From Zimbabwe terror to Radisson success in Birmingham for Rolando Moura

Nov 6 2009 Business Profile, Birmingham Post

“To start with, I found bar work at a hotel in London,” he says. “Then I moved into security within the same hotel. It wasn’t long before I was promoted to security manager but at the same time I was applying for accounts jobs – and being rejected because of a lack of experience.”

By this time, he’d realised the hospitality industry was the perfect working environment for him, hence the decision to pursue accountancy rather than architecture. Rolando got to know the financial controller of the hotel and asked for the opportunity to show what he could do. After a few months of “hassling” her, an accounts assistant left and Rolando landed the job.

“I started at the bottom, but was lucky to have a very good financial controller: she didn’t teach me the job as such, she allowed me to learn for myself as I went along. She was a great mentor, so when she left a year later to take up a position at a bigger, Mayfair hotel, I was gutted.”

Two months later, however, she was back in touch to ask Rolando to go and work for her. “So I did. Again, she left after a year, but I stuck it out. The new financial controller was coming up to retirement age and promoted me to assistant financial controller and basically let me run the department.

"It was at this point that I enrolled on a finance course run by the British Association for Hospitality Accountants and passed after two years. When the controller finally retired, I really wanted the job, but they wanted someone with more experience. Nevertheless, I did the job for four months until they found a new financial controller and I think I did it well.”

Then an assistant financial controller position came up at the Radisson SAS Portman Hotel – now the Radisson Blu Portman Hotel – in London’s West End and Rolando jumped at it.

“I’d heard so much about the Radisson chain and from day one I realised what a great move it had been for my career. Again, I had a fantastic financial controller and, again, he left after a year – he was promoted within the group – and I became acting financial controller for three months. I learned a lot and my general manager was impressed.”

So, when a financial controller’s post became available at Birmingham’s Radisson Blu Hotel, Rolando was an obvious choice. “This hotel has a good name within the group and a good ethos in terms of people development, so it’s a fantastic move for my career. Radisson Blu Birmingham is known for developing future general managers and great young leaders. The structure Kathrine (Ohm Thomas, the hotel’s general manager) has in place here is based on empowerment.”

Rolando is equally impressed with Birmingham as a city. Already, he says, he’s met more influential people through networking events than he ever did in London.

“Kathrine encourages her team to take part in as many events as possible. It has been Birmingham’s ethos that ‘people buy from people’ and so far that has proved to be the case. I was a bit nervous about coming to Birmingham from London, but it’s been fine. Birmingham is a big city but it’s also a small community in many ways. I’m really enjoying living and working here.”

The recession has, of course, made Rolando’s job a tough one so far. “Everyone is feeling the pressure; it’s a very difficult time and I think next year will be even harder. But there’s a great structure at the hotel which means we’ve not had redundancies.

Already, Rolando has his sights set on further promotion: his ambition is to become a general manager within the Rezidor group – Radisson Blu’s parent company. “Kathrine is a mentor within the company and supports my development, mainly because there aren’t many general managers with a financial background.”

He knows further promotion could mean moving to a hotel anywhere in the world, but ten years after leaving Zimbabwe, Rolando has no plans to return. His father has sold the family business and the political situation has “gone from bad to worse”. But he says he now considers this country home – not least because it has given him opportunities he wouldn’t have had in Africa.

“I’ve not had the closest of relationships with my father – he’s a typical Portuguese man; very strict and doesn’t open up much – but on my last trip home, my dad said, ‘You’ve achieved everything on your own; you never asked for help. Now, at the end of every email, he signs off with ‘Proud Father’.”