Lauréat - Professional Success
Bonn Paramacharoenroj
Campaign - Onyx Hospitality Group - Glion Institute of Higher Education
Cette candidature n'est disponible qu'en anglais / This application is only available in English.
After graduating from Glion, Bonn picked wisdom over convention when he chose to find the right leader over a specific role or company. This approach and hard work landed him at Onyx Hospitality Group where he now manages over 80 hotels in Asia.
As I was raised in a hotelier family, I always knew at a young age that hospitality was my passion and I wanted to excel beyond the generations before me. I started by attending one of the world’s best hotel schools, Glion Institute of Higher Education, and then landed a dream job at a young age as a Director of Development at Thailand’s leading hotel owner and operator, Onyx Hospitality Group, managing a portfolio of over 80 hotels in Asia.
At Onyx, I oversee all hotel development aspects of the company from sourcing hotel deals, reviewing technical plans, planning financial feasibility studies, preparing management contracts to managing relationships with our owners after we open their hotels.
What’s so great about this job is that I get to act as an owner’s representative managing projects that involve all hotel departments, including operations, commercial, technical services, IT and so on. I am surrounded by amazing colleagues who are making my job incredibly fun every day. As my boss once told me, “be in a position where you work a job that doesn’t feel like a job and you will be great at it”. I am in that position right now.
At 26 years old, I feel I have been fast-tracked as I learned a lot of things from Glion, both textbook theories and practicalities, which later became very applicable in my career. Plus all the internship experiences during school, when I had the chance to firstly work in Switzerland at Glion’s Le Club and secondly in Thailand as a part of the pre-opening team of multiple boutique hospitality ventures including Super B Bar & Bistro, Shinsei Authentic Sushi, Lit Up Hostel & Gallery, and Sugar Ohana Poshtel.
My career story
After graduation, I wanted to go into hotel consulting as my hospitality management degree was specialized in real estate and revenue management, which I enjoyed very much. I had a few big names in mind such as HVS, JLL and Horwath.
However, I remembered listening to one of Jack Ma’s videos, where he said in our early 20s we should pick the boss and not the company. I decided to follow that advice and began researching hotel consulting bosses. I came across somebody they call Asia’s “Hospitality Godfather”, Bill Barnett, founder of C9 Hotelworks, a prominent hotel consulting company.
I had my mind set for an entry level associate role at the company, but the company only hires through referral. Thankfully, an alumna from Glion was working there and I got the job through her referral. At that moment I realized the power of the school’s alumni network.
It was tough at the start, but the learning curve was beyond my anticipation as I was involved in 25 amazing hotel projects working side-by-side with a great boss and reputable clients.
After two and a half successful years at C9 Hotelworks, it was Bill himself who got me to this current position at Onyx where I started off as an Associate Director for Onyx’s lifestyle brand partner Yoo Hotels and Resorts. After months of excellent performance, I was promoted to oversee all Onyx’s brands.