Christian Nikles
Age: 28
Position: Front office manager, Park Lane hotel, London
Career to date...
A graduate of Austria's College for Tourism and Leisure Activities Bad Gleichenberg, Nikles has worked in both in his native city of Vienna and in London. His first job was at Vienna's Hotel Hilton as front office sales agent, and he has continued to develop his career in this area.
From the Hotel Hilton, he progressed to the city's Hotel Bristol, as front office supervisor, before making the move to London in 2001 to become assistant manager and duty manager at the Park Lane hotel.
He soon climbed the ladder to become the hotel's reception manager, then in 2005 took on his first departmental managerial role as front office manager. As such, he is responsible for the supervision of his team, delivering financial targets and the day-to-day running of the front desk, as well as recruitment and training in his department.
Why is he a winner?
Soon after his promotion to his current position, last year, Nikles had to deal with a downturn in business resulting from the July bombings. Implementing contingency plans, between July and December, he successfully reduced payroll expenses by £12,000 at the same time as retaining staff and continuing to deliver a quality service to guests.
He is strong on motivational training, implementing a successful employee of the month programme and being involved in several training schemes across Starwood's three central London hotels (he has personally trained 85% of the front reception staff in this group).
In addition, he oversaw the upgrade of bookings and reservations software in his department.
Nikles is also a Hotel Unicef ambassador and regularly raises money for the organisation.