It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

Dina Belon, President, Staypineapple Interviewed by Rachel Humphrey

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Dina discusses how her interest in sustainability and deep dive into it ended up being a pivotal moment in her career journey. She talks about advocating for yourself, having confidence, and seeking out mentors and allies who believe in you. Dina shares her strategies for public speaking, her personal mantra, her advice to her younger self, and why you should lead like a girl.

Rachel Humphrey:

I am Rachel Humphrey with It's Personal Stories. We are a non profit dedicated to empowering personal success in the hospitality industry, and I'm super excited today to be joined on the show by Dina Balan, the president of Stay Pineapple. Dina, welcome to the program.

Dina Belon:

Thank you so much, Rachel. I'm really excited to be here. I appreciate it.

Rachel Humphrey:

We are going to jump right in and talk about one of my favorite topics, which is your journey to leadership. And I really love the way in the hospitality industry, you can really choose any path you want very different from anybody else's path and still find a way. to a leadership role. So share with our audience a little bit about you, your background, your path. And if you think there were any pivotal moments in your career, it really helped you achieve the level that you have so far.

Dina Belon:

Sure. I appreciate it. Yeah, I think as a child, I Probably had a lot of influence from my dad. He was a retired general from the army. So leadership was certainly a part of our life. Growing up we used to sit at dinner and debate the local topic, whatever was in the newspaper for the day. At. elementary school age. So I think I learned a lot growing up, but as I went to college I was actually a theater major and thought I was going to be an actress, soon decided I wasn't willing to starve to death. So I went into the kind of architecture and design field, and that's what I graduated with. A degree in interior design. I again, I think I quickly learned that wasn't probably the path I wanted to take for my career. I worked in it for a few years, but was much more attracted to oddly. construction. So distinctly different. And I think it was really the permanence and the black and whiteness of construction that I enjoyed and project management and the fact that it was either wrong or right and it wasn't opinion oriented. And I was very lucky at the beginning of my career, I'd Got to work at Marriott and really learn the right way to do things. I tell a lot of young people coming into the hospitality industry, starting in the brands is a great place to start because there's a manual, there's a way to do it. They've done it a million times and they know the best way to do it. I always say, learn the rules so you can learn to break the rules. And that's what the brands teach very well. So yeah I started, my first dozen years in my career were in the brands. I worked for Marriott and Wyndham primarily and a little bit at Hyatt. And then Got really passionate about sustainability. When I was, I remember sitting in a board room, this was a very pivotal moment for me and we were talking about lopping off the top of a mountain in Tennessee, a hill, I shouldn't say a mountain, a hill. And. I remember thinking in my mind, this is environmentally a terrible idea, but nobody was bringing it up. And I was just the project manager for the sales center. So I wasn't an important person, but nonetheless, I raised my hand and I said, what about all the residential homes below the resort? What is going to be the impact to those if we follow that path? And all the heads turned and looked at me like I had just said something I shouldn't have. And it was the first moment that I, and I didn't really even exactly know what that meant. I just knew instinctually it didn't seem right. And so I started learning on my own. And I studied and I studied and that's probably one One of the things that recommendations that I give people is read or take a class or study or learn. I'm constantly, I think I drive my team crazy by recommending a book that I've just read. So I, Diverted from there and went into sustainability. It was a really great part of my career. I was a general contractor with a GC firm that specialized in