De Vere restructures its team as senior managers move on
Hotel group De Vere has insisted it is "business as usual" at the company, despite a series of senior management departures since the start of the year.
In January, Niels Sherry quit as chief operating officer of the De Vere Deluxe brand. Jeremy Rata, general manager of De Vere's flagship hotel, the Grand in Brighton, departed in March, and Andrew Coney, general manager of Slaley Hall, in Northumberland, left a week later.
March also saw Colin Bailey, who worked at De Vere Group for 22 years and Stephen Littlefair, finance director at De Vere's sister brand, Village Hotels, both poached by luxury operator Von Essen. In addition, parent company Alternative Hotel Group announced "a number of redundancies" in head-office operations.
But De Vere's new chief operating officer, Brian McCarthy, who joined in February this year from gym chain Esporta, told Caterer that all the decisions to leave had been "amicable" and stressed that the restructuring of the head office was "completely unlinked" to the senior departures.
McCarthy has appointed two new general managers as part of the company's management restructuring: Neal Crocker, who will join the group from Thistle Hotels to become resort director for Slaley Hall, and St David's Hotel and Spa's Tim Price, who has been appointed as general manager at Grand Harbour in Southampton.
De Vere, which is split into two brands, Collection and Deluxe, currently has 12 properties across the UK.
The group is in the process of refurbishing Cameron House, Loch Lomond. It has made Stephen Carter, director of operations for the Deluxe brand, managing director of the hotel to oversee the development. McCarthy said the company planned to invest significant sums across its other properties.
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By Gemma Sharkey
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