Paul discusses his journey from newspaper boy to general counsel of Wyndham with stops in Germany and a large New York City firm along the way. He shares the leadership lessons he learned from living abroad, from his wife and two children, and from one of his mentors who told him you cannot lead others if you don't lead yourself. Paul talks about servant leadership and how he continues to grow and develop personally and professionally and what advice he'd give to his 21-year old self.
Paul discusses his journey from newspaper boy to general counsel of Wyndham with stops in Germany and a large New York City firm along the way. He shares the leadership lessons he learned from living abroad, from his wife and two children, and from one of his mentors who told him you cannot lead others if you don't lead yourself. Paul talks about servant leadership and how he continues to grow and develop personally and professionally and what advice he'd give to his 21-year old self.
I am Rachel Humphrey with d e i advisors. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering personal success in the hospitality industry, and I am delighted to invite to the show today, Paul Cash with Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. Paul, welcome
Paul Cash:to the show. Welcome. Thank you very much Rachel for having us today. Looking forward to the convers.
Rachel Humphrey:Paul, one of my favorite things about the hospitality industry, we're gonna jump right in, is how different everyone's path to leadership is. And yours like mine came through a legal channel, although very different from one another. And I think it really goes to show that in hospitality you can create whatever that path is. It doesn't have to follow somebody else's. So tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you are.
Paul Cash:If I can, I'm gonna go way, way back to growing up in a small town in the heart of Illinois just outside of Peoria where summer jobs were things like de taline corn, and it's really where I got my very first service job, which was delivering newspapers. At five o'clock in the morning, crack a dawn in the freezing Illinois winters. And I would go house to house and every single customer wanted their newspaper delivered just a little bit differently. And I even had a few homeowners who said, I want you to ring the doorbell because you are my wake up call. And I remember saying, holy cow, this is a service business. I need to listen to these customers. If I'm gonna keep my, my newspaper business going. And so that's where thinking about the customer mindset began for me. But my first hospitality gig was flipping burgers at Wendy's restaurant throughout high school. worked the fries, flipped burgers, and then did the drive-through and and importantly clean the bathrooms at one o'clock in the morning on the late shift, which, a special thing, But I loved it all. I loved it all. I learned so much. I learned what hard work looks like, and I learned the importance of, serving others. And it was such an incredible experience, but, It was really the love for the law and my path to the law that led me down the road to hotels. And believe it or not, that began when I was a little kid with a stutter. I had a bad stutter and a speech impediment when I was young, and my parents put me in therapy and did all the normal things, and they said, we got a great idea. To help you navigate your challenge. Let's put you in front of people debating. And so I joined the debate and speech teams in junior high school and in high school, and I just fell in love with it. And over time just that experience helped me to work through it all and become a better. and debate led to a scholarship actually that took me to Illinois State University. The Redbirds where I did my undergrad years and unlike other future lawyers, I didn't really want to study political science and all of my debate friends who wanted to be Atticus Finch were all studying PolySci and I said, I don't know if this legal thing's gonna work out. You never know If it doesn't, maybe I should have something to fall back on. And I fell in love with international business as a major and they forced you to pick a language. And one of my dorm mates was studying German. And I said, why not? It sounds like fun. And it became a double major. Which just that decision that one moment in time to pick German instead of Spanish sent me down one path. And I wonder, there's a Spanish speaking, Paul Cash in some parallel universe, and I hope he's doing all right. But this young kid who decided to go all German, but that ended up getting me a scholarship to go study in Germany. And to do that, I had to defer my law school admission at University of Illinois by a. and all my professors said, you're crazy. Number one, they, the law school may say no, but don't do this. What are you gonna learn over there? I couldn't believe it. And I just threw caution to the win. Got lucky. The U of I said, sure. Deferred by a year. Go have your adventure. And I spent a year in 1991 to 1992 living in Germany at the where I studied business. And I just loved it. And Rachel, I, and I just can't tell you how formative that year was for a young Paul Cash who didn't have all this gray hair. I was living in a dorm with. My mate, Tom from the Ivory Coast, my roommates Anton from France Germans Britains it was incredible to just, soak up different perspectives and I remember like it was yesterday in I think it was April-ish of 1992, sitting around the TV with all of my dorm mates watching the news coverage of the riots in Los Angeles, the Rodney King, riots. And it was really