hospitality and for about six years, and we did all of our projects from a sustainability perspective we, tagline, you get it sustainable, whether you like it or not, it was an internal tagline, but that was a really great learning experience for me. Just to stop asking for permission. I had people asking me all the time how do you get an owner to do it? We just do it. It doesn't, you don't, it doesn't have to cost more. You just go do it. And yeah. That was very impressionable upon me, I think, as I grew in my career later on. So I'll tie that in. And then I went to work for the Peabody for a little while. If you know the brand, it's the one with the ducks. And I was a director for sustainability there. That was really fun. I enjoyed that job. It's probably the funnest job I had. ever in my career because I did a lot of community programming and community effort. I worked with the mayor's office and the tourism board and all kinds of great things really supporting sustainability for all of Orlando. The Peabody was great about really lending me out a lot. And then did that's how I ended up in the Pacific Northwest at a sustainable consulting firm. I realized I didn't like consulting because it was too far away from action. I wrote a lot of reports and I never really knew if. the things that we were recommending were getting implemented. So that's how I ended it at State Pineapple. That's how I got here. And I started as the director of real estate assets. So essentially I was the asset manager responsible For Michelle Barnett, who's our owner, all of the real estate that she held, which is hotels as well as commercial office and some other miscellaneous real estate and land. So I bought and sold and did transactions and refinanced and all of that kind of stuff for a few years. And then like most people that are very into expanding their knowledge and information, I started taking on additional roles and extra stuff. And, I was always that person. Dina will do it. Dina will do it. We've all been there, right? And I think COVID was the impetus that landed me in the, in this leadership role, because we lost our vice president of operations during COVID. And my boss who was the CEO at the time he came to me and said, Dina, would you take over operations temporarily? Again, Dino will do it. And of course I said yes, it was on a Friday and I went home over the weekend and I thought about it and I thought I've always been a change agent. It's my nature. I look at processes and I want to find a better way to do it in an easier, more effective or efficient way. And so I was like, I really don't want to do this temporarily. If I'm going to do it, I have seen over the last, cause I'd been with the company four or five years at that point, I'd seen so many things that I wanted to fix, but weren't in my purview. I'm like, I just want to do it. And I want to fix the things that I see. I pretty quickly came back to the office and said, Todd, I appreciate it, but I'll only take the job if I can have it permanently. And he sat back and looked at me and was like Dina, you don't have any direct operations experience or I'm not sure about this. And I was like, I can do it. I'm sure I can. And so he went and talked to Michelle and Michelle thought, Michelle is a huge believer in me, which is amazing. I'm sure we'll talk about mentorship later. But she was like, Dina, we'd be great at that. So off I went became the vice president of operations in the worst time. In the middle of COVID we had, we were, Doing a million things that we had never done before. But again, my experience, honestly, and sustainability and the need to think differently and do things that hadn't been done previously was a great base for that. And then eventually I did such a great job that I was promoted to COO and started down the path of our CEO was planning to retire. So he came to me and said that he would really like me to take over the job. It was supposed to be a five year Educational period and I got about 18 weeks or 18 months out of him. So quicker than I had anticipated. But it's been amazing. I have a Incredible team here at State Pineapple. We have an incredible leadership team and a really amazing owner that trusts us and gives us a ton of latitude, which has really given us the ability to innovate like we have. And. Made us the bell of the ball as of late.

