Sitting Down with Glenn Huskie: Wood Couture Leadership Team's New Partner

Glenn Huskie has been all over the world holding various key positions for international hospitality brands, the latest no less than Global SVP for Accor Luxury Brands Design and Technical Services. Looking for the best ways to bring value, he joins Paolo Della Casa and Filippo Sona in the pursuit of shaking the hospitality-manufacturing industry.

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1. When a company thrives, we can often assume that it is a sign of effective leadership. What is your leadership style?

My leadership style follows the 3Hs Humility, Honesty and Hard Work. I believe in leading towards achieving a vision, a goal and, it's about teamwork and people. My team are my family. This has always been my ethos throughout my career whereby I make sure I have the right people around me; I look after them and put them first. You give people responsibility, trust, and empowerment to enable them to do their job. Give them the tools, the time and push them. If you throw people into the deep end, they WILL swim! It's a saying often used, and its true. If you have the raw talent, the right attitude and ability to communicate with others, you can do anything. I believe in sharing my knowledge and insight and building people up to deliver, because we can teach the skills and the industry know-how. As long as we work hard, remain humble and honest, nothing is impossible.

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2. How do you think about true value when it comes to hospitality projects, services and investments?

There are several different ways to look at value, and different stakeholders will have different metrics for it. In our industry, there are 3 stakeholders which we aim to bring value. First, there's the owner/developer for whom we aim to deliver quality at the right price, and help them meet their budgets; next, is the designer for whom we protect the integrity of their design and vision; and then we have the operators who have management agreements lasting 20 or 25 years for whom we have to make sure that the items we deliver meet the brand and aligns to industry requirements. We can also say that there is a fourth stakeholder, possibly the ultimate stakeholder, which is the guest for whom we contribute to their experience.

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3. On the subject of manufacturing - how can one drive innovation in an age when technology allows us to practically do anything faster and better?

Technology is moving so rapidly that we are more and more able to acquire information and materials faster, smarter, and more efficiently for our businesses and for our planet. At Wood Couture, we must leverage what technology offers us to create efficiencies and bring that value to our clients and partners. We have, for example, our bespoke 3D modeling software customized specifically to make product development more efficient in a way that it decreases resources and time dedicated to prototyping. We also use this to do simulated stress testing to ensure that the items we create have the stability to handle the wear it is intended to be used for. And we're coming up every day with more ways to create efficiencies and work smarter - save time, save cost and deliver products that are usable and reliable and don't severely impact our planet.

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4. Give us one word to describe what Wood Couture offers to the industry.

Excellence. We provide a great level of attention to detail from the start of the process when designs are developed, to production and through to delivery. Our value proposition for total quality management throughout the process is hinged on having a mantra of excellence in all that we do. We are a 21^stCentury supplier who is here to shake up the industry but maintaining the traditional qualities of trust and respect in our relations with all stakeholders in the project process.

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With Glenn on board, Wood Couture strengthens its capabilities to deliver value taking a 360-degree approach to all projects and their stakeholders:

1. Interior Designers, ensuring integrity of design
2. Hotel Operators, upholding hotel industry brand standards
3. Investorsand Owners, protecting investments and project timetables.