David Peller Travel Hospitality and Technology Board Member & Advisor interviewed by Dorothy Dowling

Innovation Driven by Curiosity, Humility, and Purpose

David Peller’s leadership journey is rooted in curiosity, problem-solving, and a lifelong fascination with technology. Introduced to computers at an early age, he learned to view innovation not as novelty but as finding better ways to overcome challenges. His formative leadership experience came while helping launch the first Wagamama restaurant in London, where he worked every role, reinforcing his belief that leaders should never consider themselves above the work. Throughout a career spanning Google, Booking.com, Amazon Web Services, and now a portfolio of board and advisory roles, he has embraced entrepreneurship, continuous learning, and meaningful relationships.

Peller describes his career as shaped by both serendipity and intentional decisions. After years building new businesses inside global enterprises, he deliberately chose a portfolio career focused on mentoring founders, advising boards, and supporting organizations across industries and geographies. His philosophy centers on slowing down to understand the real problem before accelerating toward solutions, creating environments where ideas come from everywhere, and remaining stubborn on strategy while flexible in execution. Whether discussing AI, Asia’s digital transformation, or future leadership, he consistently emphasizes curiosity, adaptability, resilience, and learning.

Transcript

Dorothy Dowling 0:05

David, thank you for joining It's Personal Stories. I'm so looking forward to our conversation today. At It's Personal Stories, we believe that every career has milestones, but every leader has a story. This series explores the experiences, choices, inflection points, and personal disciplines that shape extraordinary leaders like you over time. And together, we explore not only what our guests have accomplished, but how they think, how they continue to grow, and the lessons they've learned throughout their leadership journey. So with that, I would love to begin with your journey, and if you could share with our audience what first attracted you to technology and innovation, and was there an early inflection point that really changed how you thought about leadership?

David Peller 0:50

Dorothy it's great to be here with you. Thank you for the invitation. You know what? You ask about innovation and technology and the first thing is what do we mean by innovation? It can mean so many different things to different people. I guess if I look back on my own journey I've often just tried to think about solving problems or overcoming challenges, not for novelty, in... but because those problems or challenges needed to be overcome. And I never thought of it as innovation growing up. It was just really getting stuff done. And if I put that in the context of technology I was very lucky. I was exposed to computers at a really young age. My, my first device was a Sinclair ZX80. To give you context, that was a device with one, 1K of memory. It had a flat touchpad keyboard, a-and you connected it to your TV. And I was not a programmer. I never learned computer engineering. But I... my first aha moment was writing a two-line Basic program, 10 print Hello and 20 go to 10, and then seeing the whole screen just say hello. And to me, that was magical as a four or a five-year-old that something like that could happen. And to be honest, innovation is about getting things done and technology, it's just been threaded into everything I've done for as long as I can personally remember. Your second question about thinking about leadership, I had a very I would say, special kind of childhood. My, my parents were very much of the sort that were like, "We're not giving you pocket money. You've got to find your own way in life." And I remember working from a really early age. But actually, when I went off to university, which was also something I chose, that I think I was the first in my family to do that, I got involved in a restaurant business a company called Wagamama. It was Today, I think there's a couple of hundred of them around the world, so it's a chain that continues to exist many years later. And the first restaurant was being built out just behind the British Museum in London, and I was the business manager. I helped set the business up to, to scale. And, I would work shifts in the original restaurant just like anybody else not sitting in the office or in an ivory tower, and I rotated through every role in that place. I, I was a table runner, a waiter, a cashier. I did food prep. I cleaned the toilets. And I guess the lesson there is to be prepared to roll your sleeves up and frankly, not as a leader, to be above anything So really, leadership's about taking part and not just giving instructions and I guess I learned that at a really early age.

Dorothy Dowling 3:33

There's two things that you said there. I loved how you framed up innovation in terms of trying to figure out how to solve problems, David, 'cause I do think that's what really good leaders do. It's what problem are we trying to solve, and really trying to hone in on how to really make a difference. But I also love how you've talked about how you really experienced the different roles in the organization so that you understood it from employee point of view, you understood it from a customer point of view. 'Cause I do think having some of that frontline exposure, I think the ability to connect dots as a leader, it just makes you so much more powerful in terms of really understanding how to make a difference. So I really appreciate that. I'm wondering because your career, particularly at the stage that you're at now, you've spanned so many different elements, but now you're in that advisory and investor role, and I'd love to understand how that journey, h- how that has been perhaps intentional, because so many individuals really ask, "How can I become a board member or an advisor?" So I'm wondering if you can unpack that a little bit for the audience.

