With over 25 years experience in the hotel industry, Richard Hatter has developed a reputation for excellence. A specialist in the Asian hotel market where the core focus has been to retain a competitive advantage, he has successfully driven Operations in many regions and been the innovator of new concepts whilst also managing successfully tight budgets and profit expectation. His versatility and ability to cleverly interpret and understand brand values, along with his instinctive management style makes him the ideal candidate to drive any new or existing operation forward. Hatter’s Operation's work ethos and his natural leadership and dynamism has translated into productive and creative working environments across every aspect of luxury hotel brands and clubs.
He has a particular commitment and dedication to people management and the training of staff from different cultures and has been instrumental in organizing new structures in personnel, training and planning most recently for the Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts Group. His experience also covers running exclusive members’ Clubs and more niche hotel brands.
An absolute understanding of all the relevant competitive environments has enabled Hatter to effectively lead in and respond to a fast moving and changing market, guiding teams through the down-sizing of operations and centralization when necessary whilst always maintaining results through strategic analysis of budget control, productivity and profit. In addition to a successful Operations background, Hatter has also been responsible for all of the renovations and the repositioning of hotels within the Shangri-la Group since 2004.
He is a frequent lecturer in the region and active member of the Board of Directors at Hotel ICON. For over a decade he has been an advocate for hotel development and education and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and General Manager / member of the board of directors at Hotel ICON.
Adopting a holistic approach based primarily on a mission to connect the value of hospitality education with the value of the business, Hatter was commissioned to develop Hotel ICON dubbed “unlike any other”, to espouse a greater convergence and efficacy of learning the hotel trade in the real world. His visionary attitude has since helped Hong Kong PolyU change it’s design and business model approach with a tidy strategy built around brand identity, user experience and sustainability. At the helm of Hotel ICON’s creative foray, Hatter has been pivotal in streamlining ICON’s interior design, iconic logotype; visual identity, strategic branding, financial business model, work integrated education model and setting up the brand culture for ICON; and countless other systems.
