Ernest Lee, Chief Commercial Officer, EOS Hospitality, interviewed by Lan Elliott

Ernest discusses how Asians’ upbringing may teach them values that make it harder to break through the Bamboo Ceiling and attain senior leadership roles, why growth is messy, and the most common trait amongst senior executives.  Ernest also shares how his parents instilled in him a high level of curiosity and inquisitiveness that have helped him develop a mental model for tackling new challenges and enabled him to move from Chief Growth Officer to Chief Commercial Officer.

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Lan Elliott 0:00

Hello and welcome to D E I Advisors. My name is Lan Elliot on behalf of D E I advisors, and today I'm really pleased to have Ernest Lee, the Chief Commercial Officer for Citizen M Hotels join us and Citizen M Hotels. If you don't know, it is a fully integrated owner operator of hotels, which focuses on modern urban travelers. So welcome, Ernest. Thanks for having me, Lynn. Absolutely. I've been looking forward to this discussion. Now, Ernest, you've had a really interesting career. Can you share your career journey and maybe some of the inflection points along the way and perhaps the factors that led to your success?

Ernest Lee 0:42

Yeah, so let me start on the beginning a little bit of that, my background. I'm this only son of two Korean immigrants who came during the seventies. They both came from, pretty well-respected professions. My dad was a military officer. My mom worked at a bank in Korea, and like a lot of immigrants during that time, you basically gave that up to start from. Nothing when you came to America. And they ultimately settled in an area of Long Island that was, I would call it, the entry level town for a lot of people that were able to, save a little bit of money in whether you're from, from the Ara Burrows of New York City, whether that's Queens or Brooklyn, and a lot of these people. And the friends and the families that I grew up with, ended up in either the trades or a lot of people in the service industry. Hospitality was around me for a very long time of my life. I pick up all sorts of odd jobs at bakeries, at deli's, at restaurants, and there was you're. You're too naive to really understand, what are your career options at that stage, because I didn't have a lot of, those types of Call it occupations around me to be inspired from. So I naturally decided, okay, what is the closest thing to something that I know within the service field? And that, for me was going to enroll in hotel school where I originally aspired to become a general manager of a hotel. And it's basically just what I knew. I didn't realize or recognize that there was a whole corporate element behind the hospitality field, nor did I realize or make the connection to real estate. And so I was in NYU's hotel school and I was actually part-time at a large luxury hotel in New York City. And I was, going back and forth in between classes. And one of my jobs as a as a housekeeping department manager was I had to prepare the owner's room. Whenever he came visit this was, a person of ultimate luxury and and he obviously had very sort of standards. And to me, I naively asked my supervisor at that time, I said, how do you become? And she, funnily, funny enough, just. Answered and the only way that she knew, which was you either have to inherit a lot of wealth or you have to get into real estate. And for me, obviously not come from a background where, I certainly didn't have a trust fund where I was aware of that. I ultimately said, okay, maybe I'll explore this real estate thing for a little bit and. I pivoted my coursework into something that, could ultimately get me into more of the ownership track. And I ultimately supplemented a lot of my hotel operations classes with a lot of things that related to real estate and finance, and ultimately landed an internship and then a full-time job at a small boutique firm called Son Goldman, which was then acquired by Cushman and Wakefield. And I stayed there for about a decade. Where I covered the hotel sector. And so inflection point number one was definitely making that connection at the hotel between understanding that behind the operational side there was this whole sort of real estate world behind it. And I'd say inflection point number two was after spending about a decade on the advisory side of the hospitality industry, helping a lot of owners brands all sorts of investors work through various sort of capital markets options, as well as other sorts of strategic advisory. I ultimately was at a point where I was doing a lot of work during the GFC of disposing a lot of interesting assets as well as hotel companies. And there's a hotel company that was working on where where. It was one of very few, but very small, vertically integrated operations. And it was a owner operator model that had a lifestyle feel. And I thought, Hey who are my logical buyers in the universe? And I came across a small European outfit called Citizen m. That I had read somewhere that was interested in a US expansion. And I called up one of the the people that I knew there and I said, Hey, this is a shortcut into your US expansion. Why don't you just buy this company? And what they told me was, Hey, we're not interested in that company, but we are interested in building out a US office to expand organically. And from there I did a lot of homework and I ultimately, was able to not successfully meet my mandate of selling the this company to them, but was able to accept an opportunity where I was able to be one of the first people to open their office in the US and the rest is