the first time in my life that I had saw the United States from the outside, and was finding myself in conversations with my dorm mates about race relations in America. and that I had really not, ever really dealt with as a human being. And that helped me grow so, so much. And I came back to the US a much better person. Went to law school, did another internship in Germany, where of course, Rachel, I met my Columbian American wife, Frankfurt, Germany. And we ended up falling in love getting married and spent the first two years of our marriage at a large, I was working at a large law firm in Germany. She was doing the investment bank thing. And it was an incredible journey. But we ended up in 1997 saying It's time to come home. Time to come back. And this was one other pivotal moment in my journey where I found out all of my law professors were right. It was going to be very hard for me to find a job back in New York that going to Germany while an incredible learning experience it made it a little challenging for me. to find work at a big New York law firm, and I sent out hundreds of resumes. I can't tell you, I even had one firm, large law firm, I won't name them, but I made it to the fifth round with a senior partner and it blew me away. In that fifth round, he actually said to me, I'm so sorry. Thank you. Thank you for all the time you put in this process. We only hire Ivy League. and I was blown away. I was blown away. One, why did you let the process go like this? But, that made me, I said to myself, that's not the kind of leader I want to be. That's not the kind of, hu recruiter or hiring an employer that I wanna be down the road. But I, that was a moment where I said, I need to leverage a relationship. And it was the first probably moment in my career where I had the courage to ask for because I was striking out on my own and I asked one of the German partners that I was working with, Hey, do you have any contacts in New York? He called a law firm in New York that specialized in catering to German clients. They said, we don't have anything, but we'll meet the kid. He the kid shows up and and they said you speak German? And I said, yeah. And they ended up creating a position for me and that, that led to this incredible journey and path. And which, which led to becoming partner in an m and a practice. And in 2005, after almost 10 years of being an m and a lawyer in the city, I said, you know what I need to spend more time with my family. The 90 hour work weeks were taking their toll. I have a son with autism, Zachary who along with my daughter Bella, are the loves of my life. And so I started looking for in-house and I just fell luckily into the wonderful world of Wyndham and rci. and I've been here ever since 18 years. So it's, wow. I've been really lucky.
Rachel Humphrey:Really lucky that story is so incredible and it actually touches on so many life and leadership lessons. I wanna actually start with the opportunity you had to go to Germany and then both for schooling and then to work there. How do you think that opportunity has really developed you as a leader, being exposed to new cultures, taking a risk and living overseas? You mentioned how it impacted you. as a, as an American citizen looking at the country from the outside. But how as a leader do you think that has shaped how you lead?
Paul Cash:God, gosh, great question. In, in, in so many ways. My worldview, growing up in a small town had been very focused. It is limited. We are all a product of our life's experience. And I think our leadership style, if we are true to our authentic selves is a product of that life's experience as well. And had I not gone and lived abroad in Germany I think I, I. Become a very different leader, but the leader I aspire to be today challenge channeling that experience is one that really embraces. Diversity, inclusivity and equity. And because I had the chance to not only live with people from all different cultures and then work in Germany for several years and see how people from different lands work and how they think, but then I was able to bring that all back and say, okay what kind of a leader am I going to be? And I've aspired over the years to channel that life experience and. add my personal experience of being lucky enough and blessed enough to have a son on the spectrum who, opened my eyes to a world that maybe I didn't otherwise see of incredibly able bodied and capable individuals who who were out there. But maybe I was blind to, but he opened my eyes to. And my wife opened my eyes to the wonderful Latinx world and all of the challenges that she faced in investment banking. And I have put that all together. And that is the lens or those are the lenses through which I try to lead today. and have turned me into what I hope is an inclusive leader. It's always a journey. We can all be better. But my, my main goal is to maximize the contributions and opportunities of every single individual that comes to work in this. Beautiful workplace and support people in bringing their whole selves to work. And and to try my best to lead with vulnerability and heart and being able to live abroad and work abroad, I think is only enabled me to be a little bit better than I otherwise would've been.
Rachel Humphrey:That's incredible. Thank you for sharing that. I think the entire combination of things, the living abroad your wife's background, your experiences with your family, so important to then take that into the leadership space. I wanna talk about lawyer to lawyer for a second. I wanna talk about two aspects, of the story
Paul Cash:you just told. I'm scared now.