David Peller 4:39

Yeah, the first thing to say is, I think one of the challenges we face today in a very digital-forward environment and where attention spans can be measured in seconds rather than even minutes, is people are very generally impatient to get ahead and that's not been the case for me. I've spent quite a lot of time in, in roles, though I have changed roles and companies quite a lot. But I would say that until fairly recently, a lot of my progression has actually been what I might call natural. It's, my career's really been built on serendipity. I can't think through the many changes that I've made that I'd specifically gone out of my way to apply for a new position or apply to work in a different company. Really had a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time. Maybe one exception was when I was working with a company called ITA Software. We got acquired by Google in 2011. I'd definitely never sought out working at Google, but I ended up staying there four years after the acquisition and they also gave me the privilege of moving to Asia, where I've now been for 15 years. So that certainly wouldn't have happened probably if I hadn't been given that opportunity. But really one role after the next sort of came because of either where I was at, where I people I knew or connections I'd built in the industry, which certainly makes a point to me of being visible and being connected. But as far as intentionality goes, certainly what I've been doing now for the past four years has been very intentional I'd worked for many large enterprises and three in particular who, are tremendous organizations. I'd worked for Google, like I just mentioned, worked for booking.com, and I'd worked for Amazon or Amazon Web Services. And they're three really impressive companies, very strong cultures, very strong organizations. Personally speaking, at each of those companies, I was really responsible for building a new business. I still had this opportunity to be an entrepreneur even within these large enterprises. And there's something about building maybe you could say it's you're better off asking for forgiveness than permission, and that sort of environment suited me well until the switch had flipped. And I think what I found in each of those three companies, frankly, was there was a point at which... And the triggers were different in each company. There was a point at which that forgiveness Turn to actually asking for permission up front. And that didn't suit me very well, and I think after the third sort of run on that ladder, I decided enough was enough, and I decided to step back from enterprise life back in 2022. And since then, I decided that I would like to have much more ownership and much more control over how I spend my time, the people I work with, and the contributions I can personally make. And that's when I started building out my portfolio career as it is today, where I serve on multiple boards, either as a board director or board advisor. It was a very conscious decision not to go back to the enterprise world and go on that hamster wheel again, and it was also a very deliberate decision. I guess when you go down this path, there's a couple of alternative paths as well. You could maybe become a fractional executive or you could become a consultant, and I can unpack that further if you're interested. But I chose specifically not to go down those paths and focus on long-term strategic relationships, commitments to organizations and, more importantly, to leaders who I valued and n- I think value my contributions as well. And that's why I decided to go down this path. So that was very intentional, and it was breaking that enterprise cycle that I just talked to.

Dorothy Dowling 8:36

What I'm hearing, David is that you are a growth-minded executive and the journey of really driving growth is something that gives you a lot of fulfillment. So I... That, that's what I'm hearing, is that thread of when you were actually leading the business development and driving the growth and having that ultimate control was important, and you've been able to now thread that through this phase of your career. And I do think this whole portfolio life and the wisdom worker kind of analogy that Chip Conley has coined for so many of us is very meaningful. Because all of those enterprise development opportunities that you've had in your career, you're now able to bring them to earlier stage companies and give them the wisdom of some of that learning journey that you've had.

David Peller 9:21

That's right. And again, the balance of the portfolio today is I work across public and private companies so at very different stages of growth and maturity. I work in different geographies, so from California all the way down to Sydney, Australia. But then I also have the time and capacity to go beyond the formal roles. I spend, as I think you do as well, Dorothy, a very large amount of my time wearing a couple of different hats, either as a mentor or as a coach to organizations of very different capacities and individuals in different stages as well. And frankly, there's nothing more rewarding than being able to leverage all of that sort of experience from the past 30 or so years now to, to being able to make some kind of contribution. And I guess you... it's hard not to use the phrase, but to pay it forward as well.