Lan Elliott 5:47

history. That's really incredible to be able to. Make that leap right From operations. I had the same thing. I went to hotel school thinking I wanted to be a general manager cuz I had no idea about the real estate side of the business. So we definitely have that in common. And then discovering real estate along the way and making that my focus for the second part of my college I. Career and trying to work in real estate for a really long time. And I, and we're gonna get to the next part of your story, which I think is really interesting. But first I wanted to pivot a little bit to this idea of continuous growth. Because we hear from many leaders that continuous learning is a big part of their path and sometimes, One encounter skills that you didn't realize was gonna be important as a, for us as a leader, and we really need to go out and fine tune it or even develop it from scratch. Is there an example of this that you found along the way where you stumbled onto something and you realized it was not a strong skill and you set out to develop it more?

Ernest Lee 6:47

Yeah. When I connect the dots to, how I was brought up as a child and some of my background and how some of that la later influenced some of the decisions or the skills or the traits that I developed. I think that one was, that particularly resonates with what I do now and some of the challenges that I face now are. Or the little things that I would see my parents do. I mentioned before that, my parents left respectable professions in Korea. And they ultimately, started a humble small business here where they were, working on their feet 12 hours a day, six days a week. And, but, the brain sort of capacity that, that never left then. And so one of the things that I would see them in the house doing a lot was they were just, Absolutely voracious readers, right? We had books on books and books and on topics from, all sorts of religion to to American history, to the sciences, to the arts. And this level of I think curiosity was very I would say infectious, right? And you never really think about it when you're an adolescent or a teenager, how it might come back to you later in your life And I say this because, what it did instill in me is this level of curiosity about the world and just being very inquisitive asking a lot of questions. And I think, you know what, what happens when you get to a phase of, in your career where there're just more unknowns than unknowns, there's less of a playbook, is that a lot of these things start to trigger yourself, right? In terms of how do I. How do I understand a topic? How do I develop a deep mental model when I don't necessarily know the answers? They never taught me in this, in school. There wasn't a manager to te teach me or give me a playbook, and a lot of these things in terms of just being able to ask more questions listen more intentionally and be much more curious about topics, allows you to really improve I think your mental capacity and be able to tackle a lot of the problems that you may not have encountered before.

Lan Elliott 8:48

Yeah, that, that's so true. And curiosity is something we've definitely heard a lot from leaders as being a quality that has helped them in their career a lot, so I love that. Let's switch a little bit to taking risks. Because you recently switched from Citizen M's. Chief Gro Growth Officer, which is what you were doing when I first met you to being its chief Commercial Officer. Can you share how this came about? How did you think about making this change in focus as there's definitely risk involved in doing that, and what made that risk worthwhile for you? Yeah,

Ernest Lee 9:24

so you know, to me, one thing about hospitality, And the beauty of hospitality is, and I always took this very serious, seriously it's the one real estate asset class. It's a true consumer product, right? And. You'd sit there, especially if you're, if your career track is on the ownership side is, you'll sit there in asset management meetings, you'll sit there in investment management meetings and you're, you think you know what you're talking about when it comes to consumers, you really don't. Because there's just too many layers between you and the consumer, and it's always secondhand, thirdhand what you're hearing. And also, maybe the, your perspective on things and. So to me this was always an area of interest and something that I knew that I always wanted to. Get closer to is, get a closer, more intimate relationship with the consumer and their sort of thinking patterns and what really triggers them. But I would say the timing's never good because Yeah, you're, sitting there in a, in upcycle and there's a lot

