Director of Hospitality Asset Management

Venture Search is partnered with an established hospitality owner-operator in the UAE to appoint a Director of Hospitality Asset Management. The business holds a diversified portfolio of hotels, resorts and serviced accommodation across a range of segments, operated under a mix of international brands and independent management, with a live pipeline of new openings and conversions.

This is a senior, portfolio-wide mandate reporting directly to executive leadership. The successful candidate will own hotel-level performance and value creation across the portfolio, act as owner's representative to operators and brands, and drive capital allocation decisions alongside the leadership team, finance, and investment. It will suit a hotel asset management professional who is equally comfortable challenging a GOP flow-through conversation with a general manager and presenting a repositioning case to an investment committee.

Asset Performance and Operator Oversight

1. Own asset-level performance across the hotel and resort portfolio, holding operators to account against agreed business plans, annual budgets and KPIs including occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, TRevPAR, GOP and GOPPAR.
2. Interrogate monthly and quarterly operator reporting, departmental P&Ls and forecasts; challenge variances, flow-through and cost lines, and drive corrective action where performance lags.
3. Benchmark each asset against its competitive set using STR and market data, tracking RGI and market share, and monitor new supply, demand drivers and brand positioning.
4. Chair owner's meetings and act as the principal owner's representative in day-to-day dealings with operators, general managers and brand teams.

Strategic Asset Planning and Value Creation

1. Develop and maintain asset management plans for each property, setting out the value creation roadmap, hold rationale and exit strategy.
2. Identify and appraise rebranding, repositioning, conversion, refurbishment and change-of-use opportunities, including rooms product upgrades and food and beverage concept repositioning.
3. Lead hold, sell or redevelop analysis across the portfolio; build and stress-test underwriting models, hotel valuations and exit assumptions.

Capital Allocation and Investment Governance

1. Own capital allocation across the portfolio in conjunction with the CEO and CFO, prioritising capital expenditure and FF&E reserve deployment to maximise risk-adjusted returns.
2. Review renovation and refurbishment business cases, approve return-on-investment analysis and track post-completion performance against the original underwriting.
3. Strengthen governance around investment approvals, stage-gate reviews and post-investment appraisal.

Operator Selection and Commercial Agreements

1. Define the strategic brief and positioning for new hospitality assets and conversions, working with the investment team on feasibility studies, market assessments and commercial appraisals.
2. Identify, shortlist and negotiate with hotel operators and brands, leading negotiation of Hotel Management Agreements, franchise and licence agreements and technical services agreements, including key money, base and incentive fee structures, performance tests and termination provisions.
3. Oversee pre-opening planning and coordinate with project delivery teams through construction, handover and opening.

Turnaround, Transformation and Stakeholder Engagement

1. Lead recovery plans for underperforming assets, working alongside operations leadership on revenue, cost and productivity improvement programmes.
2. Provide strategic oversight and constructive challenge on repositioning initiatives and margin improvement plans.
3. Act as a senior point of contact for operators, joint venture partners and third-party owners, and support board, shareholder and investor reporting on asset performance and portfolio strategy.

WHAT YOU WILL BRING

Experience

1. 15+ years of relevant experience, with a substantial track record in hospitality asset management, hotel investment, or hospitality-focused real estate private equity.
2. Demonstrable experience acting as owner's representative and managing international and regional hotel operators at portfolio level.
3. Hands-on experience negotiating Hotel Management Agreements and related brand documentation.
4. A proven record of asset repositioning, refurbishment, turnaround or brand conversion projects that delivered measurable uplift.
5. Experience across multiple hospitality segments, such as luxury, upper upscale, lifestyle, resort, midscale or extended stay, is valued.
6. Regional experience across the Middle East is advantageous, though strong international candidates with a clear appetite to relocate will be considered.

Technical and Interpersonal Skills

1. Fluency in hotel P&L mechanics and USALI reporting, departmental profitability, flow-through and undistributed cost management.
2. Strong financial modelling and valuation capability, including discounted cash flow, sensitivity analysis and returns-based capital appraisal.
3. Commercial and legal literacy across hospitality agreements and the operator relationship model.
4. Credibility with CEOs, CFOs, boards and investment committees, with the presence to influence without direct authority.
5. Strategic and analytically rigorous, while retaining the operational detail to challenge an operator constructively.
6. Collaborative leader, comfortable operating across a complex, multi-asset and multi-brand environment.

Qualifications

1. Bachelor's degree in Finance, Real Estate, Hospitality Management, Business or a related discipline.
2. MBA, CFA, MRICS or CHIA is advantageous but not essential.