Alexi discusses why he thinks the hospitality industry has less diversity at the leadership levels and the importance of conference attendance. He shares his strategies for assessing risks and overcoming obstacles. Alexi talks about work life balance, how saying yes often impacts him positively yet also presents challenges for him, and what he would tell his anthropology-major self today.
Alexi discusses why he thinks the hospitality industry has less diversity at the leadership levels and the importance of conference attendance. He shares his strategies for assessing risks and overcoming obstacles. Alexi talks about work life balance, how saying yes often impacts him positively yet also presents challenges for him, and what he would tell his anthropology-major self today.
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'm very excited today to welcome to the program Alexi khajavi, president Hospitality Travel and Wellness from Questex. Alexi, welcome to the show.
Alexi Khajavi:Thanks, Rachel. It's nice to be here.
Rachel Humphrey:Alexi, everybody knows that one of the things that I love about the hospitality industry is that there are so many paths to leadership that not each person has to look at a mold and follow that to get anywhere they want to in the industry. Tell our audience a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are, and maybe some of the pivotal moments along that
Alexi Khajavi:path. I've always loved travel. It's been a part of my, my family. And so that was always ingrained in me. I studied anthropology at University of California. I had no intention of, entering a sector, this sector or any other for that matter. But my first job out of college was working at a at a tour operator. That was doing educational trips to Cuba, and then I was in San Francisco and I started this, I, so this the.com, boom was happening in the sort of mid to late nineties, and I joined a travel startup at that point. That was it was called unexplored.com. And and that was it was like back to back jobs in the travel industry. And I was hooked. I, I've always really worked and traveled in hospitality. And so the journey from a sector perspective was set early. Because I love it. And you either love it or you hate it. It's not for everybody. But I worked in hospitality, through college, putting myself through college and even younger than that. And the journey to where I'm at now. I've worked overseas, I've worked in advertising agencies, I've worked in aviation. I've. Ran hotels in Central America. So I've done it all and I never thought that I would be in the business intelligence, industry in media and events which I find myself now with Questex, but it really is a almost a perfect culmination of everything I had done prior, which is certainly a bit of marketing. Bit of sales, bit of content and research and really just connecting through relationships and building, relationships through buyers and sellers and connecting those buyers and sellers across the markets that I have the pride and the privilege of overseeing, which are great markets, hospitality. Travel and beauty and wellness are not bad markets to work in. So I'm very fortunate to be on the journey, but I don't think that there's an end to that journey. I think it is just a path that we continue to walk down, but I don't think it you'll ever truly reach leadership as it's called. But I'm happy to be on the journey.
Rachel Humphrey:I love the idea that it's a culmination of all of those things as well because if you pick pieces from each of your steps along the way it leading to where you are today, that's such an important lesson of each of them being learning opportunities or development opportunities for you. Yeah. I like to share with our audience on each show. The reason that I have asked someone to join us, because as people know, it is someone who has impacted my leadership, my personal life in a way that I think has really helped in my career. And you and I have had the opportunity to have some extraordinary conversations, or at least extraordinary. And from my standpoint cause you have such a great perspective, you look at things from, as a conference organizer, as you mentioned, an event planner. You look at things from the trade media standpoint, you have. Hands in, if you will, all of the segments across travel and hospitality. And so I've been very appreciative for the perspective that you share with me, the feedback you share with me. That has helped develop a lot of my thinking on things that are important to me as well. And one of those, of course, is building a more diverse industry at the leadership level. From where you sit today, what do you think are some of the. Hurdles that we've been facing in the past. And where do you see things heading in the industry now?