10:24

of

Ernest Lee 10:24

deal volume happening and that also has like a contagious element to it. And I think the, the biggest sort of o opportunity. And change in mindset was definitely during covid where a lot of that just, you know, a lot of that just, goes out the door, right? And you're not very busy as a deal person. You're not very busy on the development side. And what that does create is just more. Capacity to take on an experiment with new endeavors. And one of the things that I really enjoyed doing during Covid was experimenting with new business models with our former chief commercial Officer. His name's Leonard De Young, he's now the president at planet Hospitality. He and I forged this like very close working relationship where we were just Goofing around experimenting with a lot of things and said, Hey, what is the downside? Our occupancies in the single digit anyway. And let's just, try all these different things that, that we would never have risked before when, occupancies in the high eighties or nineties. And at a certain point, that also became Very fun. It became very intoxicating being able to work on all these different ideas when it came to shifting the way that people thought of the hotel business model and the hotel relationship with consumers. And so at a certain point I had a sit down with my manager, the CEO at the time, and and. I told him that I wanted to make this leap from the real estate world over to the operating business. And I originally told him I wanted to do both. I wanted to lead the real estate and the and the the growth side. But he wasn't really having it. He's a firm believer in focus and he said very smartly, you pick one or the other, but, and you do that at a hundred percent. So I said, okay, I'm gonna close my eyes. And I'm gonna make this jump. And to me the mental exercise was, if this thing doesn't work out, at least I've now have this experience that I can now apply to whatever I do back on the investment or the asset management side. And what happened was I stayed there in that role for about six months. And it so happened that our chief commercial officer. Decided to move on to a different position. And on his way out, he's, he told our CEO O he said, Hey, maybe keep an eye out for this guy who might have something there with, the way that he thinks that may offer something unique compared to what you might find in the market or compared to what you might find within an e established sort of hotel, commercial track. And yeah, for. For me and hopefully the company, it it's worked

Lan Elliott 13:06

out since then. Yeah. I love so much about what you said there in terms of your natural curiosity leading you to explore more this other area of the business and with Covid giving you the space to be able to go deeper into it and also just volunteering right to. With your chief commercial officer to learn more and to grow more. A and you had that time during Covid, cuz there wasn't a lot going on with the real estate side of the business. So I think I, I love the idea that your natural curiosity led you to this new role. Let's talk a little bit about building a network, because one of the things we've discussed is around leaning into your strengths and connecting with people is one of yours. And obviously relationships are super important in any business, but especially I think in the hospitality industry. How have you built your network and what advice do you have for people who aren't as comfortable meeting new people as you are?

Ernest Lee 14:05

Yeah, so I, I think a lot of this goes to repetitions that you probably form repetitious behavior that you form when you're when you're a child in the, during dinnertime, when you're meeting your parents' friends or older members of your family. And then that naturally translates to, how you do it on your own in a university setting. And then, the formative years of your career. I always had a little bit of an advantage in that I, when I was in college I looked a little bit older and then I, found ways to at least make myself sound a little bit older. So it wasn't this like bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, college kid looking for an internship. But it, I could fake it a little bit that I was a little bit further along in my career. But I think that what it came down to is that, You have to be a little bit of I would say bold and risk taking and shameless about not not looking, not being afraid to look silly. I think that there's a, an, especially when in college there's maybe like an asymmetric sort of element of that risk where if you've, if you're out there trying to network, trying to build. Relationships with people that are establishing their career that you think, Hey what happens if I look silly to this person? The downside is, yeah, one they'll have to remember you, which is maybe not meant to be the case, but number two, it's okay, you tried and you shot your shot, but it didn't work out right, and there's no harm, no foul on that. But the upside is incredible, right? That one relationship could lead to something, right? That one relationship or that one spark could lead to this person taking a chance on you giving you an internship, giving you a full-time job, giving you something else that leads to some sort of long-term business relationship. And so I think there's the, an asymmetry involved where especially young people starting off in their career really have to understand that it, it's on a risk return basis. It's in your favor. And I think, what sets apart, at least, the world's best networkers that I've seen at least at all stages of their career, is an ability to distinguish what can be ob very obvious, has a very transactional way to start and form a relationship to something that has. deep-hearted genuine interests, right? Of making a hu true human connection. And I think that's the one nice thing about the hospitality industry is that you just attract a lot of good people and a lot of good people that just genuinely want to help each other. And if you come at it from a very transactional mentality, that can maybe turn a lot of people off. And so my recommendation has always been, Try to connect on a human level first and then the business interests and the sort of, the deal making and the wheeling and dealing and all that other stuff that will follow later on. And furthermore, I think especially for for those that maybe, could be. Not have developed a broad range of interests, especially for me, as growing up in an immigrant household, and I know a lot of other immigrant households, it's very much on a stem track of, hey, like you are going to be a technically proficient person and maybe not so much, focused on the creative elements of your brain. Having these broad range of interests and broad range of. Ability to speak on various topics actually translates well to a networking environment and being able to develop a network that is long lasting.