Rachel Humphrey:

That is, you have just touched on so many really important leadership lessons, whether it be from having a support system and champions in your corner, like your boss and your, the people that you were reporting to advocating for yourself to go in and say, I only want it if. Speaking up in public in that one boardroom where everyone looked at you like you're crazy. And I definitely want to touch on all of those things because I think that is not only important in your journey, but serves a lot of lessons for a lot of others. And so I want to actually start with the advocating for yourself. The fact that I think you're right. A lot of us are like, Oh, Dina will do it. Rachel will do it. Dina will do it. And we tend to receive opportunities because we're raising our hands, but also because we get known for that in that particular example you gave. And I'm sure there are lots of others. You knew that your value and your worth was greater than what was being offered to you. In that moment and the confidence in yourself to say, yes, I know that I can do this. We hear all the time, a generalization, especially for women, that we are not good at advocating for ourselves, whether it be for promotions for salaries for new roles, talk a little bit about what advice you share. with rising leaders, men and women if they really feel like they're struggling to advocate for themselves.

Dina Belon:

Yeah, ultimately it comes down to confidence and truly believing that you can do something. Again, I was a theater major, so there is a level of fake it till you make it. And Don't underestimate that, don't underestimate your ability to just believe you can do it and go do it even if you haven't done it before, particularly if you haven't done it before, because those are the things that are exciting and fun and energizing and awesome. optimal to your growth strategy. I tell people all the time, somebody that has one year of different experiences has way more experience than somebody who has 20 years of the same experience. So go get different experiences, go do things you haven't done before. I think that's the best way for you to believe in yourself that you can do something that's new and different.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love that. Relating to that is this idea of imposter syndrome, or I don't believe that I am worthy of something or of. Titles or whatever the case may be, as you have continued to make some really important pivots in your career and as you've continued to become much more prominent in the industry over the last couple of years, do you experience any of those bouts of self doubt and either way, thoughts and insights on how people can tackle them when they are feeling that.

Dina Belon:

I don't know that I feel imposter syndrome per se, but I have absolutely felt smaller, right? Like I'm not special in comparison to the people in the room. I'm not as important or my role isn't as important as somebody else, right? Whether it's the president of a larger company or it's somebody that's a higher level than I am and it hinders my voice. That has happened I think that's happened to all of us at some time or another. And I, the best advice I can give for overcoming that, and certainly what I've tried to use in the past, is just be willing to take a risk. And I've embarrassed myself before, and that's okay. And we all have, right? And it's okay. I've done it when I was young. I've done it recently. I I think I certainly talk with my team about all the time. Everybody should be able to speak up and give back. And provide their view of something. Because different perspectives of the same topic usually come to the best result. Now, that doesn't mean that consensus is a thing. I personally do not believe in consensus management. I think having everybody, I think having a basis of trust in a group trying to make a decision and then everybody having a voice gives you the opportunity for everybody to buy in. But ultimately, at the end of the day, the leader needs to make the decision and live with it. Right or wrong and take responsibility for it.

Rachel Humphrey:

Just had that conversation with somebody and I don't know if that's the CEO in both of us, but at some point you want to hear everything, but at some point you have to make a decision and implement and effectuate whatever it is that you're aiming for. When you were talking about your path, you mentioned the owner of your company being a huge advocate for you. You mentioned others giving, Not giving inviting you for opportunities as they were coming out, making important changes. And it is critically important for all of us to have mentors, allies, champions in whatever form they come, whether we even know they're there advocating for us or not. You touched on that, the way it's impacted your path. As you're talking to others, and I know you spend a lot of time now in trying to elevate others within the industry. How do you recommend finding the right mentors, allies, champions in a formal or informal setting?

Dina Belon:

Yeah, I would start with a formal setting, like AHLA's mentorship program is a great way to go. A lot of businesses have formal programs. I certainly did that when I was coming up in with Marriott early in my career. I was I had a mentor there, formal mentor, and then beyond that, I think finding people that just care about you and care about. your growth and where you're going. I'll give you an example. When I was at Wyndham we acquired another company that was based actually here in Seattle, in the Pacific Northwest. I was living in Orlando at the time. No idea I would ever leave. End up living in Seattle, and I was sent out to Seattle to meet with the team that did basically the same thing my team did. So it was a duplicate group, and I was asked just to evaluate how they did things, what they were doing and. what I thought about how we would merge the two. And it was Mary Mahoney who was an executive vice president at the time. I did not report directly to her, but I looked up to her a ton. She was just powerhouse within the organization and had been for a long time. And I came back and I was I felt so empowered that I was the one that was sent out to do the assignment that, of course, I went seven levels above what I was asked to do. And I wrote a full business plan for how to integrate the two teams back together. together and created a new role called the Vice President of Product Enhancement, which I proposed that I would do. I, and of course I did. I was like, this is a great opportunity. And Mary Mahoney was so amazing. I remember sitting down and going through the business plan with her and talking with her about what I thought the structure would look like and how I would manage it and how we would merge the two teams that were working in opposite coasts. I remember her saying to me, it's clear as a bell Dina I have a lot of people that report to me and I don't know if I can get another vice president role, but I'll try. And I was like, what else can I ask for? Somebody to say, because I was reporting. somewhere else at the time, and I wanted to report to her and she did it. She went up the chain and advocated for me and advocated for this idea. Now, mind you, I had put a ton of work into developing what this idea would look like. It wasn't a pie in the sky, right? And she got it put in place and it was the first vice president position that I had. I was one of, probably 10% women as vice presidents at the time I remember going to the first all VP meeting, vice presidents and above, and sitting there, that was the first time I actually had a imposter syndrome feeling. I sat there, Like literally thinking somebody's going to tap me on the shoulder. I'm not supposed to be in this room. What am I doing here? There wasn't very many times in my career I felt that way, but that was one of them. I wasn't, I was one of the youngest people and I was one of a few women. It really is. And I think that's a cool story because it's a combination of having somebody that was an ally that believed in me. And also believing in myself at the same time.

