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As a baby, Trudi Parr flatlined. She was found blue and unresponsive. Swift action by her mum saved her, and ever since she has taken life by its horns and given work, family, and friends everything she has got and more.
I meet Parr, now Head of People and Development at chic bed and burger chain, Mollie’s Motel & Diner - on a day in June on which the weather is notably undecided. In contrast Parr is, as I already know, quite the opposite. She has a ‘career plan’ mapped out. Her visual ‘aide-memoire’ has arrows denoting where she is currently and where she wants to be. She is deliberate and purposeful, but also the person you want at a party and, even more importantly, the one you want by your side when you are having the worst time – fiercely loyal, a genuine people pleaser and tenacious about opportunity and rights for others.
‘I started work at 18’
We go back to the start, “I planned on University, but my dad told me I should get a job,” she says.
“I studied travel, tourism and Spanish at college – I’d always loved holidays and hospitality and the fact that it’s an industry that makes people feel good,” she says. Her father had other plans and like most well meaning parents gave her the reality chat. “He told me that he had all these Uni grads asking for jobs, demanding to be CEO from the off but the reality was that they were pretty useless!” she laughs. Parr took the warning on board and the compromise was that she would take a gap year, earn some money and then if she really wanted to, start a degree.
“I got a job at a small hotel in Bath, it was owned by the Salvation Army so there was no alcohol just a restaurant and front of house,” she adds that she ended up doing everything on rotation from reception to making beds and anything in between. With an August birthday and as the youngest of three sisters she was ready to prove that despite being ‘the baby’ of the family she could do it and she did.
The pandemic made me re-evaluate what I was doing. I’d never taken any time off since I started working fresh out of the school gates
From there she went to work with Hotelscene, building a database for businesses to book travel. "The business owner involved me in every aspect," she says. She began as the reservations manager, moved into sales and overtime also took on responsibility for looking after all the people management side of the operation too. That jaunt ended up being as long as her age, 17.5 years in total. She was successful, and they acquired significant accounts, with her contributing greatly to that achievement. “We got big names through the door including British Telecoms, the BBC, ITV, Glastonbury and Radio One’s Big weekend – obviously I never ended up going to university, but my life took off,” she says.
Parr was thriving and discovered a talent for sales, driven by relationship management. She was good with people, and they liked her. “I have scary intuition, and I know what people are thinking! I always delivered what I promised – I made things happen,” she explains.
