excellence continues to reflect across the African continent.
Excellent. M
now let's take this story back to your you're in Disney and one would argue
that once you get into a corporation like Disney and all the lessons that it provided for you one would argue that you've arrived you know in terms of a job you're in a you're in a large extremely large organization where should you have chosen to your career would have grown and progressed there.

15:01
Yes. But it was not that was not it for you neither from an education perspective nor a work perspective.
What inspired that thought and decision?
So um Disney when we were hired in Disney we were hired as interns on an internship visa um which had a limit. The longest you could work was 18 months. And once you had um the the visa, which was a J1 American visa, you had to go back to your home country for a period of two years um before you could get another American visa, any other kind.
So we always knew starting in that it was only for a limited amount of time and then you had to leave.
But the beauty about it is while you're an intern, they give you a full-time position. So I was a restaurant manager. Um, and I was responsible for a team of about 60 African students who were from different subsaharan African countries, Tanzania, Botswana, Kenya, Uganda and we would work across Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park and so that put me in leadership at a very young age at about the age of 24 25 uh put you in

16:11 leadership and required you to actually lead in an American style. Yeah.
So, you're also learning what it is to be a leader in an American context, in American style institution.
Um, but you're bringing the reason you're hired is you're bringing your authentic African self.
Um, and so I must commend they did do a very good job of creating an authentic village of Harambe and a safari experience
um around the themes of Tazan and Lion King. And so you you learn a lot as an intern also you're required to do a special project. You had to pick a special project within the larger context of the organization and be part and parcel of it.
So at the time I picked they were building Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge.

17:01
So I picked uh that as my special project to be part of the team that's setting up and doing the pre-opening of the lodge. and we got to see what goes on on the back end to bring forth a very themed and concepted lodge of over 200 rooms, you know, four, five, six restaurants
um on that large scale. And so we'd attend weekly meetings, you know, to do with concept and design and restaurant theming, uniform, selecting uniforms,
selecting cutlery and crockery that makes that drives that authentic experience. And so it and got me the into the bag of hotel development. And like all hotel schools, they teach you how to work in a hotel.
Yes.
An existing hotel.
Yes.
Very few hotel schools teach you how

17:54
to set up and to build a hotel.
Yeah.
And so in in Utalina final year project, we had to do a physibility concept. Um and it was just a a physibility report. So you go out identify the kind of hotel and you do your research and you run your numbers and you do the report and present it. So we had done a theoretical exercise when I was in Utali. Then now in Disney I'm doing this practical exercise of this is what it actually takes and it got me really curious. I'm like how do you get into hotel development? What drives hotel development? And in a big economy like America um the information was there and it was plenty. And so when I got into that bug, I knew at that point my life would change that operations, while operations is great, I needed something more. And and the idea of hotel development just stuck with me

18:48
um from when I left Disney in 2001.
I had to come back home to Kenya because of the visa.
Yes.
Came back to work with Hilton Nairobi.
Okay.
And at the time they were going through a renovation. They were at the tail end of a renovation that had been taking them about 2 years. And so it was also interesting to then work on the back end of repositioning the hotel, renovating it, though it was the same hotel, but just, you know, you've got now a new look and feel for the hotel.
Um, and so I really just it it sat with me that hotel development was where I wanted to go.
Um, worked at Hilton Nairobi for another year um until the 911 crisis happened. Okay. And at that point I made the decision that I wanted to be back in the US. So um went to the US embassy, got a visa back into the US. Um at the time it was a visitor's visa. I went back to the US and started looking for a job.

