"In hospitality, it's all about making real connections, being eco-friendly, and never giving up."
Denise Dupré Tweet
Welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine, where we have the privilege of introducing you to a true luminary in the world of hospitality. Denise Dupré, the Founder and Managing Partner of Champagne Hospitality, graciously opens the doors to her inspiring journey—a journey marked by unwavering resilience, an unquenchable passion for excellence, and an unrelenting commitment to the art of hospitality.
Denise Dupré’s story is one deeply rooted in family legacy, tracing back to her grandparents, who, as German immigrants, laid the foundation for “The Seven Springs Mountain Resort” in Pennsylvania. This legacy became her training ground, fostering an intimate familiarity with the intricacies of the hospitality industry from a young age.
As we embark on this enlightening journey, we will explore Denise’s academic pursuits at Dartmouth College and Cornell University’s School of Hotel Management, her pivotal career shifts, and the transformative experiences that have shaped her path.
Join us as we gain insights from her on hospitality, resilience, and sustainability, offering a glimpse into the world of a true industry pioneer.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Denise Dupré: I am Denise Dupré, the Founder and Managing Partner of Champagne Hospitality, a boutique hotel design and development company with properties in the Champagne and Burgundy regions of France, and in St. Barthelemy, in the Caribbean. The company also maintains a portfolio of vineyards through Couture Harvest.
My hospitality journey began with my grandparents, German immigrants who worked diligently to acquire land in Pennsylvania, resulting in the establishment of “The Seven Springs Mountain Resort.” This family enterprise served as my training ground, fostering firsthand familiarity with hospitality operations from an early age.
I attended Dartmouth College, and later pursued a Master’s of Hospitality Management from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Management and worked as a teaching fellow.
A desire for novelty led me to Leo Burnett Advertising in Chicago, where I represented a major restaurant chain, solidifying my devotion to hospitality. Mid-career I also worked at Lavenenthol and Horwath in New York, a leading hotel consulting firm, and later returned to my teaching inclination at Boston University, eventually becoming Dean of the School of Hotel Management.
For a period, I held a position at Harvard University teaching graduate students international hospitality management and delivering guest lectures.I made a pivotal career shift in 2012. I seized the chance to delve further into the hospitality industry by establishing Le Barthélemy, an international hotel in St. Barts.
This marked the inception of Champagne Hospitality as I pivoted from teaching to wholehearted business expansion, which evolved from one hotel to three, along with a vineyard business, Couture Harvest.
The vineyards of Couture Harvest are pioneering organic and biodynamic viticulture, and innovative techniques like under the sea aging, and experimental gold and titanium barrels, and producing award winning wines, including the La Revue de Vin de France’s “Wine of the Year.”
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Denise Dupré: Quiet quitting is a leadership issue that has tentacles into the employer-employee relationship and company culture. Thankfully, we haven’t experienced a significant shift in our workforce as much because we place our team’s well-being—mental, physical, and financial—at the top of our priority list.
We also put a tremendous amount of trust in our teams, allowing every staff member, without fear of failure, to take ownership of what they do.
We clearly communicate the kind of results we seek and put trust in our teams to get there. In addition, we are always looking for ways to promote from within, which includes taking the responsibility for noticing and publicly appreciating good work.
Finally, we also have fostered a strong sense of community and mutual respect amongst our teams which creates an atmosphere of friendship, emotional support and accountability to one another.
For example, our teams understand that we want to support them, not only when business is strong, but when it is challenged. We have shared very difficult experiences, such as when Hurricane Irma leveled our new St. Barth hotel in 2017.
While other businesses laid off much of their staff, we ensured our staff had jobs if they wanted them—albeit some had changes in duties for the year we were closed. We moved quickly in the rebuild, channeling everyone’s focus forward.
Similarly, during COVID, we retained all of our employees despite not having guests staying at the hotels. When we support our people when things are hard, we believe and have seen that they will stand with us when things are good.
We ensure our teams know they are the central driving force to creating something great as you can’t deliver a quality guest experience remotely.
As leaders must always be thinking forward about the careers of our employees. It’s not enough to be connected and valued, the team needs to be challenged to learn new things and to know there’s a path to moving up. If we do not talk to our staff members about advancement, our competitors will.
I learned this lesson the hard way. Recently, one of our star food & beverage managers submitted his resignation—he had been recruited by a competitor and offered a career advancement. We weren’t surprised.
As soon as I was informed, I scheduled a Zoom call to discuss a longer perspective. We found a cross-training opportunity that when combined with his current experience would lead to even greater advancement in the long term.
As a result, we were able to retain a bright and talented team member. We learned from this experience that sharing the vision for the company—but also in that context, the career vision for the employee—is necessary to keeping staff content and motivated.
Here is a two-fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Denise Dupré: Of course, there are hundreds of books about business and the hospitality industry that have influenced me throughout my career. However, in the fourth grade, a friend handed me a dilapidated copy of The Clue of the Velvet Locket, which was number five in the Nancy Drew series.