Dorothy Dowling 10:10

100%. And that is what it's Personal Stories is all about, and that's why we're grateful to have you as one of our advisors in this pay it forward wor- world that we're all trying to build onto. I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about Asia-Pac David, 'cause I do think it is such an amazing... it's on such an amazing growth trajectory, and it is a priority for so many different businesses today. And you have a front row seat because you're living and breathing it every day. So I'd love to hear from you some of your thoughts about people that are outside Asia. What are they not paying attention to that Asia is doing so well that we could learn from?

David Peller 10:53

The first thing is, what a growth story over the years. I, this is not a virtual background. This is my real wall behind me. I have an old street map of Singapore. It's about 50 or so years old, and just looking at that reminds me every day when I walk into this, my office just how much the environment around me has changed and what a vibrant and really multicultural environment that, that I live in. When I think about hospitality i- in this context and what are we really paying attention to, there's a very different engagement with digital here and that is, is the same whether you're in one of the isles of the arc- archipelago of Indonesia or whether you're in a built-up sort of urban metropolis like, like Singapore. Frequency of engagement is everything. And I remember when I was at Google, we would hear from the founders, Larry and Sergey, that in order to get it green lit as a product as a new service or solution, it had to pass the toothbrush test, which meant that, users had to be able to engage with that capability, that product, that service more than twice a day. I think here in Asia, people would even laugh at the infrequency of that. We're the home of the super apps and we use these interfaces to, our mobile devices, multiple times a day every single day. And the West, still hasn't evolved into a market that, or markets that kind of adopted the super app. You still have one app for this, another app for something else. And it makes you think back all the way to the emergence of the internet engines that many of us would have first experienced when we got online, whether it was Yahoo, AltaVista, AOL. Those portals, if you think about it, they indexed information, they indexed other services, and then once you found what you were looking for, they took you outside to somewhere else That's not what's happening with these super apps. They become very much a walled garden. They're the operating system now to the mobile device. They keep you within their four walls, and they provide the services, features and functionality that you probably do use many different times during the day. And perhaps the secret sauce of all has become payments, and we can unpack that a little bit more later as well, if that's of interest.

Dorothy Dowling 13:13

Yeah, no I love the way you s- represented how Asia is so far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of understanding that solving that problem for the customer and the engagement that they've been able to really develop. A- and I'm wondering if you were, sitting on a board of a global hotel company today, David what capabilities would you really be encouraging him or her to study over the next few years to really learn from what Asia is doing?

David Peller 13:43

The first thing, Dorothy, is that, y- and we've got to be careful not to fall in this trap because y- you've asked a couple of times now about Asia, and- In my world, there's no such thing as Asia. It's not one market. A- and even within-

Dorothy Dowling 13:56

You

David Peller 13:56

know- You're right a single-

Dorothy Dowling 13:57

Yeah e-

David Peller 13:58

even within a single country, there's regional differences. Think of most of us Westerners, we might lump Japanese food together in one category, but if you go to a restaurant in Tokyo or you look at restaurant To- restaurants in Tokyo, you'll find that they specialize very narrowly. There's a sushi place, there's a yakiniku place, a shabu-shabu place, a tempura place, a soba place. And so even within one environment there's these sort of segregated and separate capabilities or offerings. And so I think about that. And, something else that's just worth pointing out i- is, in, in the West, we think about payments as being about credit cards. And, and you will know better than me what's, h- you know, what's the average for a North American? How many credit cards do they have in their wallet or purse? It's multiples, right? But think about a country like India. They bypassed credit cards almost entirely. I actually happened to be in India, I think it was November 2016 when they went through a process called demonetization, and the government decided overnight literally to ban the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, and the idea was to get rid of all the l- loose money in the country and so forth. But one of the byproducts of that was digitalization. And now, whether you're a food street vendor in, in a secondary, tertiary city or you're one of the largest companies in India, you accept payment by QR code. And what that's done specifically for India has completely democratized Access to money, paying and receiving. And if you can r- if as an independent little merchant with a, with not even a home business, but a street business you can now accept payments without having to go through all of the rigmarole of what it would've taken to, Imagine what a vendor has to do to get certified to take Visa or MasterCard. So it's completely different. So if I was, coming back to your question and thinking about, advising a CEO of a global hotel company and what they should be studying, there's some obvious answers around tech, whether it's agentic commerce today, whether it is looking at the Asian super app, whether it's about distribution shifts and so on. But to be honest, I think you'd be expecting those kind of answers, and I'd put those to one side. What I would be, would probably be studying as a senior executive today is young people's behavior. I think it's miles apart from our generation. It's miles apart probably from the experiences that we have day to day, and there's very different challenges and opportunities that young people are facing today. How do they build communities? How do they engage? How do they define themselves? How do they represent themselves, and what sort of experiences do they want? And I don't think we spend enough time really looking to learn from them as much as we try to tell them how they should behave and what they should be doing, and I think there's a great deal that we can learn there.