19:45
Um tried to get jobs in hotel consultancy but I really had no experience hotel.
So eventually I had settled for back into hotel operations.
Went into the Hilton um hotel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. was in restaurant management and then sales and marketing after that. Um worked with them for about three years in the middle um Harrisburg is central Pennsylvania so near Amish country
which is a whole other different world from Disney
but ended up um learning more about hotel branding and franchising and what cuz that hotel was actually a franchise managed independently um by the owners of the hotel. Yes. and so gave me an idea about you know that's where I started learning about a hotel management company that then takes a franchise or a brand from an international um chain and manages their hotel locally. So after 3 years I finally figured out how to get into

20:42 hotel development. Yes,
I kept doing research. I went to an organization called HVS. Met the founder of HVS, Steven Rushmore Senior.
And what is HVS? I'll come to that. And I asked Steven Rushmore, what is it that you guys do and how did you get to do them?
And he told me, okay, so HVS is hospitality valuation services.
Okay,
they do valuation for banks and for investors and lenders of hotels because when you have to finance it, you need a valuation. So they value the hotel business. They don't value most valuations focus on real estate, brick and mortar and land. Yes,
they value the hotel business, you know, um how much a brand adds value to that business, how well the business is run and optimized, you know, um because the more you optimize the business, the higher the value.

21:34
So, I pretty much wanted to know how he got there.
So, he told me very easy. I'm a graduate of Cornell.
Now, when I was in high school, I always wanted to go to Cornell. It was so far out of reach, so expensive. So, I never pursued it. when he told me that I was like actually now I have an opportunity I'm in the US
so I asked him can you put me in touch can you introduce me to somebody at Cornell and he introduced me to a professor called John Derus um had a session with him and he said you're actually a perfect candidate for a mast's program
go ahead and apply so I applied for the masters of management in hospitality at Cornell um it took me a year from you know when I started because you have to do your GMAT Um and then you have to do your college application process which is quite long and lengthy. Uh but eventually I got into Cornell. I was admitted in um the fall of 2004 and uh that's when I joined uh my 2-year masters program.

22:34
Okay.
This year is going to be our 20th anniversary and we're meeting in June in Ithaca Cornell to celebrate 20 years since graduating. So um we're quite excited.
Okay. It is in that master's program that I finally found my true calling. Y
where I started to do hotel development, planning, finance and investments. So my major was actually hotel real estate finance and development. Okay.
Um within the masters of management in hospitality. So we studied how hotels are designed, how they're built, um what feasibility studies are needed, um how to finance them with debt, equity, mezzanine funding, um and that kind of thing. After 2 years um at Cornell, I went to work for an asset management company called CHM based in Boston, Capital Hotel Management. And what they did is they would um advise owners who've invested in hospitality.

23:35
And there's a whole advisory that's needed throughout the lifetime of the hotel from when you're starting as a concept planning and development to when you now um how you going to manage it. Is it under brand? Is it independent? Are you managing it yourself? Is it a third party company? And then how to optimize that asset and get it refinanced. It's not just set it up and leave it. It's you have to actively manage that investment throughout its lifetime.
And I would assume optimized also, right? Not just refinanced, but also the optimization of that asset in its lifetime and the various phases that make up that lifetime.
Yes. And then as an investor, if you choose to exit, who are you selling the hotels to and why are you selling and at what you know multiple just like any other investment?

24:24
And I I would assume this this then incorporates things like timing for renovations, refurbishment, soft renovations, which are short-term renovations versus the more intense long-term renovations. I would assume those are all the things you factor in.
Exactly. And the cash flows. Um if if you want to renovate in 2 years time, you start planning the cash flow. So making sure you set aside some cash for your renovation. Um are you just going to renovate the hotel to look different or are you going to renovate the hotel and call it a different name or brand? So are you changing the brand? And we actually went through that where we would change from there was a hotel I worked on in Fort Lauderdale 998 rooms and we changed it from a Weston to a curio collection by Hilton so that then we could improve the optimization and its strategic and it's not just the hotel on its own. It's also the competitive market the hotel sits in. How many other hotels is it competing with? What's the positioning of the hotels? Is it luxury? Is it upscale? Is it midscale? um you know these are things that need to be factored in into

