Around the world's finest hotels to end up in St Petersburg

WILDGEESE: EMIGRANT BUSINESS LEADERS ON OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD:Liam Madden, General manager, Kempinski Moika 22

IN A Russia perpetually pulled between Europe and Asia, St Petersburg symbolises its longing for the West, which for its founder Peter the Great represented modernity, culture and sophistication.

The Kempinski Moika 22 chimes with the tsar’s vision of his city. Behind a graceful neo-classical facade on the quiet Moika canal, with the baroque splendour of the Winter Palace just beyond, the hotel’s understated elegance and attentive service have earned it an enviable reputation.

One man who must take considerable credit for the Moika 22’s success is Liam Madden, general manager since it opened in 2005.

Born in Tipperary in 1951 and educated in the town by Christian Brothers, Madden’s 40 years in the hotel trade began with the Great Southern – now the Park – in Kenmare.

They have taken him to three continents in the pay of some of the biggest and best-known chains in the world.

Madden says his fate was sealed when he was dispatched from Kenmare to Geneva for training in 1971.

“Those two or three years changed my life. The whole world opened up to me and I realised that this was the life I wanted,” he recalled in a lounge of the Kempinski that looks out towards the turquoise and white Winter Palace, home to the legendary Hermitage Museum.

“It was a tremendous learning experience and I caught the fever – that’s what it was like – a fever for life abroad, and it has stayed with me. It’s fair to say I was in no great rush to go home.”

When Madden did return to Ireland, he arrived with the Swedish girl who would become his wife – and with a thirst for more of the European life that he had tasted.

After a spell at Jurys in Dublin, he moved with his future wife to Stockholm.

“I was 25 and had no work arranged, but I spoke English and French and so hoped I would find a decent job. After three months of an intensive language course, I could just about apply for a job in Swedish, and I got a position at the Sheraton – the only international hotel in Stockholm.”

Madden remembers the openness and the fine lifestyle of the Swedes, their affection for Ireland and its culture, and their interest in a Swedish-speaking Irishman who was one of relatively few foreigners living in late-1970s Stockholm.

His rapid rise through the Sheraton’s ranks soon landed him in a very different environment, however.

“I was sent to Jamaica to be general manager at the Sheraton at Ocho Rios. That was very tough. The Jamaicans put you on the defensive and are quite aggressive in the way they welcome you. It was a beautiful place to be a tourist, but a difficult place to work.”

Happier times followed, on a spin for the Sheraton through Miami, Chicago and finally two years in Boston, where Madden and his wife and daughter “started to settle down for the first time”.

After becoming the first Irish president of the Boston Hotel Association, Madden moved with his family to Bangkok to work for Swissotel – a less enjoyable time that prompted a return to Sweden in 1993.

The following year brought another big change – a general manager’s post at the Marriot in Karachi, Pakistan, where an initial six-month stint turned into a three-year stay among “the most genuinely warm and sincere people that I’ve met”, Madden recalls.

In 1997, he returned to Europe to run the Kempinski in Sofia, Bulgaria, en route to fulfilling one of his ambitions – to manage a grand hotel in one of the great cities of the world.

“I was 50 years old, running the Royal Monceau in Paris, and I felt like ‘this is it – the real McCoy’. It was part of a dream come true.”

He welcomed the move to St Petersburg, however, to be closer to his daughters in Sweden and to try to create a world-class hotel in Russia. This year, Moika 22 was named the best Kempinski in the world.

“Five years ago, it was unthinkable for a Russian hotel to be the world’s best in terms of quality and service. It’s great for the staff to see that they can do it and that their work will be recognised.”

Madden has only two other foreigners on his staff of 225, but acknowledges that his biggest challenge in Russia is “finding the right people, who are capable of understanding international standards and want to deliver them”.

Forty years on, the hotel buzz still courses through Madden.

“There’s nothing better than walking into the lobby of the hotel when it’s full, and knowing that everything is working well,” he says.

“Even if you stay in Ireland, the hotel business is fantastic. It teaches you to be open-minded, it’s so international and you meet such interesting people. And it’s the same throughout the world – so you can pick up your bag and go one or five or 10 hours in any direction and find yourself a job.”