Lan Elliott 17:32

I love that and probably helped you a lot when you were y younger trying to talk to older people, right? Having this broad range of interests that you could hopefully find some connection with them on. Yeah. So I love, so that, that's really great advice. One of my favorite questions that we ask at d e I advisors is what advice would you give to your younger self? And I'm curious, Ernest, what advice would you give to your 22 year old self?

Ernest Lee 17:58

Yeah, there's probably a lot of advice. Save more money. Don't go. Girl, crazy. But I'd say from a professional standpoint if I were to look back on the 22 year old earnest I'd say one thing is with a little bit of hindsight and maybe a little bit of wisdom I would suggest and recommend not to be so insecure. For me, especially coming at nyu, I always felt that a place, I grew up already insecure and a little bit. Naive because I didn't really understand how the corporate world worked. And I'd often be in environments where, I'm the only non Cornell, non world, non Ivy League grad and this made me, become a little bit of of of a copycat or imposter syndrome. I always want to be like them and it, whatever their definition of success was, for me very much, the playbook that I had to copy and mimic and that, that forces you to think in a very, I would say, like linear way. And if I were to look back, I would say, don't be so insecure and follow your gut and your intuition a little bit more and you'll be just fine.

Lan Elliott 19:11

That's great advice. We've talked about imposter syndrome a lot on this show, and what I find really interesting is you think it's one of those things that you grow out of. But if you're always learning and growing and up for a new challenge and taking risks, it never really goes away. And we found it all the way up to the c e o roles. That imposter syndrome never goes away when you're trying to do something new. So I think getting used to that and leaning into it I find leaning into it can actually help you. It's the, those butterflies can be a good thing. Yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about representation cuz we're both Asian American and we were really, we were recently talking about Asian representation in hospitality companies and with women and other represented groups. Many Asian profession professionals in middle management. Ranks, but there's pretty much none in senior management or C-suite roles in major hospitality companies and setting apart those that are founded by women or underrepresented group groups. What's been your experience seeing Asian leaders in our industry, and is it important to see leaders that look like you as you've come up in your career?

Ernest Lee 20:24

Yeah. So before I answer your question, I'm gonna start with a funny story. So when I was starting in. My career, I I get all sorts of email newsletters and promotions and about conferences and stuff. And I remember getting something in my inbox and I about a upcoming conference called the A hoa. I said, okay, Asian American Hotel Owners Association. Okay, that's me, right? I'm gonna go there. These are gonna be my people. And I went to the conference thinking, okay, looking around, looking for people that are, to me of East Asian descent. And obviously when I got there I was a very different type of Asian that they were referring to, and I thought, huh, that's funny. I'm probably one of the handful of non South Asian non-Indians in the room. And this was definitely not the Asian that I was thinking. So that's A little bit of a digression, but I I just figured I'd start off with that story and I'm sure that there's probably many other east age thinking who probably had that same story. Oh, definitely