Rachel Humphrey:

No. And that's a great lesson too, about doing the work and not making it easy for her to sell, but really giving her the tools she needed to champion on your behalf. I would like to. to talk about public speaking for a couple of minutes, but I have a couple of different angles. I want to talk with you about it. We mentioned raising your hand in a room of people early on in your career where you weren't entirely sure your voice was welcome to now today, of course, being on the main stage at all of the major investment conferences. All of those things are public speaking, talking to your team, your board, your owners, whoever it may be. I'm wondering Number one, if the theater training has any role you think in your success as a public speaker, but how you get ready, are you nervous? Do you have patterns that you use? How do you select where you're going to speak? And then I'm going to ask them both at the same time, because I know we're going to run short on time. Being one of the only female president CEOs of a brand is also going to give you added exposure and whether you feel any pressure or responsibility from that in how and when you choose your public speaking opportunities.

Dina Belon:

Your first question, yes, 100%. My theater background is useful all the time. I think it gave me the confidence to stand on a stage and speak in front of people in general. And I've also embarrassed myself horrifically standing on a stage acting. So I, the, I did the Cardinal Sin. I looked out at the audience and saw my mom's face in the crowd one time and completely blanked on my line and just stood there dumbfounded on the main stage. So once you've done that, You feel like there can't be anything much worse. I think it's, it gave me the ability to chat openly. And I use the word chat purposefully because I think too often when we get on stage, we, Use a formality, a person that isn't us. And what people really want to see is an authentic person that's talking to them. That's what so often we forget that the purpose of talking on a stage is not talking to an audience, it's talking to an individual in the room. And everybody in that room, or at least a good number of the people, you want to touch them. You want them to think, Oh, that is really important or really interesting to me as an individual. If you look at the audience as a monolith and not think about the individuals that are in the room, then I think you lose that ability to chat. with them and have a little bit of a one on one. So that's one of the tricks I use. The other one is don't look at people. Look over their head if it makes you nervous, right? Because that is one of the key things. If you make, I can make eye contact with people now, but if you get nervous up on stage, don't look at people's eyes. Look right over their head. They'll still think that you're looking at them, but you're not. Go through a a sequence of events just before you get on stage, pick whatever yours wants to be. I had a really good friend of mine. Tell me one time to put my hands on my hips and think I am super woman right before I walk out on stage and I thought it was amazing. I thought it was such good advice. So yeah, all of those tricks I think help. But really practice, right? And I always recommend like Toastmasters or an acting class or something that'll put you in the position to do it over and over again. That way you have confidence.

Rachel Humphrey:

Yeah. I like the idea of the chat versus the formality. Cause I think you're right. When you're speaking, you're being asked for a reason. So if you just go up there and. be yourself and that reason will come across without having to try too hard to be somebody that you're not up on stage. That's great advice.

Dina Belon:

Yeah. And sorry, the second part of your question was?

Rachel Humphrey:

The second part is whether you feel an added responsibility in public speaking because of the opportunity. for perhaps different stages than you would have had at other points in your career.

