Katherine Wong threw plenty away, but she never threw in the towel when she ran a café on Sydney’s Lower North Shore.
The recently appointed general manager of Singapore’s Mandarin Orchard Hotel (pictured left) might still be dishing up the saltimbocca today if it hadn’t been for a decision by ex Australian prime minister John Howard to refuse her permanent citizenship.
“Australia at that time was not business friendly,” says the first female general manager in the 38-year history of the Meritus Mandarin (now Mandarin Orchard), which was relaunched in November after a top-to-toe refurbishment.
After three years successfully building up the café’s business in Sydney, Wong was sent packing, in her words, “because Little Johnny (Howard) was being unfair to business people”.
Wong started her hotel career with Hyatt Regency in 1982 and went on to work with The Regent. The Mandarin Oriental, The Excelsior in Hong Kong and the Pan Pacific in Singapore as executive assistant manager.
Wong – “I’m made in Hong Kong”, she says – fondly remembers her café experience and the lessons she learned and was able to bring to hotel management in Asia.
“I was gung-ho. I went to Australia to follow a dream and realise my passion for cooking,” she says. Initially, Wong was involved in a restaurant partnership with another hotelier that ended when the pair had different ideas on restaurant style and operation.
“My partner’s idea was for a Swiss chalet style restaurant with German food, fine dining and wine priced as three and a half times cost. But everywhere in Australia was BYO (bring your own alcohol), so nobody wanted the wine at those prices.”
In Sydney, where her mother lived, Wong looked round for a new venture, settling on a small restaurant cafe on the Lower North Shore. It had a pleasant outdoor courtyard and an open kitchen.
“There was some ego involved, I wanted to show my former business partner that I could make it on my own,” she admits.
“I also wanted to take the café to the next level, doing away with deep frying and serving healthy food. “I was told, ‘if you don’t sell chips you won’t make money’ but there were six other places nearby selling fish and chips and so my idea was to offer a different healthy menu every day.”
Wong also set out to sell the finest coffee in town by ordering the best beans available, learning how to store the beans, taking lessons on looking after the coffee machine and mastering the skill of making the milk.
“Coffee-making is 30 percent about the beans and 70 percent about maintenance of the machine and how you use it,” she says. Her weekly coffee bean order escalated from five kilos to 12 kilos and profits were invested in a bigger coffee machine.
“It was my passion to make the best possible coffee,” Wong recalls. “I trained my casual staff to make the best coffee, and I told then, ‘If you don’t make a good coffee you will have to drink it and pay me $2.80. It was management by fear,” she jokes.
The food side of the business wasn’t doing too badly either as the café’s clientele changed from blue collar workers to office workers keen to samples meals such as saltimbocca, lamb shanks and osso buco.
“For the first seven months I cooked and threw, cooked and threw because I had so much left over. I realised that it’s no good cooking something that you think is great, but doesn’t sell. But gradually business turned around.
“People were excited to discover what I was cooking each day.”
With her new approach, Wong began to absorb business practices she has carried with her in her subsequent career back in hotels in Asia.
“You must do business based on what the market needs, not what you fancy, she says. “That’s why the first restaurant business failed.
“Secondly, you must believe in the product. Your soul must be there.
“And you need to be flexible. If the price of a standard dish is X dollars but it’s not moving too well, try packaging it by offering salad with the dish for an extra $1.50. Then people see value and you get incremental sales.
“I don’t believe in discounts, but prefer to offer guests more value for money.”
Wong believes she will return to Australia one day. “I still have a passion for cooking. If you’re creative, offer quality and the right pricing people will buy.”
She says that one of the qualities she brought back from Australia is perseverance.
“There were many times when I almost gave up. There were the challenges of getting the right staff. Values are very different in Australia compared to China, where the workers are very focused.”
Soon after returning from Australia, Wong put her CV on the web and within a couple of weeks she received a call from Starwood asking if she would be interested in becoming No 2 at the Sheraton Dongguan Hotel in Guandong.
Wong does not believe in glass ceilings, and says females can reach the top “as long as their dream is big enough, they will find a way”.
“However, if I had stayed in Singapore at that time I think it would have been difficult. Singapore was such a small market for a female to find herself as a general manager. “
I thought, if not Singapore where can I go? Where are the big players? Where are the numbers and where is the growth? It had to be China.”
It meant a big cut in salary but it did open up a pathway to becoming a hotel general manager, which Starwood accelerated by placing Wong on the company’s fast track to the top.
Fifteen months after joining Starwood she was promoted to GM of the Dongguan property. She was only the second Asian female general manager for Starwood, and only the fifth female GM in China.
“It was much tougher for a female GM in Dongguan because the owner was running his own entertainment business at the hotel, basically selling sex.
“Girls were stalking customers on guest floors and when some guests wanted to complain to the manager, they did not expect to be talking to a female. It was an embarrassment.”
The Mandarin Orchard Singapore
With Dongguan behind her, Wong is setting about the task of leading the Grand Dame of Orchard Road, the Mandarin Orchard, through and beyond its multi-million dollar refurbishment.
“I hope to deliver this iconic hotel to new heights,” she says.
New public amenities as part of the hotel’s makeover include a new check-in lobby, a function room and an extended suite of food and beverage outlets, centred on Level 5, which has become the new heart of the hotel.
The lady who starts her every day at 5am in the hotel’s swimming pool, followed by a “top to bottom” walk of the hotel, says she is encouraging her staff to communicate with her.
“Many GMs say they want to be closer to their staff but there’s always some little person in the way to take the calls.
“I have a mobile phone for staff members to call me. I also hold fortnightly afternoon teas for 16-18 staff members who can ask questions on any subject that’s bothering them. Once the ice is broken, we’ve solved several staff issues at these sessions.”
Wong is also keen to play a mentoring role with young staff. “I started mentoring in Dongguan, and I’m now doing it here at the Mandarin and when I retire I’d be happy to do even more mentoring.”
That’s when she is not cooking, of course.
- By Ian Jarrett
• Photos courtesy of Mandarin Orchard