Alexi Khajavi:That's a great question. The thing that, that I think nobody realizes about leadership whether that be in an organization or in your career or within an industry, is that the risk of leadership is that you end up becoming more isolated. You potentially less people are reporting to you. You have some trusted advisors or direct reports. You get dashboards, you get a set series of reporting and KPIs. And the information inputs are very structured and they're very controlled. And so which is great in a way because you have your finger on the pulse of those important. Whatever, whatever they be, kPIs or advisors or assets that you may be managing. But the risk of that is that your input of information is. More controlled, and so therefore it's less spontaneous and it's less diverse. And the risk of that is that, we live in this world now where algorithms on our phones, on our internet searches, on our publications that we read, whether that's the New York Times or anything. Is based off of what you read in the past, right? So it ends up doubling down and serving you the same types of content that you've engaged with in the past. So even your external sources of information are built to start to control and predict the type of information or content or research, whatever it might be that you want. So in this leadership position, the risk is that you actually get less. Information than you were getting before, you're exposed to less diverse information. So I really think that the key to leadership is actually getting diverse for sources of information and getting diverse diversity of thinking, diversity of background, diversity of opinion. Because in leadership, as I said, you really often most serve the information in a pre, built way. And the risk of that is, is that you're just doing what everybody else is doing. And where the opportunities most often lie is that, you zig whilst the others are zagging. And I think that a culture, a company the curiosity, the desire to always learn at leadership is best served by having diversity around you. Because the reality is that we do fall in like a record. The, the needle falls into the track and you just, the record goes around. You do want to get that diversity around you because, people will bring you ideas or will bring you thoughts or different perspectives that frankly, we need to be challenged as leaders with. Th that's, that has to be intentional. It's not easy. I. And it's something that we think a lot about because, ultimately we are a marketing and communications agent, company, right? We provide information, we connect buyers and sellers. So we have to bring those different perspectives into our business so that we can in turn, share that with the sectors that we work in, whether it be hospitality, travel, wellness, pharmaceuticals, or whatever it might be. Building a more diverse industry is, A reflection of building a more diverse company, building a more diverse group of friends or advisors that can bring different perspectives. I think it starts with us and then once you see that, it becomes almost a little bit more second nature, that it isn't necessarily has to be, Other than, or separate then, but it's what you already do in your day to day by bringing in diverse or different perspectives. So I think it's a I think it's something that is better done. With us within a culture, with yourself within a culture, and then starting and looking at the industry and providing that opportunity for other perspectives to come in, because that's where the opportunities lie.
Rachel Humphrey:And that's such a great way of thinking about it. I hadn't thought about it at all in the funnel of information, but that same funnel mirrors the pyramid of adults, a lack of diversity. So you start off very diverse and as you go up it becomes less so if that is your funnel of information, but. What a great way of looking at that. And I think, one of the things that's related to that, when you talk about getting diversity of thought or diversity of an industry certainly is the role of conferences in that, as an industry, the hospitality industry, I would put up against any other industry as far as the importance of, and I'll say some of the reasons for me of networking, of connecting with relationships I already have. Of hearing different speakers of staying, on top of trends and other things. Being in the conference planning and organizing business, you also though are in attendance at many that are not your own. Or Quest exo zone. Talk a little bit about why. Or what role you think conferences play in the development of leaders in the industry and some of the different reasons that people can think about attending and what they're ultimately gonna get out of it. Not for a specific conference, but the idea as a whole of a.