Rachel Humphrey:One is when I switched from law firm life to a corporate setting. my mind was blown, at the law firm we're around lawyers, maybe some legal assistance, maybe an accountant or two. There certainly wasn't social media and marketing departments and other things. And then I got into a company which had experts of all different kinds around me and collaborative working in departments. And it was a real, it was a real shock to the system and I had to go about learning an entire new existence. Did you experience a similar transition going from big firm lawyer to. Wyndham in trying or R c i in trying to reinvent what you knew about lawyering
Paul Cash:at the time. Yeah. It was one of those aha moments that you know working in Germany for a couple years in the big city for nine years I was doing m and a and media and entertainment. I'm like, I got this. I've been doing transactional law for a long time. I can do this. And then I remember sitting in the office of the R c I General council, about to be interviewed. And I noticed on her desk, she hadn't walked in yet. I noticed on her desk she had a folder labeled fin 46 and one labeled FS five, and I thought, Wow. I'm not in Kansas anymore. I'm in trouble. These are accounting accounting rules with which I am not intimately familiar. I've got homework to do and I always knew that I was going to have a lot to learn, but that for the first time in my life I thought, okay, I need to understand what the consolidation of variable interest entities is all about and become a more complete. and a more complete business leader. And so for me it was a huge aha moment. The business was so complex and but it was at the same time as it was scary raach. It was exciting. Here I am, 10 years into this legal thing, and I'm getting the chance, the opportunity to recreate myself, do something new and learn. And the other thing that hit me is that, being in a law firm, oftentimes you get to, I'm gonna work on three, three Matters today. maybe I'll write three memos. I'm gonna get some quality time to sit down and hammer out a memo. I'll proofread it a couple other times. All good. That's not the way it works in the corporate world. The speed of the game is infinitely faster and you've gotta be able to provide that advice that is a legal solution through a business lens that's creative and pragmatic, and that is customer first. and you need to do it in real time. Nobody wants a memo. Nobody needs a memo. And so that it, it felt like I was going from like high school flag football to the N F L. It was just it was and I'm obviously not capable of playing either, but it
Rachel Humphrey:I've seen you at Cowboy Stadium. I would disagree with you.
Paul Cash:That is true. I did throw a touchdown at Cowboy Stadium at a holiday party.
Rachel Humphrey:That actually I love to share with our audience. One of the reasons that I've invited each of the advisors to speak, and you've just touched on. Something about you and your role that has really impacted my trajectory and the way I think about leadership in the industry. You were really the first lawyer that I encountered in hospitality that wasn't just transitioning from law firm to. Corporate world, but was a valued member of your executive leadership team. And I could see that a GC or an attorney could be part of a business team making business decisions in a way that was very different from. maybe risk protection or other things. And you were at hospitality conferences, not just legal conferences, you were at events and other things. Building a network of industry executive leaders outside of the legal space, and I have really never seen that before at that point, I think Pandemic has brought that about a little bit more maybe where legal departments were. Valued for the first time in a different way by business leaders. And I think that maybe has continued some from it, but I really appreciated how you positioned yourself and your team really embraced you as a business executive despite, or in addition to the legal hat. That was very impactful for me as a new attorney to the industry.
Paul Cash:Wow. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. That's very kind. Ho hopefully a little deserving, but I I don't know but I'm really lucky Rachel that I work with an incredibly talented and tenured team of really smart lawyers who happen to be really good business people. And I stepped, 18 years ago into the wonderful world of Wyndham where legal had, I think in large part, earned a seat at the table. And I've had the pleasure of getting to work with people like Jeff Belotti, Gail Mendel, and Steve Holmes, who value not only value the legal advice, but the strategic and commercial advice and expect so not only, Is do they, do, they appreciate it, but it's expected that you're going to view legal problems through, through that business lens and be pragmatic and get our great franchisees and, to Yes. Get our internal clients to, yes. I stepped into a really good situation and I'm blessed to work with incredible leaders who appreciate that. That
Rachel Humphrey:actually segues perfectly into the second part of the question I wanted to ask you. I'm not gonna age you because you just aged yourself. You have been in a same, I know for those following along on the podcast, the gray hair you have been in the same or a similar role for almost two decades now, and. you are someone that I have witnessed, continue to reinvent yourself and the role to continue growing. Some people could find it could be stale after this amount of time. How have you done that reinvention to really keep things fresh and to keep learning?