25:29 the optimization cycle. Are we expanding the hotel? Are we shrinking the hotel? You know um those are things that we all you know you're constantly running all these models and assumptions to really see
are we getting the best return on investment. At the end of the day the return on investment cuz we were working on behalf of the investors. So the return on investment is what really drives the decisions that make hotel successful.
You know, Samantha, as I'm listening you talk, um you speak to a lot of the things that I feel um lack in a local hospitality context. And I don't say that from a negative perspective. I know you are there, I am there, there are other people coming up, there are younger people coming up in the industry and they're beginning to be addressed. But I think from a policy and strategy perspective, a lot of the things that you've spoken about as you

26:22 have told us about your early career
speak to what lacks
in the market. right from your teacher in high school who thought that you're a crater. uh as you were telling me about the complexity of hotel asset management, I couldn't help but reflect back to that teacher and wonder what she would have thought if she sat in those rooms, you know, where you're dealing with complex models, cash flows, planning of renovation, renovation schedules, uh contractors, contractor management, third party contractor management and all that complexity. And I feel that that's something that still we still have a lot of work to do in the market to get that understood
that to assume and also some of the casual comments like have you you've been to tell do you know how to cook

27:13
they also I would say inform or misinform the public about what hospitality is
yes
and it's actually such a robust complex and specialized segment of the market that actually I in my view requires a bit more attention and listening to you and the stories of your experiences kind of curates all that and brings it together.
That's true. Um you're very right Leonard. It it is a very complex industry. Um and it it's also very capital intensive. So you you think that if you you're going to deploy say 20,000 US 20 million US if you're going to deploy it in an investment you will spend a lot of time with the investment analysts to understand am I getting the best return for my stocks my bonds you know my equities um

28:07
do do I really get the best out of this surprisingly when people are doing hotels they don't really spend that much time figuring out how they're deploying their $20 million. Uh, and I'm just using 20 million as an example. You know, there are hotels that cost upwards of $und00 million.
Um, and those internationally have actually gone the length of making sure that they look at all these um elements. However, locally, everyone starts and says, "I want a hotel because, you know, um I've made it. I've I've come into some money and I want to do a hotel. Maybe I've been doing other real estate development and now I want to do a hotel." And the real focus is always on the bill of quantities with the QS, you

28:58 know, the architectural design, the bill of quantities, not the actual investment. So locally we still view hospitality as a bricks and mortar business
when we a big chunk of it is or the biggest part of it is actually optimizing the operations. So you get the brick and mortar right, you build, you go to China, you buy furniture and you fit out the place and you open the doors and then you sit and wait. It is an active investment. It needs a lot of strategy to move it from opening to optimizing that asset. And when that part fails, then it's what you see in the local press. A hotel is being auctioned.
Yes.
And it's because they never got the investment journey correct from the get-go. When I do hospitality investment advisory, one of the things I tell owners is, let's start with the end in mind. What do you want this place to look like 10 years after it's opened? Then now let's go backwards and make it work and start putting the building blocks in place. When we see new hotels opening in Kenya, they're always big opening celebrations and they are

30:14 splashed in the papers and you get some dignitary or VIP to come and cut the ribbon. A lot of people don't realize some of these hotels have taken anywhere between 5 and 10 years to build and construct. you only see the hotel on the opening day. So the 5 and 10 years of planning and building internationally that has shrunk to about 3 years. We're still in the 5 to 10 year gap because we start to change our minds as we go along.
We start to realize we hadn't figured out the end in mind from the point when we start.
When it's on paper and it's a feasibility concept, it's okay. Change your mind as many times as you need to. Once you put the shovel in the ground and start building, be very certain what the end point is. Otherwise, it'll cost you a lot of money