Alexi Khajavi:Yeah, look, the sharing of information is critical to any in industry and communication is the most fundamental skill of a leader, right? So conferences bring those two together, right? Is it exposes you to other perspectives. But more importantly, it allows for you to. Communicate with others in the industry that are bringing those different perspectives. And communication is not just talking it's listening as well. That's the key to communication is it's both input and output. From our perspective to be able to bring professionals together around an industry, a sector like hospitality, one, it's just a great thing because it's a, it's an incredibly diverse industry. It's a complicated industry. You've got real estate, you've got the operators. So just from a sector perspective, it. It is an incredible, two, three days, whatever it might be. But I think the challenge for us as conference organizers is that we deliver what w what we focus on quality over quantity, right? So we try to bring the right people in the room together that can help drive the industry, explore trends, bring different perspectives, and ultimately, propel that industry forward. Seniority often comes with age and in many industries comes with being, a white male, right? Particularly in certain sectors like real estate, which is tr always traditionally been dominated by, by, by men. So the challenge we have is how do we capture that seniority? And at the same time, open this up for, other groups young students or emerging, young leaders that are in the, that are in the industry. So we've launched some things like around, under thirties mentoring programs or bring, your top performing young leader in the organization. Because if you don't give'em a chance and you don't expose them one. They'll never be given that opportunity or they're at risk of being never given that opportunity. But actually it's self-serving, right? Is. It's not a very good business model if your target audience is a 50 year old white male. If that's, if that is your core audience, what are you gonna be doing in 10 years? It's not very representative of society. So there's a bit of self-serving commercial. Interest on our part to expose what we do, the conferences to younger, more diverse professionals within the industry. I'd like to see us and I, and maybe this is a challenge to, my competitors, which, in this industry, Are all friends for the most part. I think the conferences should get together, all of us and come up with a platform that is standard across all of them that allows for a program for those that typically aren't given the opportunity to come, whether. By cost or seniority, whatever the reasons is or are and come up with something, right? Because for me to do it differently than, the lodging conference does that, does it, which is different than somebody else does. It doesn't make sense. And I think that we still have a lot of room for growth there to encourage some younger, more diverse professionals within the hospitality industry to, to attend all our conferences.
Rachel Humphrey:No, I think that's great and I hope that I am your first phone call when you start having those conversations. You will be. I wanna pivot a little bit to some of the leadership lessons that you've learned along the way. You talked about living in other cultures, having different roles whether it would be in, in the hotels, at the property level, in trade media, in corporations and taking risks tends to be. A common trait we find with people who have reached their level of career satisfaction that they're looking for. What is your approach to risks? Are you an analyzer? Are you a gut instinct? Are you a support system talker? How do you really approach risks and decide which ones are worth it for you to take?
Alexi Khajavi:Yeah, great question. I've traditionally been more of an instinctual gut type person. So if it feels like there's a light at the end of the tunnel or if it feels like it could be unique and it works then I then I've gone for it in the past. I think in the last, 15 years, however, I realized the impact of sometimes, getting it wrong can certainly outweigh any potential reward. But there's jobs at stake, there's investments at stake. So I really do use two things to help me determine is the risk. Worth the, or is the potential reward worth the risk? One is, I really, I take an outside in approach, so I talk to customers. I talk to the market. There's nothing more important. An old boss of mine say, call, call, call your own number. When we used to have, business phones and not cell phones, be your own customer, understand how your system works. Check in at your own front desk, try and change a reservation on your airline, whatever it may be, right? Walk in the shoes of your customer. And if you really tap into that and you have your finger on the pulse of what the customer wants or needs or fears or, opportunities are. Nine, nine times out of 10, I think you've got a real strong chance of making it work, right? Because it's an outside in approach too. Often businesses say I wanna do this cuz it's better for my business. If the customer doesn't care or won't pay for it or feels differently, then it, it will fail no matter how good the idea is. The other thing that I do is I really. I use my team and some very smart people that we have to model what we can. In fact, we just talked about something this morning about moving an event from one place to another different city, different venue that carries, and this is a massive event that we do. And it carries a lot of risk, right? And so you have to model that based off of some assumptions. And really, when you do that, The model, the data then can help you tell a story. But you have to be open to how that story is articulated. Because data can say anything, right? You can make data tell any story you want it to. So that's where a team comes in. But it goes back to your other question, which is if you have a team of siphons or everyone thinking the same way then you're gonna get the same answer. And that's not the point. The point is to challenge and the point is to bring different perspectives to that decision making process. So when you do have a diverse team that you trust and that trusts each other, and you've got good data and you're taking an outside in approach, meaning the customer really endorses whatever idea or whatever risk this may be, then I think that triangulation of those things gives you some ability to be. More risky or to take bigger risks. And really, as as the banker Nathan Rothchild said, opport fortunes are made not when not when the violins are playing in the ballroom, but when the cannon balls are falling in the harbor. And it's so true then, and it's true today. And that's why I think right now is a really exciting time to be in business because it's a very choppy marketplace, right? Is there's a lot of good things out there, but there's a lot of challenging things that are happening at the same time. So I think risk taking is frankly something that, that I actually enjoy because it gives you an opportunity to take a swing. And, and I think taking a swing is why we do this, right? If all you wanna do is do the same thing over and over again you probably shouldn't work in hospitality, number one. But number two, that just feels very boring to me. And if it's boring to, to you, I think it's gonna be boring to the customer. And again, you just probably just, you're not gonna be as successful.
