223: Tasting Catastrophe
Franck Desplechin is a French-born chef turned luxury hotel food and beverage executive, with roots in Michelin-starred kitchens and brands like St. Regis and Auberge Resorts. After running iconic properties (including a wild Sedona chapter with his wife as co-leaders), he launched a nationwide task force and consulting practice and distilled his “chef mindset” leadership style into a book. Susan and Franck talk about building healthy, high-performing teams in high-pressure environments.
What You’ll Learn About:
• Lessons from a 15-year-old apprentice about reliability, humility, and showing up that still matter in the C-suite
• Navigating partnership when you and your spouse run the hotel together without killing each other (or the vibe)
• How COVID, quarantine, and a pregnant partner forced a workaholic to completely rearrange his priorities
• What the “chef mindset” really is and how to use adversity, rejection, and pressure as a leadership training ground
• Spotting when your culture is out of balance between guest experience and employee experience • Rethinking “we have jobs because we have guests” and flipping it to a culture-first, people-first philosophy
• What task force really looks like behind the scenes and how elite consultants show up differently than the average fill-in
• Serving what the property needs vs pushing what you think they should fix as an external expert
• Meetings that should absolutely die and how to spot the recurring time-wasters with zero impact • Simple daily rituals that build loyalty, like the 15-minute “hello tour” that makes your team feel seen
• Where luxury F&B is headed next and why fewer, better outlets may beat “infinite options” for modern travelers
Our Top Three Takeaways
1. Leadership in luxury F&B is shaped early, and built on discipline, humility, and constant learning.
Franck traces his approach to leadership back to the foundations laid in Michelin-starred kitchens: showing up on time, staying coachable, being reliable, and remaining a lifelong student of hospitality. These habits, formed at age 15, still anchor his leadership today.
2. Task force success hinges on humility, flexibility, and meeting properties where they are.
High-performing task force leaders don’t walk in trying to fix everything. They focus on what the hotel truly needs, adapt to existing team culture, assess emotional dynamics, and provide continuity during leadership gaps. Ego and personal agenda have no place in effective interim leadership.
3. Luxury F&B’s future is fewer outlets, sharper concepts, and deeper employee focus.
Franck predicts a shift away from sprawling multi-outlet hotels toward tighter, more exceptional concepts, because guests increasingly value quality over variety and seek local experiences. He also argues that employee satisfaction should be measured and prioritized with the same rigor as guest satisfaction, because the guest experience depends on it.
Other Episodes You May Like:
08: King Sheet Parachute with Justin Genzlinger
174: Apron on a Fence with Mitch Prensky