Dorothy Dowling 17:13

Yeah. No, I do think the generational mind shift and, we all speak about the demographic cliff and what that really does mean. But I do think having a deep understanding of customers, which is you talked about telling versus really embracing some of that understanding. I think that is really important. And I also wanna just highlight the point that you made is that Asia is not monolithic, and that's true of Europe and other places, too. That's very much of an American point of view that we see regions as countries, and understanding that domestic business in almost every country in the world, not all, but almost every, is the major driver in terms of business performance. So we do have to understand really those domestic priorities and understand the customers in each one of those countries independently. So I thank you that. I'd love to now explore a little bit about you and how you personally stay on top of your game because in the role that you're at today, you're expected to be able to really help shape and advise folks that may be earlier in their career journey. How do you stay really informed, educated and on, on that continuous learning path?

David Peller 18:26

Yeah, it, it's not something I perhaps deliberately think about, but a- as I consider your question, I, I think about the differences between working for a single enterprise versus having a portfolio of positions for a start. Usually, when you work within one organization you really are myopically focused on the needs and wants of that organization. And frankly, when you have a portfolio of positions, you-- that in itself opens the aperture much more widely. And I'm very privileged that I work in very different types of organizations, and they are geographically diverse, which means, I want to ensure I keep up to date with what's going on in each of those, not only each of those businesses, but e- each of those lines of business in which they operate and their different industry segments and positions, but also then the geographies in which they're operating. And so that forces me to engage with an incredibly diverse set of communities with a broad range of different events, frankly, with lots of of different executives and founders, with investors and em- enterprises. And that means that I'm typically picking up lots of signals from many different directions at once. And again, part of what we try to learn to do over time, we don't always get it right, but what we try to do is separate the noise from the signals. And, it's that process of, I think, just fundamentally being curious, but actually leaning into all of those different opportunities that prevail for me. That's how I stay connected. That's how I stay engaged. And I hope that's what continues to allow me to, take a learning from over here and apply it over there a- and stay relevant to-- as I engage with multiple stakeholders.

Dorothy Dowling 20:18

I think very much the kind of project work and the kind of investments that you're making with different businesses, because that's that day-to-day application knowledge that you're acquiring all the time. Is there anything that you do outside of that in terms of reading or exploring different tools that are continuing to fuel your journey?

David Peller 20:39

Yeah, so beyond beyond the formal engagements that I have, I mentioned I spend quite a lot of time mentoring and coaching and these words get used often interchangeably, but to me they're two very different disciplines and require very different approaches. But I, I support a lot of different programs and initiatives, not only here in Singapore or Southeast Asia, but more broadly. In fact, two weeks ago I was mentoring a cohort of of travel entrepreneurs based in Saudi Arabia. Last week I stepped somewhat out of my usual operating tramlines of the travel and hospitality industry, and I mentored a group of founders in a Singapore-based climate challenge accelerator. A- And I work fairly deliberately to have that kind of balance between mentoring or coaching opportunities that are both inside and also outside of our industry because, amongst other things there's a lot that our industry, travel and hospitality, can learn from other industries. A- and also, the reason why I particularly enjoy focusing on mentoring, I do a lot of youth mentoring in particular, i- is again, it- it's fascinating to listen to what young people are focused on and how they're choosing to spend their time. Why do they think this is worth their effort rather than perhaps getting a more what we might think of as the typical job? They're committed to trying to build something to solve a particular problem, and real passion and real motivation when it's to do with climate challenges, sustainability or others, so I particularly love that segment. I- in terms of my own sort of study, and I think this AI sort of train that we're on today is giving some really fascinating opportunities for hand-on experimentation as well. And I said earlier I'm not a computer scientist, but I love the fact that I can build my own apps, with no code environments. And when you were here in Singapore recently I showed you an app that I'd built on Lovable, for example. I have several autonomous agents working around the clock on my behalf and so I, I continue, I think, when in terms of studying, I continue to study almost every day what are the new tools, what relevance do they have. Not is it a cool piece of tech, because frankly, there's always gonna be cool pieces of tech, but what outcomes can it drive? And, a- and, can that help us achieve something that maybe we couldn't have done before? And that's what continues to incite me and make for a fascinating personal journey as well.