Rachel Humphrey:Great advice certainly to get a lot of different perspectives in there as well. Going back, we were talking about conference attendance and relationship building and networking. I wanna turn this to your personal style. You and I likely network and build relationships very differently based on our own personal. Characteristics, but we have very similar networks. So how have you developed your networks? How have you built your relationships that you really think is tailored to your own personality?
Alexi Khajavi:I really like. People. And I really like, I, and I, let me be honest. I love this industry. So I'm very fortunate to be able to work in an industry that I love. And then I just admire so many of the people in this industry. I truly admire both the hospitality, but also the business acumen that they bring to it. So that makes it easier. I'm not sure I'd be as as good of a networker if I worked in another industry. But here I am I think you've gotta, showing up is a, 80% of the battle you gotta be there. You have to be present. And I think that when you are again it, it shows others that you're there but you also have to be accessible. And I think that's a true sort of skill that again, it's made easier. It's a challenge on a work-life balance because, so many of my business relationships, I would also call friendships, right? And you, we just spent 20 minutes catching up and talking that, that takes time, right? And so you've gotta be accessible. I think also the more I've grown as a business person but also as an individual, I think the more honest I am. With myself, but also with my business relationships. So I think there's an authenticity there that also I think the pandemic kind of exposed a lot of that as well, right? We were talking how we all have, cats and dogs and, kitchens that weren't clean or, kids coming back from school. Mine might be home any minute now cause I'm working from home today. And I think that also has Allowed for the armor to come down. So for me, all those things I have been helpful but I, the biggest advice that I would give and it's a challenge I think because I haven't had what I would call a mentor throughout my career. I've had moments where I've had a mentor but I, but it is something that I would say in the grander sort of scheme of things. Hospitality and travel, but I wish I had a mentor sometimes to be a little bit more, Hey, I've gone through this before, or helped give advice or just some perspective. With a little bit of the. A little bit of maybe hindsight in, in behind them to to impart some wisdom. But I think, I think the biggest thing in this industry is to have those relationships. The old saying, if you want a friend, be a friend. And I think that's the best advice that you can give in this industry.
Rachel Humphrey:I love the combination both of being authentic and feeling like you're really building relationships, but also with mentors. Find someone who can help guide you, find someone who maybe you can bounce ideas off of. You touched on work life balance, but talking about the cats and the kids and the other things. And obviously I know you're a husband and a dad but you travel a lot and we have connected at times where you are jetting off to Europe and back in a very short window and. Conferences and other things don't allow a lot of flexibility as far as when you go places or how long you're gone for. And work life can be way more than just parenting, it can be about self-care, it can be about hobbies, it can be about nonprofit work and other things. How do you think you do at managing the demands of the career with your personal life and maybe how has that changed over time as you've learned different things?
