Stephanie Pinto is Interstate Europe Hotels & Resorts’ Group Director of Sales for the UK. In this edition of our “Getting to Know You” feature, Stephanie shares with us what she thinks makes Interstate stand out from the crowd and what she enjoys most about working with the team.

Tell us about your role and what it involves:

My role is primarily to lead the sales function here at Interstate. I oversee our team of five regional directors and also lead the account management team each of whom have their own sectors to work within: leisure, conferences and events plus associations and sport.

I support and advise the team, working with them to set clear key performance goals and ensuring that together we take a strategic approach to sales.

The industry has changed so much in the last decade that nowadays, we focus a great deal more on the balance of the business we target, working hand-in-hand with Interstate’s wider commercial team to identify gaps in the market and ways we can offer increased value to our customers.

What does a typical day in your role involve?

The reason I love my job so much is because there isn’t a typical day! I could be meeting with one of our hotels along with the commercial team, to help them tackle a specific issue, I could be pitching for a new management contract, taking part in a brand meeting or spending time with the regional team.

I’m rarely in the office, I travel a lot and you never know what new opportunities and challenges each day will bring – and that’s all part of the attraction!

What’s your favourite part of the role?

As well as the variety of the job, it’s also the team at Interstate. Everyone is so friendly and passionate about what we do and how we do it – it’s a great place to work.

Equally, I love the buzz of helping our owners achieve success through the sales and commercial strategies we put in place.

We don’t own any hotels, we are a pure third-party management company so 100 per cent of our efforts are focused on making the properties we manage for our owners a success.

Seeing them flourish and the teams go from strength-to-strength is a great feeling.

What, in your opinion, makes Interstate stand out from the crowd?

The people really make it. A large proportion of us have worked our way up through the hotel industry – I myself started out as a sales executive in a hotel two decades ago – and so we have a lot of first-hand experience between us that is invaluable to hotel owners and new investors.

In addition, the fact we don’t own any of our own properties and focus wholeheartedly on the success of our owners’ businesses makes us truly unique here in the UK.