As a young girl growing up in rural Pennsylvania, the book unveiled an intelligent young woman who had a career, a car, close friends and a boyfriend. Nancy Drew had the characteristics I aspired to mirror in my life. I went on to read all 56 books. At the time I didn’t realize the books’ influence, but the series later prompted me to read biographies of many famous women in history. These books provided me with a model of what women could do and be.
All my reading showed me how women could succeed, even in fields traditionally dominated by men. It inspired me to defy restrictive stereotypes. Women can do extraordinary things—and have done so throughout history.
You also asked which book I gift the most— and similar to how guests of our hotels deserve personalized service, I believe gifts are highly personal and are dependent on the recipient. Books make wonderful gifts and are a great way to say thank you and inspire people. But to be meaningful, there needs to be genuine thought as to who the recipient is and what would make a positive impact for them.
Recently I gave someone close to me a book based on a Navy SEAL’s inspiring graduation speech called, Make your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World. She was starting her own business and there were days when she would feel overwhelmed with all the things she had to do.
The author, Admiral William H. McRaven, tells readers to break down big tasks ahead of you into smaller, more manageable pieces. If you get up in the morning and make your bed, you’ve already accomplished something that sets you on course for the day to keep building onto.
It was a personal message she needed to hear at the moment. With so many books available, it’s easy to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Denise Dupré: I have written a book born out of necessity. As a faculty member teaching first year students at Boston University, I found textbooks didn’t keep up with current material. So, I assembled current material and did not use a textbook that semester.
Rather, I used lectures I had written and researched myself. By the end of the term, I had a book. The reason why I hesitated to publish it, although it did become a published textbook, is how quickly it could get out of date.
But it was worth sharing the wisdom I had collected over a decade. At the time, it was the most advanced way to share information. Now, technology makes it possible to deliver content in many more sophisticated and immediate ways.
I never had the intention of writing a book, but it’s an example of taking action to make a positive difference. I looked for a solution and when I didn’t find it, I crafted my own. At some level, it’s a lesson I hope all of my teams implement. If you don’t see a solution, think about how you can create one yourself.
2020, 2021, and 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Denise Dupré: The pandemic threw all the cards in the air. It prompted us to reflect on emerging innovations and learn from the dislocation.
The period from 2020 to 2022 gifted us a heightened ability to understand the needs of our staff and our guests. This deeper understanding of what they wanted to learn, what made them happiest, excited and motivated, led to new innovations and processes that enriched lives and improved experiences.
We were a people-centric business before—but even more so now. Not only did we retain our team during the pandemic, but we encouraged all of them to learn something new that they had passion around. This ultimately led to the creation of our GEM team (guest experience makers) dedicated to delivering “wow moments” for our guests.
Our commitment to the community in Champagne and St. Barth became more pronounced, emphasizing health, wellness, relaxation and the environment.
Post-pandemic, people cared about experiences more profoundly, seeking authenticity and a higher level of engagement. In our community we delivered pastries regularly to women receiving cancer treatments, we supported local schools, and local hospitals, and more.
With a heightened focus on the environment, we launched new initiatives including a zero-waste cooking program at Le Barthélemy. Guests learn to shop and cook seasonally, minimizing waste, and fostering a greater appreciation for the environment.
We incorporated sustainability into every part of our business, as we are currently designing plans for what we expect will be the most sustainable luxury hotel in the Caribbean focused on energy efficiency, biodiversity, water management, and community integration.
We are also partnering with Coral Restoration St. Barth to regenerate the island’s reefs. Guests are invited to participate in snorkeling or diving sessions with conservationists to help to replant coral.
By bringing guests under the sea to experience the delicate state of the coral habitats and rehabilitating the reef, we believe they will also be inspired to do more impactful environmental stewardship and contribute toward protecting it in the future. The pandemic fundamentally transformed all industries and our approach to hospitality.
By adapting to new realities and listening to the needs of our employees, guests and communities, we have developed a more profound connection with our surroundings and a deeper and more pervasive commitment to sustainable practices.
This transformative period allowed us to evolve, offering richer experiences and greater attention to the environment, reinforcing our dedication to creating a positive impact on our guests, teams and communities.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Denise Dupré: The business superpower of “knowing what climate solutions would have impact the greatest impact and the ability to ensure they are put into action.” As the world faces the urgent and ever-growing threat of climate change, this superpower would give us the latest and most accurate answers in sustainability and environmental stewardship—and the ability to carry them through successfully.
By accurately identifying, supporting and implementing high-impact climate solutions, we could further reduce our energy and water consumption, reduce our carbon footprint, mitigate environmental degradation and drive positive change on a global scale.
Ultimately this superpower would play a pivotal role in shaping a more sustainable and resilient future for the planet, fostering a greener and more prosperous world for generations to come.
Secondly, I would pick the super power of harnessing the positive impact of AI technology on hospitality businesses. The possibilities are changing in real time at breakneck speed. I asked ChatGPT this very question and in less than three seconds it came back to me with 14 ideas, ranging from predictive analytics to customer sentiment analysis.
It’s hard to even begin to imagine the breadth and depth of the possibilities. The superpower will be to balance the technological applications with the human touch—a hallmark of any great hospitality business.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Denise Dupré for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Denise Dupré or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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