Alexi Khajavi:Yeah, it is tough and it's, you talk about a journey that is definitely a journey of which I don't think will ever end. I I'll be honest, I struggle because I typically am a yes person. I'm an optimist my. My, my vision of Alexi in the future is probably more optimistic than it is in the present. Meaning I, yeah, of course I can do that. I can fly from, Berlin to to, to DC for, and for an afternoon to meet with you, right? So I tend to say yes first. It's my natural. And then I, as it gets closer, I realize, my gosh, I, how am I gonna do all this? And and then I'm, and then I'm struggling to make it all stitch together nicely. So it is tough, and I've realized that about myself, that I overschedule myself simply because I do say yes a lot. What somebody told me and I think it's really good advice, is when you say no, you're actually saying yes to something else. And so I try and keep that in my head when someone asks me to, do something, attend something, partake in something, I try to think about, if I say yes to this, then on the adverse, what am I saying? No. Too. And that has helped me a bit where oftentimes if I just take 10 minutes or a day to respond it gives me a little bit of that breathing opportunity and also looking at the calendar and where I'm gonna be, to really say yes and mean yes. Because there's nothing worse than saying yes than having to change it. And I end up doing that a lot. Some of it's just natural because I'm very busy. But I think I can do a better job of it. The second thing that I think is really interesting though is that, the two years of the pandemic when we were in lockdown, we were living in London at the time, so there was, there's really heavy lockdowns there. Tho that was an incredible time for me because I didn't travel for 18 months. It was probably the only time in my life in my adult life that I haven't traveled. And I spent so much time with my family, every day. And I don't think I ever would've gotten that if the pandemic wouldn't have happened. I'm not. Pandemic was awful. I'm not endorsing it in any way, but from a personal perspective, and I'm very fortunate the amount of time that I spent with my family was just second to none. That being said, I think my wife was keen for me to. Hit the road again. She was ready for an end. I'm not sure she would echo my my sentiment,
Rachel Humphrey:but when the airport reopened, she was first in line online. Yeah.
Alexi Khajavi:Ticket. I got an email. I was like, I don't recall booking this trip. And but I think that's also. It, there is something about quality over quantity. Because when I'm gone and then I come home I really do try to partake in everything I can and really not miss, the big things. Whereas no offense, but I have friends that don't travel. But they're home every night, and so they don't necessarily, I think, have the same perspective of how important this could be, so you know, that quality over quantity is a better metric for me. But also, what I try to do is as I said, is I try to give myself just a little bit of pause before I say yes because my natural answer. And I probably shouldn't say this to all of people listening. My and my natural answer is, yes, sure I could do that. I'll be the
Rachel Humphrey:next time you say yes, you're gonna get the follow up questions of are you sure this is a yes? One idea of being present when you're present. I think that is something that I think a lot of us came out of the pandemic with is it is less about how often you are present, but when you are present, are you really locked in into being there? Yes. No leader. Rises through their career without some setbacks, some of them of different proportions. Overcoming obstacles is a really important skill in managing either the unexpected or in some cases an abject failure in a risk that was taken or even one that you didn't see coming. Yeah. What is your approach to overcoming obstacles in the face of something either that didn't work out like you thought it would? A difficult situation with an employee, a. A company decision that didn't pan out, how do you really tackle overcoming those challenges?
Alexi Khajavi:Part of it does come back to my optimism. I am I am a, an optimist. Again I will default to that. So that helps in, in overcoming the ops the obstacles. I'll tell you though, there's been a few times in my career where. I do tend to think highly of my ability to navigate out of challenges or perhaps avoid risky situations by some miracle or, self worth. The agency that I, invested in when I came back from Central America I'd always wanted to. Be in the advertising world. My uncle, who I was very close to was in ran an advertising agency in San Francisco and I thought that I could change. The business of advertising of creative agencies. And how foolish is that? I say that with absolute conviction that is a foolish assessment and belief. I probably was watching too much Mad Men at the time. But I thought that I could streamline. The entire account management sort of tranche of an agency, right? You've got the biz dev folks, you've got the creative folks, and then you have this account management in the middle that, basically facilitates the client relationships and all the work that you do. And it's a really expensive piece because it means. They've gotta basically touch all the work. So you're just adding layer upon layer and it really is what takes a chunk of an advertising agency's profits away. And I thought I could streamline it or even in some cases eliminate it. And it was, it ne nearly put the agency on its knees. And it really put me in a very difficult position because I was working with a lot of people that had always worked in advertising or always worked in creative agencies, and I hadn't, right. I had brought this. This a and I'd worked in aviation, in hospitality before. So the whole point was is I did it there. We did it there. And so we eliminated this level of customer service and it was better, right? Cause people could do their phones to check in and so forth. And it was a terrible idea. And I really as we talked about earlier, I, I. I failed to recognize that my decisions were not bulletproof, but also had knock on effects on other people. And that's where I think, again, making some team decisions and thinking about. The knock on affects how your decision affects something else, which affects something else, which affects other people ultimately. And that for me was a big lesson and I really got knocked down. In fact I got out of the the creative agency world from that. And it was really a humiliating moment for me where I I really almost put people out of work. Just based off of, my decision alone or my belief alone. So I think from that perspective Without that, I probably would, would've still been going along my merry way thinking many of my ideas were bulletproof. So in fact, I know this about myself. The only way I really learn is by getting punched in the mouth. It's really the best way for me to learn. And it's really it's almost tribal, right? It's why. Fire is hot. It's why, pain, it, falling down hurts, right? And that is the same in business is sometimes you just have to get punched in the mouth. And what that's allowed me to do moving on, is to, I think, be a better person in terms of dec de decision making. But it hasn't made me more risk averse. And I think that it's that balance that still, I think gets me up in the morning. But it brings other people along with me on the journey. And and that's really critical, right? Because this sort of like unilateral decision making that I did earlier in my career, one, I didn't bring people along with me on the journey. So I had no, I had no one saying, that's a really bad idea, or, Let's try it different, differently. And honestly, that taught me so many lessons that I hold today, and I think it's made me a better person, a better colleague, and a better businessman.