Paul Cash:I've been lucky that I've had many opportunities presented to me and. and it's all been about taking them, embracing change, embracing risk adapting or it's really adapt or die. But when I came over here in 2005, I was just a worker bee. And then 2010, I had the opportunity to become a general counsel for the first time, and I had never really led a. Of any significant size. They don't teach you that in law school. They don't. And by and large, they don't. Even at law firms, certainly you're learning a little bit, but, so that was opportunity number one for me to figure out what kind of a leader was I going to be. And I was lucky that we have great training available here, really intentional leadership development training, and. And I remember back then having a conversation with a mentor in human resources and saying I think I want be a leader just like that person, because that seems to be, that seems to be the Wyndham way. And I remember she said no. Paul, number one, there is no Wdo way and there is no one way to lead. There you Paul, need to figure out what is your authentic form of leadership and be true to that. Only through that will you be successful. And it was just such a great conversation. And Jeff bti. Was calling me right now. Said said said, yeah, absolutely. Don't try to be me. Try to be the best version of yourself. And so I was really lucky that he said. And then the other thing there was a moment later when I was able to become a GC of a bigger group, Wyndham Destination Network within the company. And I had, global responsibility now. So now I had global lawyers in seven countries, reporting in and I needed to figure out a way to how do I adapt? How do I adapt to those? Because it's all as being about a leader. It's all about adapting to your team. and so we set up times for me to talk to them in my evening early for them, but it was the most convenient for them. I was able to channel that experience, from Germany in a sort of understanding how other lawyers think about it differently. But, I kept finding myself with new opportunities and just really embracing that change and going for it. But it's not easy. And there were moments there where I had to take off, my rose colored glasses and say, Paul, you know what, who are you as a leader? What are your values? What is your vision? And are the people you're trying to lead, do they know that? Do they know what you stand for? And I remember that same HR person saying to me, you can't lead others unless you could lead yourself. And so that's really where that all began. But that was really on the professional side. I'm a big believer that your personal growth is. To your professional growth. Yes, we've all gotta do our learning and learn about, accounting principles and learn how to drive Rev bar and learn how to produce a better f d d. But you're not gonna be effective unless you're paying attention to your personal growth. And for me, that's been a huge journey. In my first four years, believe it or not, my first four years here I gained 40 pounds. Oh my God. Just because, and that wasn't because of this place, it was just because I stopped eating right. And I stopped. I wasn't exercising and I had to just, I remember reading a book called The 5:00 AM Club by Robin Sharma. Great book. You should read it. Life changing and so I just completely changed my life and started getting up early, which was right for me. and started eating better. And and, I just, and started intentionally taking care of my body. The mind really I wasn't paying much attention to. I will be honest, that's an area of opportunity. But my wife has recently got me into a great app called Headspace. Okay. And so for the last few months I use Headspace to meditate in the morning and at night. And it's wonderful. It's incredible. It's life changing too. And so I would recommend it to everyone. Invest in your mind and body if you really wanna grow professionally.
Rachel Humphrey:And such great advice. First of all, I love this phrase, you can't lead others unless you can lead yourself. And part of that leading yourself, of course, has now turned into wellness and self-care for you. And I think that you're right, that you know it for me, that is part of that reflection and growth, which is that in selfless service to others. I was doing a terrible disservice to myself and until I really said, okay, this isn't. Me first, or me as a priority. It's me too. I need to include myself in this idea of taking care of others. And I think you're right. You're a much better leader when you're actually fueled and able to take care of yourself. So I love that. And I have heard you describe yourself or your leadership style as that of servant leadership. When you were just saying, define who you wanna be as a leader. What does that phrase mean to you? And how do you hold yourself accountable to wanting to live the values or live the leadership style that you've set in place for yourself?
Paul Cash:I would say first and foremost I'm an incomplete human being and an imperfect leader, and it's a journey. But the kind of servant leader that I aspire to be is one who puts others before himself. And that is always the sort of paradigm that I try to. which is accepting the blame when things go wrong, and they will, and and deflecting the recognition and giving it to others where it should be. And certainly always be willing to do myself what I expect of others. So I try to lead by example, but I really try to put. others first and serve others. And it's, I'm always asking in every single one-on-one meeting my port direct reports who've been working for me for 18 years. No, my first question is always, how's your team? how are your people? What do they need? What can we do for them? Remember, you're working for them, not the other way around. So that's how I think about it. And sometimes I'll ask them the question, guys if things aren't working well pretend that your title is removed. If your title were removed today, would they follow? And that's a tough question for folks to ask themselves, but it's a good way to think about, are you being a true servant leader? Are you being an effective leader? If it's just your title, then that's just that's not sustainable. And you're not really doing yourself a favor or your team a favor. So serving others. I
Rachel Humphrey:love that. You've talked about your wife and son and daughter, some today. And a lot of people when they talk about work-life balance, work-life management, they assume we're only talking about women, which is certainly not the case. Any person who is in a partnership relationship and also. Working it, whether you're trying to build in hobbies or children or a spouse or parents or other things. And we always want to teach our children lessons, but we also learn so much from them. Okay. Talk a little bit about your relationship with your family and how you bring that into your leadership style. Maybe some of the lessons that you've learned from your.