Dorothy Dowling 23:18

No, I think that's great advice, Stuart, and I think it's really that applied commitment to actually engage directly, which you talked about in terms of one of your earlier career journeys. But it's actually that hands-on experience of investing some time to learn and grow right in some of those environments and apply some of, that evolution of the, of your learning as you go. I'm wondering if you think about the leadership advice that you offer, because obviously some of the things you talked about with your mentorship and coaching. But when you're talking about helping others on a transformation journey that is beyond technology I'd love to learn about how you approach that with some of the partners that you support.

David Peller 24:04

Yeah, I think the first thing is it really is getting beyond the tools, getting beyond the devices, whether it- we're talking about technology or not. And, over the years, I've developed a few mantras that I really believe in and one that I think is relevant to the question you're asking is sometimes it's just really important to slow down in order that you can speed up. And so often people are impatient to get started and just can't wait to get their hands dirty or get stuck in. And sometimes I think we can forget what the problem is we're trying to solve. And, I... it reminds me and I've seen this experience time and time again, where, colleagues maybe have to prepare a corporate presentation for a meeting that they weren't expecting, so they've got 12 or 24 hours to get their PowerPoint slides ready, and they immediately open the application, right? And they're staring at a blank sheet, a blank screen and they're struggling to to fill the pages. And I actually remember observing this firsthand with a colleague in one of my teams not that long ago, and they were really pulling their hair out after a couple of hours. And so I just... I said, "Let's go for a walk and let's talk about this. And why don't you tell me what's the story you're trying to communicate? What's the point of this presentation?" And, by just being able to talk it through and in a way slow down, this person went back to their desk and built the whole thing in the next 20, 25 minutes. And so it just sometimes we lack that clarity, and we lack the perspective, and that's why I love the idea of slowing down and speeding up. But in, also in the context of... sorry, I was just gonna say in the context specifically of transformation, I think we all feel that- maybe the most senior person in the room has to have the best idea or something. And again, one of my great strongest beliefs is there is no monopoly on ideas, and we should be creating the environment, the culture, the opportunity where there's no fear of retribution and everybody can contribute and share their perspectives, and there's nothing bad. We shouldn't be saying no, we should be saying and. So yes, th- that, and what else? And let's build on those ideas, and I'm sure we'll come up with great ideas that can lead transformation as a result.

Dorothy Dowling 26:21

I think there's two pieces of advice there that I heard from you that I think are really important, and one is that storytelling. And I agree with you, David. It's sometimes just stepping back to understand the audience and the message that you wanna deliver, 'cause people sometimes get stuck in the weeds instead of really being able to see above the weeds and build the narrative so that people can understand and follow. The other advice that I just heard you give was really this democratization and understanding of ideation. I think it still needs to be guided in terms of understanding problem-solving, but it is understanding that there are many ways for us to harvest talent and great ideas, and that ability to collaborate and really ideate is, I think, pretty special. So I appreciate that. I'd like to unpack it a little bit further and ask you about when you work with individuals versus businesses. I'm wondering if there have ever been situations where you have over-indexed in the individual versus the business because you thought they were a better bet