Lan Elliott 21:25

started, yes. Absolutely. I have a good friend who was looking at joining hoa. He's also Korean American and was told he's the wrong. Asian for so that

Ernest Lee 21:35

was a funny story, but yeah, no, I, listen I love and we all love those Asians as well, but there, there were, it was not the Asian American that you thought of. But going back to the question now I'd say that my experience is that of the most prominent. Asian and Asian Americans that I've seen within the hospitality field that are of the true sort of senior executive or c e o or. Level are mostly the byproduct of entrepreneurial activities, right? They were part of some sort of business service that they did as a founder or they were part of a very early founding team where there were other Asian American involved. And that benefited them because of the entrepreneurial risk that they took. And when you look at, senior executives, that took a much more. Traditional employer route. You look around and you don't really see them. I think you and I tried to do the name game a few weeks ago, and you just couldn't think of any within the big hotel companies. And, to me that's a problem because it, I think that a lot of people, Try to model behavior, model a career trajectory based on who they can identify with. And when you don't have that level of representation within a variety of of career tracks, it limits your thinking of what's possible for yourself. And that's not to say that, we shouldn't have more. Asian American entrepreneurs and whether that's within a hotel, a tech track or a real estate track, or a development track. But I think having more individuals that have shown at least the path of growing within a more traditional employer route would. Allow others that are, younger versions than themselves to realize, Ooh, okay, that is

Lan Elliott 23:32

possible. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really true that people talk about representation matter mattering, and I think especially right at this moment after Covid, our industry had a bit of a black eye when we let a lot of people go because we had to in the middle of the pandemic. But I do think as people are looking at. The hospitality industry as a career opportunity. When you look around and you don't see people that look like you, that's when representation starts to matter. And if you only see them at the lower levels, but you don't see them rising to the senior levels of companies, I wanted to spend a little time on some of the reasons why these disparities exist between, say, the middle management ranks and the upper echelons of companies. And one potential factor is our upbringing. We mentioned it earlier, behaviors that you learn when you're growing up, concepts like the path to success is working hard. Keep your head down, letting your work speak for itself. However, that doesn't necessarily serve one well in the business world. Are there things in your upbringing that taught you that you learned that you've had to overcome in order to progress in your career? And what advice would you offer others who are struggling with learned behaviors that they grew up with, that they now need to unlearn?

Ernest Lee 24:53

Yeah. When I look across, not just specific to the hospitality industry, but across most areas of business, you see basically, a bamboo ceiling occur where there's probably, very highly competent, high performing junior junior members of their field, and then they probably, get a little bit of elevation to a middle manager. But then this plateauing occurs and I always wonder, why is that? And when I speak to a lot of other people across professions that have that are either, agent founders or agent executives we come to the value system in which most immigrant households probably adopted, which is that yes, they were probably coming to America, but they never abandoned the sort of Confucian values that most East Asian societies hold them to, which is, typically a sense of obedience, adapting to social norms and, Being part of a community, right? And that, that translates well to junior level professionals, right? Where you work hard, you put your head down, you listen to your boss, and contribute, very strongly as a team member. And then maybe it works well a little bit as a middle manager, but what you realize is the skills that you need at a certain point are become much more. Favoring sort of an individualistic mentality, right? Where you have to be maybe a little bit leaning more towards critical thinking and a little bit more contrarian in the way that you think, because, it's not so much about technical proficiency, but more of a strategic adaptation and being able to, interpret environments where there are less rules and less, paths already for us and. And to me, this is where, yeah, this is where a lot of Asian Americans typically start to see their, maybe a lot of these learned traits and behaviors and skills start to start to see its end, right? Because it's mostly about how you learn to fit in. But now it's more about how to stand out as the sort of senior leader. And I think, going back to an earlier part of our conversation, this is where this, to me at least, these, this element of curiosity, this inquisitiveness really works well is being able to, to someone once told me that, when you get to the upper echelons of, corporate executive fabric and it's more of knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. And what does that mean is like you have to tap into. Parts of curiosity and quiz of nature that you've never really, you have to make the playbook for yourself. And that to me at least, is where a lot of Asian professionals go wrong, is that they're typically trying to execute somebody else's playbook and not forging it on their own. And this to me is at least what really allows people to break through that bamboo ceiling. Yeah,