Paul Cash:you're not going to make me cry, Rachel I know. I know what you're trying to do, and it's pretty easy with me because I try to wear my heart on my sleeve. But gosh, so many things. My wife is so much smarter and works so much harder than I than I do as and the same applies to both my kids. But what have I learned? I've learned from my son first and foremost I've learned courage and persistence. When I think about, and I try to see the world through Zachary's eyes, and he's going to college now. He's a true university. He's had a job. He is doing really well, 24 years old. But the challenges that he faces day in and day out whether it is the internal distractions that, that, that can come to the challenges of socially making relat. And yet he has the courage to keep trying to keep pushing. I, he really is a hero of me and I use that sometimes to say, listen, Zachary's not given up. you can't give up Paul on whatever the challenge of the day is. And you gotta keep pushing. You gotta keep driving. You've gotta have the courage to face your fears and to just keep pushing. And so I, I channel his courage a lot when I'm faced with with a courageous leadership decision. And I have to remind myself, okay you can do.
Rachel Humphrey:That's incredibly special. Thank you for sharing that very much. It's incredible the lessons that we all learn. And yours have certainly impacted your style of leadership. I told you earlier I could talk with you all day and we are gonna run out of time as I expected. But looking back on 21 year old Paul, whether it was. Between college and law school or making the decision to go abroad. I love the question of what advice would we give to our younger self because I do believe that reflection is really important and so is our personal growth process. So looking back now, what do you tell 21 year old Paul that maybe you didn't know at the time that you have realized as your career and your family have gone in the direction
Paul Cash:they've gone? Paul, Number one, you have to stop going to bed at one in the morning. You've gotta get up, you've gotta seize the day, you've gotta start eating right, you've gotta start exercising. It starts now. All of those good habits start now. You gotta start taking care of yourself and you really need to start investing in relationships. That's. Personally, professionally build that network then, which I wish I had the foresight to really start building it then. But you've gotta intentionally carve out time in our crazy days to invest with your family, your friends, your coworkers, because happiness is all driven by our relationships at the end of the day. And so that's one area of opportunity for me. Get in the gym, get up early, carve out time for the people that matter most to you.
Rachel Humphrey:I love that. Keeping in mind the motto of d e i advisors to empower personal success, what is one final tidbit you would leave our audience with as to ways perhaps they can, if they are either looking to take their career to the next level, feel stuck in something about empowering themselves to be whatever it is that they wanna.
Paul Cash:I'll leave you with a couple very quickly. Number one is en embrace the opportunities that you have in your workplace, like with your employee resource groups. I'm proud to work with Spectrum, our employee resource group. That is that, that really was the genesis of our Bold by Wyndham program that is now, developed a pipeline of nearly 20 black-owned hotels across America that all came. and er g ERGs are great places to develop your leadership skills and to make a difference, take advantage of those opportunities. But more broadly than that, I would say take a step back and try to write your retirement letter. Some may call it a work obituary. I think that's too rare. write your retirement letter. And the reason I say do that now is because you may not be on the path that you want to be. What do you want to write about yourself? What do you want others to write about your career? When all is sent and done and how do you want to be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be? To actually sit down and type that out and then share it with somebody that'll hold you accountable, I think can be a really powerful.
Rachel Humphrey:I appreciate that and I will tell you that bold and women own the rooms certainly are leading the industry now in making sure that we are in more diverse industry at all levels, which of course includes ownership and other aspects. So hats off to you and the Wyndham team who have really put a lot of action behind words, put resources behind words, and are really seeing. Impactful change in each of those programs. And I wanna take just a second to thank you on behalf of the hospitality industry, but again my personal journey and my personal career, you have been a leader that has really inspired me and really impacted me. And I really appreciate your taking some time to share with the d e I advisor's audience today. A little bit more about you and
Paul Cash:your. Thank you so much Rachel, and congratulations to you and everyone at d i advisors. Love what you're doing. You're making a difference. You're starting and igniting a dialogue that needs to happen.
Rachel Humphrey:Thanks Paul. And for our audience, thank you so much for tuning in and if you've liked what you've heard today, we hope you'll head on over to d e i advisors. Dot org and hear from more than 70 industry leaders who have also shared their path to leadership and their insights. You can also find our interviews streamed on your favorite podcast streaming service. But Paul, thank you so much again and have a good day. You
Paul Cash:too. Thanks Rachel.