31:03
to keep changing your mind along the way. And there are those who've gotten it right. I'm not saying everyone's done it wrong. There are those who've gotten it right. And when they do, we love those hotels. We love going to those hotels. Um, but there's also equally um a big number of people who struggle to get it right. Now that brings me to who Trian Hospitality is.
Okay.
Now when I
maybe let's before we say who it is. Yes.
Let's just bridge this gap because we had left you
having graduated from Cornell. Yes.
And you have now entered into the asset management. So maybe just connect those dots of you now coming back home and then we get to the the the setting up of Trian Hospitality. So um I worked with CHM for 3 years until 2009 with a global financial crash. um 2008 is when the the meltdown started and that really impacted the portfolio we're working on at the time and so you know cutback started and realized you know um last in

32:07 first out I was the last in in the organization so I was going to be the first out and so I decided to pivot and look for and come back to Kenya with the skills and the information that I had I felt that there was a market in Kenya. I had started to do my research um you know two or three years prior to that and realized there's quite a gap in the market and so I said let me come and try and fill that gap. So I pack my bags and I come home to Kenya but I needed the way Kenya works is you you really need to your intro into the market makes a difference as to your projection. So instead of coming in as an independent I wanted to partner with one of the bigger hospitality companies. So I went to SOA um Serena and Tamarind were the three that I reached out to and Tamarind was the only one that was keen to take me on.

32:58
So I joined the Tamarind uh group and told them I'm creating a consulting division within the Tamarind group. While they were a restaurant company,
they had a good reputation and a strong name. And so we set up TR Tamarind Hospitality Consulting.
Yes. Um and within the first year we got quite um I did about 11 or 12 uh projects. Um some were very big. Um the first one was an asset management project at the beach where this old resort was really struggling with its um market demographics. So we looked at that demographics and said why don't we create a new market segment which was conferencing. So build a large conference center and suddenly their fortunes changed because now they were

33:46 into um conferencing. There was a big master plan to also do you know golf villas and stuff like that. But um that never took off. They we only did the conferencing part and the the hotel changed and pivoted from being just a beach resort for European tourists to being both. You know it could be both. And and that's another element. Hotels are built to be dynamic. They don't have to be one thing. So multiple customer groups can be serviced at the same time.
Yes.
Um and so that was quite successful. We did a number of visibility studies of hotels that are in the market today.
Um I think for confidentiality sake, you know, can't name them.
Uh but quite a number of the hotels that are in the market today, we did the physibilities. Then then the opportunity for management showed up in that consulting world because I do these reports and share with people and they say okay great report who's going to implement it

34:45
I get it now but who's going to implement it and so you know when I realized that opportunity tried to sell it to the Tamarine board um but being a restaurant company alignment was a big issue so I decided to pivot on my own and set up a manage a hotel management ment company independent of a brand independent we're not owning their assets we're helping investors manage their assets properly so that's how I set up Trian hospitality okay as both a consulting and management company okay
and the first two people who believed in my vision were my two older sisters they had walked this journey with me from when I was 12 years old so they knew how passionate I was and they're like yeah we're going to do this with you and that's how the name Trianam was formed because Muna is our last name and we are three of us. So we flipped Muna backwards and it became Tranam Hospitality.

35:37
How creative.
We became consultants and we started to do hotel management.
And how long ago was this?
And this was in 20 uh 2010. August of 2010 is
so we're pushing now 16 years.
Yes.
So let's talk about hospitality.
Yes.
Yeah. Uh how has that journey been? you started as a consultant and while at it I know you have also been in into tranam out into the industry which I think has served Trian well because you kind of go back into the industry. Let's just talk about that entire trian journey uh where how it emerged and what it is.
So like I said my two co-founders were my two older sisters Mende and Mu. Mendees was a banker by training. So, she brought in the financial element into the business. And Modell was a lawyer by training. So, you know, legal um and the hospitality business has a lot of contracts and agreements um right from HR to suppliers to you name it, it's an agreement. So, having someone with a legal commercial legal background