Lan Elliott 28:01

it's a term I've only heard very recently, but is a factor that people have talked about. Another factor which could impact many groups', progressions, maybe unconscious bias, for example, with Asians. This could include concepts like Asians have technical skills and are hard workers, but don't have potential to lead, or that Asians are stereotypically submissive or shy, or that. We lack interpersonal warmth. And in America you see a lot of charismatic risk taking leaders, and that's a big disconnect from how some people view Asians as well as women and other underrepresented groups as well. What's been your ex, your experience and what advice would you share with people who are struggling with these issues?

Ernest Lee 28:51

Yeah. To me I think this is probably largely true since most Asians, every a certain generation are, brought up in households where there's so much emphasis on, science, math. And everything else, it, really just doesn't count, right? It's more of a check the box so that you can, improve your college admissions probability and it's not, really a serious thing that you take on for your career. And I think furthermore there, there's probably another dynamic, which is most Asian households, it's not so much how charming you are. I'm sorry, not most Asian. Companies and households. It, the level of intelligence or the charm or the charisma is not necessarily what influences respect and power dynamics. It's much more of age and seniority, right? And so there, there's a clear difference in, what are these, some. The ideas of, how somebody becomes either powerful or respected or influential that's different from Western societies that may be different from what's necessarily adopted within, Asian households that are living in America. And what I think is true is that most, people will probably take on this It's our type to say, okay, like I need to try to model my behavior after that. That that sort of model of what a c e o the look like or a senior executive should look like. But at a certain point you understand that it's not necessarily natural to a lot because that's just not who they are. So what I always. Think is the best track is not necessarily be somebody that you're not or be something that that is not necessarily one of your strengths, but find what is your strength and really lean into that and then use that in order to, and couple it with taking so smart strategic risks in your career. I think a lot of what, a lot of people. Fall victim to is like this idea of there's, only linear path to success. And what you realize is sometimes in order to, move up in your career, you have to. Be willing to make horizontal jumps and sometimes even go backwards and editor to do it. And what you're doing is you're developing a rotation of skills, a rotation of technical competencies, a rotation of advanced soft skills that all play off later on in your career that actually help accelerate you. I think that's where maybe a lot of agents fall victim to is that they're not understanding that some of these. Risks have to be a little more calibrated and a little bit more strategic. It's not, hey I'm at level one. I immediately go to level two, but sometimes you stay within my level or move back.

Lan Elliott 31:46

Yeah, for sure. That's definitely not what everybody's looking for. You wanna keep going up that one ladder and not really realizing it's probably more like a grid than a vertical ladder that it goes in one direction. I, yeah. Growth is messy. Growth is messy. I love that quote. So I suspected we would get short on time and I've really enjoyed our conversation in Ernest. If you could offer perhaps one final nugget of advice for our viewers and keeping in mind that d e I advisors mission is around empowering personal success, what advice would you share with women in underrepresented groups who are looking to advance their careers?

Ernest Lee 32:28

Yeah, just, repeating what we just said, which is growth is messy. There, there is no one playbook, there is no one operating manual. You have to look at it through your own lens. You have to look at it through your your timing, your opportunity, and your current sort of position. I would say that the best piece of advice is just believing herself, right? Your skills, your ambition combined with just a relentless level of positivity despite these setbacks and constant challenges is what really sets apart elite performers and what sets apart what I've seen as the one common trait amongst all senior executives, no matter what your origin is just this innate desire to just keep moving forward despite whatever the obstacles are in front of you. I love that.

Lan Elliott 33:18

Thank you very much, Ernest. Wonderful talking with you. And for our viewers, if you've enjoyed this conversation with Ernest Lee, I hope you will tune into our website for additional interviews with industry leaders and our website is d e i advisors.org. Thank you very much.