Rachel Humphrey:That's such great advice and I appreciate your sharing because certainly that self-reflection on what led to that challenge and how it played out is really an important lesson for people to see. That I could sit with you for days on end. I could talk forever. I. And love to hear what you have to offer. I wanna turn just to two kind of rapid fire ones, but as we sit here today advice to our younger selves I think is such a critical part of our journey because we get to reflect and we are all works in progress. We get to grow. What would Alexi today tell that anthropology major about how things played out for you or what do you wish you knew then that you know now?
Alexi Khajavi:The first thing that comes to my mind is just because you think it's funny doesn't mean everybody else does. Okay. Honestly. Okay. I I really I really should have thought more. Before opening my mouth when I was younger. I really did think I had a lot of answers. And it was partly because I was well-traveled. I got some great opportunities to be in some really exciting companies that were startup companies or were small companies. And so I was always At the table at a very young age. And, but that kind of made me think that I was there for a reason. It wasn't just the structure or the size of the company I was at. So my advice to my younger self would be, sometimes put your hand down, young soldier. There's someone at probably smarter, wiser, more capable of answering this question than you are. You'll get your turn.
Rachel Humphrey:I love that so much. Closing out today, the motto of d e i advisors is to empower personal success. What is one final tidbit you would offer to our audience on something just about your leadership or something that you've learned that you have found really impactful in your journey?
Alexi Khajavi:Honestly it's really get to know, respect and admire the strengths and weaknesses of the people you work with. We all bring special experience skills but also challenges to the table. You never know when somebody is having, particularly, Difficult day. And you never know what's going on in their personal lives. Have a little bit more compassion and patience in allowing for the workplace, I think to be a healthy place to, if somebody. Desires to bring some of those issues. It's not going to make your company less productive, less effective. There's ways to do it professionally and I think that we're going to see a lot more of that in the next decades. I hope we are. I hope we can become a bit more compassionate. Because I do think that people spend so much time at work and trying to achieve that work-life balance, that to have, professional me and personal me as two separate individuals with two completely separate, set of values and friends and networks, that's impossible. So I think this blurring of the lines is already happening. And I think businesses and companies and company cultures would best be served to. Open themselves up to it and embrace it. And welcome all personalities and all, thoughts and perspectives to the table. Cause it does make us more richer and more diverse. So that's the 2 cents. I would contribute.
Rachel Humphrey:Alexi, on behalf of myself, on behalf of the hospitality industry, thank you very much for your leadership, for your continued commitment to a more diverse industry at all levels. For our audience, thank you for tuning in and if you liked what you heard today, we hope you'll head on over to d e i advisors.org. Where you can hear from other exceptional hospitality industry leaders. You can also stream the d e I advisors podcasts on any of your favorite streaming channels. But Alexi, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your thoughts, Rachel.
Alexi Khajavi:Thank you.