Monday, November 26, 2007 Young, dynamic, General Manager By Jenara Regis Newman
THERE is a new general manager (GM) at the Park Lane Hotel, and she’s young and dynamic. This is her first job as GM, but she has grown from the ranks in the local hotel industry and is confident she knows she can do her present job.
An accountancy graduate of the University of San Carlos, Cenelyn D. Manguilimotan had a career change when she quit her job in a bank and moved to Waterfront Hotel in Mactan to be its cashier, as well as one of the staff that set-up the hotel.
She stayed there till 2000, moving to Davao Waterfront Insular Hotel also to help set it up. Then she was back in Cebu City’s Waterfront, this time as senior accountant.
In late 2004, she moved to Hilton Resort and Spa as assistant controller. She was trained to be its financial controller in Phuket Hilton in Thailand, and there she was trained in all aspects of running a hotel.
When she came back from Thailand, she was enticed to join the Manila Pavilion, also owned by the Waterfront owners and, because of a sense of a debt of gratitude to the Waterfront owners, the Gatchalians, she helped in setting up the hotel. In the middle of this year, she moved to The Parklane as general manager.
She has been very busy since then: setting up standards for all aspects of hotel work, and for all its personnel; making manuals for them, as well as making corporate manual with her management team. They are Dominic Dorol, director of sales and marketing; Butch de la Fuente, director of food and beverage; and Jaybee Aquino, marketing and communications manager.
Together, they have set-up training programs. The group has also decided on a new image for the hotel as a corporate, business hotel. So in the planning board is an executive lounge by the middle of 2008, and 10 more executive suites.
Career-driven Cenelyn says of her job: “I’m happy. This is a decision I made. I always imagined I would be leading a group, though I started in a different field, In a hotel, you never grow old because the lifestyle is very dynamic, you interact with many people.”
Cenelyn de-stresses herself by relaxing in a spa, or by going out barhopping and listening to bands and eating out, usually with her management team.
Now, “unmarried,” Cenelyn has a seven-year-old daughter who stays with her parents in Toledo where she grew up.