36:41 was also a great benefit. And then I was the hotel year. Um we made a great team and we started getting projects. In our first year, we got three projects. Now we didn't set out to become a big company. We thought you know get one project whatever money comes we split it three ways. Um within the first year we realized there's something called paying taxes.
So we were hit with uh unpaid taxes and so we had to quickly reorganize ourselves um and hire a finance person which is interesting cuz in Kenya any business you start you need an accountant right from the get- go.
Agreed. Otherwise, you'll never be able to figure out really tax and financial obligations.
But um so that was our next employee was our finance manager. And so then now we started to grow um now professionally following the law and making sure we're tax uh compliant. We looked at um entities where owners, especially groups of people, those at the time in the late 90s and early 2000s, there was a lot of investment clubs coming together to do investments. And so they needed a professional management company. If we're investing

37:56 in a hotel, we need a professional management company that's going to then run the hotel because then the investors themselves all have other jobs or other businesses. So that's where we came in and that's how we got three projects quite quickly um and started to grow. But we also realized that these projects that were being invested in were not really set up at an international standards level. you know, you find there's a lot of gaps in the process and so we're trying to also uh fill those gaps and make sure that you can get what you call investment grade um assets that are you know you can run profitably. Another segment that really just fell into our laps was um the shared ownership model where you would build apartments. Apartments are sold to different people but they pull them together and want to manage them under rental pool. So that became quite a core element of our business managing these

38:55 um apartment or service apartment buildings and uh we just perfected the art in that regard. Now in our early years we did hotels, we did service department, we even tried restaurants but we quickly found that the service department market was growing. This is in the early 2000s, right? So we focused on that segment. Um and by 2007 by our seventh year we were exclusively in service department and have remained there ever since. That doesn't mean we can't do hotels. It's we've just found ourselves in this segment and there was nobody else in the market doing this segment. Everyone else was doing hotels. So um we found um our niche there and we have stayed in that niche. Today we've opened and operated over 30 different apartment complexes. Our initial contracts were short-term one year then we quickly move to three years. Today we work on fiveyear contracts uh because

39:50 you need time to optimize the business. It can be done in a year. It needs some time. It needs a ramp up period which is usually one or two years and then stabilization. So we do fiveyear management contracts. But Trian operates still under four phases. We still do planning which is physibility studies and concept development. We do technical services which is during construction looking at all the elements that you need to think about likeies and kitchens and stores. So we bring in that technical expertise and then pre-opening which is the setting up of the property after construction's finished before you open the doors. So making sure you've got all your teaspoons and your towels and your cutins and your staff is trained and your licenses and permits. Then now management which is our five-year contract. So we work in those four phases. Um and we then make sure owners have transparent uh financial

40:49 reports that they can rely on because our ethos is this is an investment and therefore you need your investment reports. The same way you get your um if you've got shares or a stock portfolio, your investment manager gives you your quarterly reports or your monthly reports. The same thing we do, we give owners and investors a monthly financial report that shows them where we're going. We do an annual budget saying this is our plan for the year and then every month we say this is where we are at in accordance with your plan and this is how we got there. So we also end up educating owners in the process through all our financials. So we're very big on reporting from daily reports internal to the business weekly reports focusing on cash flow and then monthly reports which is P&L and then annual reports audited accounts and annual budgets and this enables the business to stabilize and

41:44 for owners to understand where they are going and what returns they expect from their business.
Excellent. So um that's your space. Now we we now understand that um while you still do a consultancy element, you're you're you're you have settled into this service department segment, a segment that has a lot of um
growth, still has a lot of growth. There's still a lot of investment in that segment in the local context.
So you have a great overview of the market generally in in a Kenyan context. Yes.
So if I was to ask you where is the market now
in your opinion based on what you're seeing at triam and the properties that you manage
I'd say the Kenyan market is a now mature market right um Kenya has been in hospitality for years and for decades like we spoke earlier um so it was in its nency in the 70s and 80s um it came around in the '9s and the not in the north you know the early 2000s um it was starting to reinvent itself. Um, now we're finding that it's entering a phase of maturity and stabilization where there's a lot more understanding of the

