CPO, Village Hotels: "Acting was all I wanted to do"

For a while, she fulfilled that dream. Following theatre studies, she began teaching drama at a Saturday school and one sleepy Sunday afternoon the young Southward got the break she needed. "They were a few people short at the weekends and asked me to step in. I got an agent and continued working at the theatre school while also doing small parts in Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks and Brookside,” Southward says.

As with most things in life that appear as ‘glamorous’ the realities were long days spent travelling and a lot of sitting around involved in waiting for the 30 seconds of ‘on camera’ moments to occur. Southward says, “I was never particularly academic,” yet it was clear that she excelled creatively and with people. When the drama gigs began to dry up, her next break came when her dad tipped her the wink of a job in ‘personnel’ at the local Council. She went for the interview but didn’t get it.

Not deterred by an early rejection she picked herself up and applied for a job as an administrator at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Liverpool. “The recruiting manager told me that I didn’t have the required experience but added, ‘I do, however, really like you.’” And that, as they say was that. The bravery taken by that lone soldier on the ‘wild card’ Southward has stayed with her ever since and she is determined to emulate that with the inexperienced candidates she now meets. “If you can see the potential in someone and they mirror the values, and the personality of the business then take the chance on them.” That lucky break was the start of many happy years in which she also gained her CIPD qualification which she undertook through John Moore’s University in Liverpool. It was by now 2004 – some twenty years ago - and that’s when she took the leap to Village Hotels.

'I chose Village Hotels because there was something so special about it'

The Edwardian Manchester, a Radisson Collection Hotel offered a job to Southward on the same day that Village Hotels did. “I think that most people expected me to take the job at the Radisson because it was very new and grand, but I made the decision to go to Village because I felt there was something special about it,” she explains.

She started out and remained as HR Manager for the Hotel group for the next eight years. A promotion to Regional HR Manager followed after a re-structure and eventually this also led to an appointment as Head of Learning and Development. “I was literally saved by the bell a few times in the redundancy process!” Within that role Southward was unleashed on creating a training tool that walked new joiners through the finer details of their roles from the way the hotel wished them to lay the dining tables to the importance of lighting in the overall customer experience and how guests behave and ways to deal with complaints. It was a ‘huge’ program and continues to be used at the hotel today.

Southward has stayed loyal to the hotel business but there was, as with any good senior career, a moment of zigzag. Gary Davis, the CEO of Village at the time moved to Malmaison & Hotel du Vin and Southward was asking to follow suit. “It was 2009 and I became the Group HR Director for both brands,” and then the company that owned that group bought Village too. “So, we all came back!”