In the hours leading up to this year’s International Women’s Day, on March 8, The New York Times published explosive revelations of workplace abuse at legendary Copenhagen restaurant Noma under the watch of chef-founder René Redzepi.
There is a certain poetic justice to be had that, at the same time, a group of 11 female hospitality professionals from around the world concluded a weeklong residency at Rosewood Hong Kong centred specifically on writing a new, women-led chapter in the toxic, male-dominated tale of the hospitality industry.
The inaugural Rise to the Table programme was conceived by Sonia Cheng, the chief executive of Rosewood Hotel Group and chairwoman of the Rosewood Foundation, to put “real resources, time and proximity on the line”, explains Mehvesh Mumtaz Ahmed, the Rosewood Foundation’s global vice-president of impact and sustainability. This is achieved “by bringing women together, surrounding them with mentors, and staying in relationships with them long after the residency”.
Hosted at Rosewood Hong Kong from March 2 to 6, the programme brought together a cohort of chefs, sommeliers and entrepreneurs from eight countries. These women, ranging from Portuguese sous-chefs to Caribbean coffee entrepreneurs, shared a common narrative: they were hitting glass ceilings not due to a lack of ambition, but a lack of access to female thought leaders. By extension, this also meant the resources and networks they could tap into for career advancement.
...“Despite our different backgrounds, we shared the same internal barriers: feeling like we don’t have the ‘right’ to take up space, hesitating to claim our authority and downplaying our expertise even when it’s well-earned,” says Leigh-Ann Luckett, co-founder of Sai Ying Pun wine bar Crushed. “Hearing those patterns echoed across countries made it clear how universal these challenges are for women in hospitality.”....
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