Dina Belon:

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that surprised me the most when I was promoted to president it was just a few months afterwards. I was at an event and somebody came up to me and said, Dina, I just wanted you to know a couple of my friends are following you on LinkedIn and they're just so excited about. Your path and what you're doing. And it was dumbfounding to me. It hadn't even occurred to me that anybody would care about me and that they would consider that me reaching the level of president would be a problem. important to anybody but myself, right? And as soon as I realized that, I thought, wow this is a responsibility. This is a, this is an opportunity for me to have a position and a soapbox to be able to help others. And I hope my, if there's anything I can do over the next 10 years is to raise my voice. And pull more women up into executive levels in the hospitality industry in particular. I think a really interesting statistic that I've seen recently is 29 percent of women hold C level positions in companies in general, but only 25 percent in the hospitality industry, which we are by far. the more represented sex in the population of the hospitality industry. So we need to do a lot more and I think the one of the things that we can really do is have more women speaking on as experts on panels and not just about being women. But actually, the topic that they know a lot about,

Rachel Humphrey:

no, I think that's super important and visibility matters and having a reputation as being an expert provides that type of visibility. I always share with our guests why I asked someone to be a guest. You and I have only recently met, I think, within the last year or so, and when we did, and we were talking about this exact topic, the opportunity for women in the C suite to elevate other women. And I thought to myself. Dina is going to do more by title and voice than all of the rest of us can do just by having those opportunities. And over the last year, I mentioned this to you when we talked earlier, I've watched as that continues to happen and continues to happen. And so appreciative for what you are doing there, but also the point about, asking women to speak as subject matter experts. So important. I know when I went from COO to interim CEO, I was like, wait, I'm the same person I was yesterday. I'm not different, but suddenly I had new opportunities. And so you think a lot about that. Dina, I could talk to you all day. We're going to run out of time. So I'm going to rapid fire, ask you a couple of questions. Some people are really guided by. Personal mantra, a guiding star that really helps them make decisions or defines who they believe they are, their value system. I'm curious if you have a mantra or some sort of personal brand that you really rely on for yourself.

Dina Belon:

Yeah, my personal mantra, it's actually on my LinkedIn. Page, and it's been there for since I started, I think with LinkedIn 15 years ago is be the change you want to see in the world. And I'm stealing that from somebody it's been Gandhi may have said it, nobody knows exactly, but I just think it is so perfect, represent what you want to see happen.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love that so much. One of my favorite questions to both be asked and to ask in response is our advice to our younger selves. I think reflection is such a critical part of growth. So as you sit here today, let's think back to. student. What is something you would tell your younger self, either that might've made your path easier or different, or that you wish you knew then that today?

Dina Belon:

Don't focus on the things that you're not good at. Focus on your strengths. Hopefully most everybody in their career at some point gets an opportunity to do strength finders or some sort of Program around really identifying what you're good at. I did that a number of years ago and it changed the trajectory of the way I worked. And it made me a way better leader because I took my strengths and I built a road map around those strengths. And it doesn't mean that you don't continue to work on the things that Aren't your strengths? Don't focus on them. Too often I hear young people saying, I want to be X, but I'm not good at Y. Find a different way to get to X. I don't, I definitely did not take a traditional bath to become the president of a hotel company. So find your path and use your strengths to do it.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love that. That's incredible advice. As we sit here today and we're thinking about the motto of its personal stories, which is to empower personal success, is there any final pieces of advice you'd like to share?

Dina Belon:

Yeah. And I provide this to men and women alike lead like a girl. And what I mean by that is use empathy, use understanding, use the tools that are traditional female characteristics and they will make you a better leader and that's if you're a man or a woman. So lead like a girl.

Rachel Humphrey:

I like that. We'd like a girl. Dina, on behalf of the hospitality industry, on behalf of my own personal journey, I'm incredibly grateful for all the work that you are doing in the industry for your leadership and most importantly, for sharing your story here with us today.

Dina Belon:

Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And I hope I was able to inspire somebody.

Rachel Humphrey:

And for those listening at home, we know you have a lot of ways to choose to spend your time. So we're grateful for spending a little bit of time with Dina today. And if you like what you heard, we hope you'll head on over to our website and listen to the other industry leaders who've shared their inspiring journeys and insights as well. But thank you for joining us in Dina. Thank you. Thank you.