For the first four years of my career, I never imagined leaving the SoHo Grand Hotel.
Why would I?
It was more than my first hotel. It was the place that taught me how hotels work.
Before SoHo, I understood hospitality as service. Tony Fant taught me it was something much larger.
Every detail mattered.
The architecture. The lighting. The music. The temperature. Even the hotel key card.
At most hotels, a key card was simply a piece of plastic. At the SoHo Grand, it arrived inside a beautifully designed branded sleeve that felt intentional before you ever opened your guest room door. It reinforced the hotel’s personality, quietly shared useful information about the property, and somehow made something as ordinary as unlocking your room feel memorable.
It was functional. It was informative. It felt cool. Nothing happened by accident.
Tony never seemed interested in keeping people inside neatly defined roles. If he believed you were capable of more, he’d find a way to expose you to another part of the business.
My journey took me from Central Services to the Front Office and eventually into Reservations, where I had the privilege of working alongside Jennifer Kells, now Jennifer Schneider.
Jennifer was brilliant. She taught me the Reservations process, Global Distribution Systems, pricing strategy, rates and restrictions, inventory controls, and eventually the discipline of Revenue Management itself. A year or so later, I inherited the role she had so generously prepared me for.
When the Tribeca Grand Hotel opened, my responsibilities expanded again as Corporate Director of Revenue Management, overseeing the revenue strategy for both hotels.
Eventually, another department began to capture my imagination.
Sales.
Not because I wanted to sell.
I wanted to understand.
How did one hotel become the place everyone wanted to be?
Night after night, our lobby filled with actors, musicians, fashion models, artists, photographers, and film crews. Entire productions quietly checked in under aliases. Security coordinated discreet arrivals while entertainment travel agents seemed to orchestrate it all behind the scenes.
I found myself asking more questions.
Who knew these people?
How did they choose us?
Why SoHo Grand?
How did a hotel become part of New York’s cultural fabric instead of simply another place to spend the night?
I wanted to understand the machinery behind the magic.
So I asked Tony Fant and Neil Scott, our Director of HR, if I could move into Sales.
The answer was no.
I respected their decision, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.
Imagine everything I might have learned had they said yes. As it turns out... imagine everything I would have missed had they not.
That conversation quietly set another chapter in motion. It eventually led me to The Bryant Park Hotel where I continued my career in Revenue Management.
A few months later, my phone rang. The caller introduced himself as Drew Rosser.
He asked me to type a web address into my browser so he could demonstrate a product called OneScreen, the next generation reservation booking engine. Today we’d call it screen sharing. Back then, it felt slightly unnerving.
I hesitated. Then I typed the address. Almost instantly, the cursor on my desktop began moving by itself. I remember thinking, ‘Well... this is either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.’
Then the demonstration began.
I was mesmerized.
I wasn't looking at a booking engine. I was looking at the future.
I knew immediately why I was so captivated.
This wasn’t just technology. It was branding.
Or, more accurately, it was everything Tony Fant had already taught us about branding, except now it was being expressed through technology.
The SoHo Grand's reservation engine was powered by a company called UTELL. Our hotel's name appeared in bold print, but the fonts, colors, layout, and personality disappeared.
When Drew showed me OneScreen for the first time. The Bryant Park Hotel website didn’t just disappear. The actual logo, colors, typography and personality remained!
The reservation process became a continuation of the hotel’s story instead of an interruption.
I couldn’t stop asking questions. Fortunately for me, Drew wouldn’t stop answering them.
A few days later Drew called back. ‘Have you thought of anything else?’ he asked.
I had.
On the next call, he showed me iHotelier, the Central Reservation System behind OneScreen. Suddenly I could control room descriptions, rate plan descriptions, cancellation policies, deposit policies, packages and Global Distribution System content—sentence by sentence, word by word, in our own voice.
For the first time, technology wasn’t interrupting the brand. It was protecting it.
We could finally control the cool.
Bryant Park became a client. Then I called friends back at the SoHo Grand. ‘You have to see this.’ There was no commission. No incentive. I simply believed every independent hotel deserved to experience what I had just seen.
Our conversations evolved from demonstrations into collaborations. I’d describe an operational frustration and weeks later I’d see a feature that solved it. The people building the technology weren’t guessing what operators needed. They were listening.
One afternoon, Drew called again. This time he asked if I would ever considered joining his company.
After we hung up, I walked through the hotel. Past the Front Desk. Past Housekeeping. Past Engineering. Past the Bell Desk. Phones ringing. Suitcases rolling across marble floors. A guest asking for extra towels. Someone checking in after a delayed flight.
For years, those sounds had been my world. Soon they wouldn’t be.
I remember wondering if I was making the biggest mistake of my life.
I had gone to school to become a hotelier. Leaving operations felt like walking away from the profession that had given me everything.
But another thought refused to leave me alone.
What if helping one hotel wasn’t the only way to serve this industry? What if I could help hundreds?
I accepted Drew’s offer.
For years, I wondered what might have happened if Tony had said yes when I asked to move into Sales. I’ll never know.
What I do know is this: Tony Fant changed the course of my career twice. The first time was when he saw potential in me. The second time was when he told me no.
Without that one conversation, there is no Bryant Park Hotel. Without Bryant Park, there is no Drew Rosser. Without Drew, there is no leap into technology. And without that leap, I never would have discovered another way to serve the industry I loved.
I eventually found my way back to hotel operations. As it turns out, hospitality has a way of calling you home.
But that’s another story.
Continue the Conversation
Every Field Note begins with curiosity. If this one resonated with you, these people, places, and ideas are well worth exploring.
SoHo Grand Hotel
Where I learned that branding wasn’t marketing—it was hospitality.
Bryant Park Hotel
The hotel where one unexpected phone call quietly changed the direction of my career.
Stay curious.
So interesting to hear how you jumped from one sector to the next. Loved hearing your experience as someone in the midst of making a similar leap. Thanks for sharing!