42:57 market. It's become more dynamic. Um, it's exposed to international brands. The the international brands came into the market in a big way from 2010. So, we've experienced about 15 years of seeing these brands grow. there's now um lots of conferences such as the hotel investment conference that's happening next week um that talks about what it is to invest in hotels. So we've entered a phase of maturity and that maturity is also being witnessed in the kind of returns that people are seeing. Um and so today your hotel business has to be really well thought through to be able to compete. When you're in a mature market, competition then also becomes quite critical um in the way that your entity is going to survive in the in the greater market. There's a lot more data and data analysis thanks to technology. Um and so people are also now analyzing

43:58 data better and really scrutinizing the trends in order to understand where they're going. Are there still opportunities in the market? Absolutely. One big opportunity that we see is in the uh what you call midscale hotels. As we entered into this new phase, a lot of people came in with the four and fivestar hotels. Uh but international grade three star hotels is still not been fully developed and that there's a big opportunity in that. Um lifestyle hotels um those are hotels like social house that have a lifestyle theme to it. there's still quite a bit in that market. Uh we're seeing international brands going into Safari Lodges now. Um that's an opportunity that continues to exist. And then our Kenyan coast, you know, let's not forget Mombasa, Kilifi, um Malindi and Diani. Um for a long time, we've had independently branded beach resorts. I think there's a big

44:57 opportunity for international brand quality um hotels that are not just focused on the charter airlines. They can still do some charter business, some conferencing business and some local business. And so brands like SOVA have done very well in that regard um but and whit sua whitands but there's quite an opportunity for growth for internationally branded beach resorts. So the opportunities are still there. Excellent.
Mhm.
I think you have contextualized the industry very well for us. But I have a question for you which is a question that I ask myself a lot.
Um and we discussed it, we've probably discussed it once or twice. Um hospitality professionals who transition into hospitality owners.

45:43
Mhm.
We're not many. Why do you think that is? despite uh being in this market that has had hospitality training since the 70s, we are one of the earliest African countries or postindependence African countries to invest in hospitality investment. We have showcased we we continue to showcase and export talent around the continent around the globe. Yet we have a precious few uh um hospitality trained professionals who transition to become hospitality ownersh. Mhm.
And at best I see a lot of them who transition transition as consultants at best and even consultancy not like you where you have like Trianam which has skin in the game and actually builds structure and hires staff because but more like a one uh h brief class one man show consultancy. We have a precious few number of I know we have a precious few number of erh restaurant um erh professionals who turn into restaurant

46:46 operators and we also have very few hotel professionals who become hotel owners. Why do you think that is?
Um I think the biggest issue that we face is the fact that hotel schools teach you how to work in hotels. They don't teach you how to invest in hotels.
That gap that took you to the states.
That gap exists in a lot of hotel school. So when you get your bachelor's degree in hospitality management, it's teaching you how to be an employee in the hospitality space. The hospitality entrepreneurship is taught by precious few hotel schools around the world. It's still not mainstream. So it doesn't teach you how to start. And I saw it when I was at Cornell cuz they teach hospitality entrepreneurship as one of

47:38 the specialtities. And so they're teaching you when you want when you get out of here, how do you scale your business?
What is your business line and how you going to scale it? And I think we need to introduce that maybe at a master's level, you know, let's start with the basics. let the bachelor's level be learning how the industry works and then at a master's level or any mast's program that's going to be introduced in hospitality I think needs to focus on entrepreneurship um entrepreneurship investment and ownership and therefore maybe we'll start to get people with a different mindset so the reason you see a lot of hospitality consultants is because you work in the industry 30 40 years then when you retire you only have your knowledge to sell therefore you can only be a brief um an independent consultant.

