The lure of the exotic draws west Mayo native to Bangkok

Marion Walsh-Hédouin’s career has taken her from dictating menus from Michelin-starred chefs in Paris to heading up communications and management for hotel giant Minor International in Bangkok.

You would be forgiven for thinking she had her career strategically mapped out from the time she left her home village in Co Mayo to ensure her rise to a senior hotel executive with enviable access to plush properties across the globe. According to Walsh-Hédouin, however, there was no plan other than to explore what was beyond her native Ballycroy.

“I never had a game plan. I had a destination plan,” she said.

While born in Dublin, she grew up on her family’s sheep and cattle farm which she said provided all the conditions for a “great childhood” even if she spent parts of it dreaming of more. “When you’re eight, you’re always dreaming of going somewhere else and, for me, it was the lure of the exotic, that adventure of the lifetime and what the global possibilities might be,” she said

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Deciding between competing offers from Trinity College and the University of West London as a teenager proved to be a bit of a sliding doors moment. “I think if I had gone to Trinity, I would still be in Dublin today. Maybe it didn’t seem like a wise decision at the time because it was a higher calibre institution than where I went to but it seemed right to me because they offered French,” she said.

I rang up an ad in the back of this magazine, and a man who would be my husband answered

Working hard and tertiary level qualifications don’t guarantee fluency, however. Walsh-Hédouin found this out the hard way when she landed a job with legendary Michelin-starred French chef Alain Ducasse.

“When you leave university French, you can barely book a table in a restaurant, but Ducasse would call me up and dictate [the] seasonal menu down the phone,” she said

“I had no idea what he was saying so I would write it down phonetically and look through old menus until I thought I had something which sounded right.” She would then show the maître d’, who would make the necessary corrections before she ran back up to Ducasse. “God forbid if I got anything wrong,” she laughed.

As a secretary for Ducasse, Walsh-Hédouin travelled to Monaco and New York.

“It was a sink, swim or soar moment. Your chances of sinking were far higher than swimming but [you] don’t think about that at 23. You just jumped straight in to grasp the opportunity,” she said. “A door was open to me, then it was up to me to make it work.”

She sees hospitality as a formative industry for any young person with ambition.

“It’s the perfect training ground for many of the key skills in today’s workplace – teamwork, tenacity, patience, communication and creativity – and those are needed from entry level to CEO positions.”

Paris also provided her with excellent friends and a husband, thanks to a flatmate-wanted ad in a magazine.

“This was before the internet, so I rang up an ad in the back of this magazine and a man who would be my husband answered.” After putting her through “a quite formal” interview, Steve Hédouin became her “entry to life in Paris” over the next three years.

When you leave university French, you can barely book a table in a restaurant, but Alain Ducasse would call me up and dictate the seasonal menu down the phone

Eventually in her late twenties, after helping Ducasse set up restaurants in New York, Walsh-Hédouin was ready for a new challenge.

She bought a round-the-world ticket, stopping in Dubai, Calcutta and Sydney, with trips to China and Hong Kong planned in between. Returning to New York, she determined to find a way back to Hong Kong, emailing every five-star hotel and PR agency in the region for a solid two months.

The outbreak of Sars stymied her initial efforts, but a contact then emailed her CV directly to the management of the InterContinental, which was were looking for a new director of PR. The general manager got in touch and asked her to fly over. She landed the job.

While she had managed PR before for Ducasse, a traditional marketing and communications role for a luxury hotel was uncharted territory.

“I could see what was done in the past by looking at budgets, looking at collateral, looking at press releases. Then I started doing the same and, when I got into the swing of things, I could add my touch.”

It was a sink, swim or soar moment. Your chances of sinking were far higher than swimming, but you don’t think about that at 23

After two and half years, Walsh-Hédouin was ready once again to challenge herself with a new role and new country. After hearing about a role in Thailand, she decided to pursue it.

A trip to hotelier Anantarra’s northern Thailand property won her over completely, and she joined the burgeoning chain as its brand director. As the company began to expand rapidly from a few luxury hotels in Thailand to a giant tourism player with a global portfolio, Walsh-Hédouin’s career rose with it.

Currently vice-president of communication for Minor Hotels International, she oversees marketing and press for more than 500 hotels and a whopping 75,000 individual rooms.

Covid presented the additional challenge of coming up with different strategies for a company in 56 countries – all with differing levels of travel restrictions and lockdowns. “At one point, about 90 per cent were closed and it was a really difficult time,” she said.

While some countries like Australia shut their borders completely to tourists, others used their open borders to promote themselves as a holiday destination such as the UAE’s Dubai campaign.

“Once word gets out about which countries are going to open, we had to be first to market so we were thinking quite far in advance,” Walsh-Hédouin says.

When you’re eight, you’re always dreaming of going somewhere else and, for me, it was the lure of the exotic

Bangkok is now home, and Walsh-Hédouin has lived there nearly as long as she did in Ireland. Her husband, Steve, often works from his base in Kuala Lumpur and, before that, Dubai.

“Since we’ve been married, we’ve lived together for two months,” she said. Her children, a son and daughter, are used to the family’s “shuttle arrangement”.

While Minor International’s recent takeover of Dublin’s marquee five-star Marker Hotel might bring her over to Ireland, Walsh-Hédouin has no plans to settle back here yet.

She does, however, find that her retained Irishness pays dividends in the international corporate world. “Being Irish swings doors open. If there’s a level of tension in a meeting or just a lack of camaraderie, it instantly takes the edge off because people are comfortable in our presence,” she said.

“People see us as friendly, welcoming and easygoing, so it does put them at ease because the Irish have a reputation as good people.”