Women in Travel: It's IHG's Karin Sheppard!

We chat with Karin Sheppard, Chief Operating Officer – Australasia & Japan, Intercontinental Hotels Group about retaining talent, managing a work/life balance and loving what you do, in conjunction with the inaugural Women in Travel Awards in November.

I had an entire career in IT before I saw the light. It was an early midlife crisis that saw me wanting to do something that made me excited and that led me to think about the travel industry and hotels and I have never looked back since.

There are multiple drivers which make travel an industry that is attractive to women – the joy of travel, international experience, sales and marketing. In hotels we talk about the shortage of female general managers. You will want to have an appetite for moving around. We need to fast track them through the industry so they get to a more senior role by the time they decide to have a family. Then it’s much easier to have that flexibility.

We have an hourglass of 50/50 within the levels throughout the hotels and we have incredibly strong ambitious female leaders and we need to make sure they transition through to general manager and above. We want to retain our talent pool so we’ve got to make sure that women don’t drop out. It’s a business case.

I’m also always cautious about the term work/life balance because it sounds like an equilibrium where you work half the time and you live half the time. I think of it as an issue of counterbalancing, taking time out to recharge and spending time in areas that fulfil your needs.

Away from work, exercise is hugely important to me, with morning running and yoga to recalibrate, as well as spending time with family and being outdoors. Whatever it is that gives you that sense of being in a better place, carve out time for it. Work gives me joy. I love what I do. If you don’t love what you do, find something else.

Travel Weekly is proud to present the inaugural Women in Travel Awards in Sydney on 17 November, and are calling on women from any level across the industry to enter.

You don’t have to be nominated to enter, it’s open to all women at any level, and entries are FREE. ENTRIES CLOSE FRIDAY 14 OCTOBER!

Or, if you know or work with any exceptional Women in Travel, be proactive and acknowledge excellence in their field by nominating them to enter.