David Peller 27:31

It's a fascinating question. Certainly wearing my investor hat today, I think we start by backing an individual. Right? Because a- and I can think of so many examples where, y- a founder or an entrepreneur writes a business plan and God laughs, as we say, because, it's... the market is gonna change and the environment you expected isn't gonna play out the way you wanted it to. And so really the drive, determination, tenacity, the ability to pick yourself up after a failure, this is exactly what a founder, needs to deal with and has to deal with. And I think of a... one of my earliest personal investments after I left Google, I backed a product manager there. This is over 13, 14 years ago now, and she's had... she's had- her business has had so many near-death experiences, and she's pivoted At least two fundamental times such that the business that's operating today has no semblance to the business that was started over 13 years ago. And yet, I know many other founders that would've thrown in the towel by now, would have turned their back on their investors, maybe started a new business but left the carcass of the old one behind. And she chose not to do that. She's carried her investors forward. She's continued with that drive and tenacity to find the right product market fit to drive success. And that really is about backing an individual and an individual making a difference. Within a larger enterprise, however, I think, at the end of the day, there is, there's an organization, there's a strategy there's a means to executing that strategy, and at that you'll find that typically enterprises look beyond individuals because unfortunately one of, one of, the enterprise truisms is the enterprise is bigger than any individual.

Dorothy Dowling 29:24

Yes. Yeah. I really appreciate that thought process in terms of tenacity and resilience, because I do fundamentally think that is pretty special and it's pretty rare. So I think your ability to cut through and understand that, and also understand someone that could pivot and continue to evolve as the market evolved is impressive. I'm wondering if I could ask you a couple more questions in there, because when we think about, I... Obviously, it's Personal Stories is focused on hospitality leaders, but if you're thinking about next-gen talent and really guiding them in terms of what capabilities they should be developing, t- tenacity, resilience, a number of things that you've talked about, but I'm just wondering, what is it that they should really be investing in their own development so that they can future-proof their careers?

David Peller 30:22

Certainly I'll give you the I think mode du jour, right? Which is a lot of people are obviously concerned about whether AI is gonna take away our jobs. I think we're settling on the view that AI is going to take away the jobs from people that are not embracing AI. And so certainly being curious, learning the different tools, keeping up with what's being released on a regular basis and experimenting, I just think that's table stakes for all of us. But in, in terms of the capabilities specifically for the next set of leaders it's a hard capability to learn because it comes quite often from experience. But I would call out agility. Whether it's the technology, whether it's markets, whether it's environment, whether it's unexpected geopolitical shocks or whatever it might be, things are moving very fast and typically in unplanned and uncharted ways all around us. And so being able to adapt and to change course and address those challenges head on is super important. I think the hospitality industry knows this firsthand. We've been through so many structural shocks that we perhaps hadn't expected, but we seem to come back faster and stronger each time. I'm actually reminded in this context, I think Dorothy, of a of a quote that we used to hear all the time at Amazon, and it was from Jeff Bezos, the founder and he said was quoted as saying, I, I didn't hear it directly, but he was quoted as saying, "Be stubborn on strategy and flexible on the execution." And I think that's a really good sort of guiding principle as well, which is, these events, they shouldn't change your underlying conviction of the direction that you're going, but they may certainly require you to change how you get there. And I think that's a very powerful message when we think about the capabilities for the future.

Dorothy Dowling 32:13

Yeah. No, I love that, and I'm really glad that you brought that forward, David. And you know what I heard earlier about the tenacity, I'm a big fan of Angela Duckworth who talks about grit, and I think gr- grit and tenacity are... I would almost consider one and the same, but it is about those tough lessons that allow us to learn and grow as opposed to just put chalking it up to learn and fail. And then it is around what do we do about that and how fast can we learn and continue to pivot? I just wanna thank you, David, for taking the time to be with us today. You've had a... such a remarkable career, and you're a real globalist in the way that you see the world. So I know a lot of the wisdom that you've shared with our audience today is particularly impactful. So I wanna say thank you. And, Thank you i'd also love to thank our audience, because part of our goal here is to con- continue to bring amazing thought leaders like you to the table so that we can all take from you some of your wisdom and hopefully apply it into our day-to-day lives, and that we also like to encourage the individuals that are participating, listening to you, and learning from you today, that there are others that are part of our advisor community that we also wanna showcase and hope people will come back and learn from some of them, too. So thank you again.

David Peller 33:30

Thank you.

Dorothy Dowling 33:30

We believe every leader leaves behind lessons that extend well beyond titles and accomplishments, and you certainly have done that for us today. So David, thank you. And to our audience, thank you, and please come and join us at It's Personal Stories again. Thank you.