48:25
Um but if we teach hospitality entrepreneurship from an early age then we can um understand when I worked in Hilton Harrisburg that's when I understood the independent hotel management model. So starting Trian was not um difficult for me because I already understood how that model worked, how it looked like and what things needed to be done. We are not the property owner. We are not the brand. we're just a third party that comes to help uh optimize your business. Um that is I think the biggest part is that knowledge gap.
Yeah.
Um the second part is also the capital, right? So when you're a hotel or hospitality worker, um a lot of the entry level and mid-level salaries are not that big. You know, they they're comfortable, but they're not great. So you find if you have to raise the capital to then invest in hospitality you might need it from an external source not your salaries and not your income and because again we are not in the financial space or we're not in the

49:32 investment space that access to capital may not necessarily be a straight path. It's there but it's not a straight path. It's one of the things in the future for Trian we are looking at we continue to grow the number of properties we are managing. We want to scale our food and beverage offering because food and beverage has now become part and parcel of lifestyle. So back to catering. Um we are also looking at home stays and domestic travel which is growing exponentially in Kenya. Um and lastly we are looking at a trian hotel equity fund. We are in the early very early stages of trying to put together this hotel equity fund that comes alongside owners to help them invest um in their businesses and really um scale up and grow that skill. Many hotels are one family, one owner and then they don't do a second or a third. If they do a second, they're lucky, but many

50:31 businesses don't even get to the third and the fourth. And that's where we need to grow to be able to grow the business. So hence we're looking at a hotel equity fund um that can help that scale and and get that growth there.
Okay.
Okay. Interesting. And now as we wrap up um as we draw to the end of our hour, maybe we can speak a bit about the future for Trian. What do you see? Where are you going? Um 16 years in you're a robust recognized hospitality management firm in the market. Um, so where do you see what does the future look like for Trian? You've you've touched on bits and pieces of it with a with a but maybe just
overarchingly tell us where where you're going
and ultimately uh inform the audience where they can find you. Should they be hospitality investors or potential um hospitality investors who would like to contact you?

51:26
Okay. So um I see the future being an African future. Our ESG strategy at Tranam, we dubbed it local and the initials local is Local, O for options, C create, A African and L landscape. Local options to create an African landscape. That's where we sort of see the future going. How do we take what we've learned out there? What I learned in Switzerland, what I learned in the States, um, working with companies like Hilton and TUI and HVS and bring it and localize it in a content context that helps Africa I mean that helps African brands grow and African brands scale up. To do that, we are looking at it um in a strategy we are calling triam living. It's our four-pronged strategy on growing um the properties we have under management. Growing our restaurant uh concept that is easy to scale up in different properties that we manage. Um growing our domestic tourism uh portfolio which

52:37 we call neester and nomad and growing using the hotel equity fund to fuel this growth. So that then we can say we've taken something, Africanized it, created it, you know, in a Kenyan context and we now take it to the region.
Nice.
We want to grow across the region, the East African, East and Central African region and eventually take it to the world. We're only 15 years this year. Um last year August we celebrated 15 years. So the next 15 years are looking forward, looking at growth, looking at that potential. and we welcome um you to come alongside us and become part of our growth story. Um we can be found on our website triann.co.k. Um and on that website you'll find all our social media handles. Uh being generwam.com.

53:39
Yeah. and go there and you'll find everything else.
Yes.
Excellent. Something
we are on social media.
Samantha, thank you very much for joining me on the African Do podcast. It's been a fabulous con conversation. Of course, a bit biased in that we are talking about stuff that I'm also passionate about. Yes. So I wish you and all the very best as you continue and to tell and create a new narrative about around African and African hospitality and we look forward to seeing the growth and development that you will set for this market.
Thank you. Thank you Leonard. It's such a pleasure.
Excellent.
Ladies and gentlemen, and that was episode 58 of the African Do podcast. It was a great pleasure to have Samantha Muna with us and learn about hospitality um in in an African context. I hope you young hospitality graduates, current uh people building careers and even retired people in hospitality found value in it and maybe found an inspiration of how hospitality can be executed and the future of um the African hospitality

54:43 scene and us owning our brands and growing and developing developing them into worldclass international standard organizations. It was a fabulous episode and we look forward to welcome you in the future. Thank you very much.
Thank you.