HIX TALKS

Six big topics over two days

Hotel designers and developers in our post-pandemic age must understand and respond to social change. We've designed a considered conversational as opposed to a jam-packed seminar schedule.

Our six talks address one question: how has the world changed and what do these changes mean for hotel design and development? Each topic flows from one to the next with time in between for networking, meeting our suppliers and experiencing HIX.

The HIX Talks don't scream, they talk, giving our guests the space and time to breathe, think and create.

All talks are free to attend, simply register to visit.

Day One

11:15-12:15

Meaningful Value

As we redesign our lives, many people are redefining their own ‘meaningful value’.

Hospitality providers need to understand, anticipate and reflect this profound societal shift in outlook.

James will share his view on the owner/operator relationship, the staffing challenge and hotel design, along with the opportunity of multi-functional properties…all through the lens of ‘meaningful value’.

This is our ‘big’ macro session, it’s about the business of hotel development and design, a natural scene-setter for our HIX talks.

James Chappell

Global Business Director of Horwath HTL

James is the London-based Global Business Director of Horwath HTL, the world’s largest and most experienced Hospitality Consulting brand.

James and his team are responsible for the growth, marketing, business development and support for the 50 offices in 39 countries that make up the network.

12:45-13:30

The Importance of Design to F&B

In 2018, Michael was recruited from the Michelin Guide to work for Jumeirah Hotels in Dubai with the mission of elevating their restaurant operations.

This session will explore what he learnt during his three years with Jumeirah; what things hoteliers should avoid when running restaurants; how Dubai’s restaurant scene evolved over the past few years; and, how Michael’s role at Jumeirah compares with his current position with the FEBC Group.

Michael Ellis

President, F&B FEBC Group

With a career spanning over 35 years, Ellis has been ranked number one on the Caterer Middle East Power 50 in the hotels category for the last two years running. A former global director of the Michelin Guide, Ellis was brought into Jumeirah in 2018 to provide world-class gastronomic expertise and instantly made his mark on the F&B scene in Dubai with a number of bold decisions.

Multiple Michelin-starred chefs made the move to the UAE to help execute his vision for the brand, which focused on elevating the overall dining experience offered at its hotels.

13:45-14:45

WFHotel

From the broader topic of ‘meaningful value’ we shift to the potential value of working in hotels.

The world once travelled to an office from nine to five, sometimes visiting a hotel for a business lunch or to grab a quiet spot to work from. And one day it all stopped, everyone stayed inside. Home became the new office, the new hotel and through creativity, optimism and technology people adapted, they kept on working.

Now, as the world re-opens something’s changed forever and will never go back to what it was. A brave new world can be designed.

Three leading design studios collaborate, converse and present the hotel as our new productive, fluid and well workplace.

Tina Norden

Partner, Conran & Partners

Tina is an architect and interior designer with a diverse portfolio stretching across many contexts and continents, from hotel and restaurant design to high-end residential.

She has recently completed the new Park Hyatt Auckland and is working on two subsequent projects in Asia Pacific.

Other recently completed projects include the new FEAST restaurant within Hong Kong’s EAST Hotel, Hotel Maximilian in Prague and the White Label QO for the IHG hotel brand in Amsterdam.

Balkaran Bassan

Senior Designer, Areen Design

Balkaran has worked on a range of international hospitality projects for the past 12 years, across different cultures, briefs and aesthetics.

His innovative conceptual and storytelling approach is a key driving force in all aspects of the project. With a keen eye for materiality and design, his experience of world cultures has enriched his design aesthetic and his ability to create diverse and engaging interiors.

Vince Stroop

Founding Partner, stroop

Architect Vince Stroop has made a new, refreshing lemonade from the lemons presented by the covid crisis, and he is calling it stroop: a design collective of innovative creators based anywhere with good internet.
Previously, as co-founder of A2 Studios in California, and as Partner at the New York-based firms of Stonehill Taylor and Jeffery Beers International, he led many projects for hospitality brands such as Raffles, Rosewood, Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, Sydell Group, IHG, and One&Only.
Vince lives in Brooklyn and Seattle, where he bakes as often as possible to enjoy a creative endeavour with quick results and immediate satisfaction.

15:45-16:45

All Together Now

From the communal potential of working in hotels, we finish the day with a celebration of the wider role of hotel communion.

When we stayed indoors, we were isolated from family, friends, colleagues and communities. Now as we reconnect with others, your hotel lobbies, bars and guest rooms represent, celebratory, communal, cathedrals of togetherness. What other building can scream or whisper the words, ‘let’s meet, eat, sleep, drink, create, dance, swim, hug and discover’, like a hotel can?

Jason shares his passion for hospitality and design as unique tools for forging togetherness. Harnessing the power of interiors, programming and community, you may feel the unapologetic chorus of ‘All together now’.
Followed by drinks, naturally.

Jason Steere

Managing Director of Brand & Experience, The Student Hotel

Entrepreneurial brand builder and all-round creative thinker, Jason Steere is the mastermind behind The Student Hotel’s unique attitude, award-winning interiors and out-of-the-box customer experience.

After acting as the creative powerhouse behind some of the world’s best-known retail brands and concepts – like the flagship Niketown stores in the US, London and Berlin – and running his own design agency for close to two decades, Jason has brought it all to The Student Hotel (TSH) as Managing Director of Brand and Experience. Not only has he reimagined TSH’s look and feel and reinvented its overall customer experience since 2016, but he’s also forged a stellar reputation as a go-to thought leader in his field.

Amber Westerborg

Director of Sustainability & Impact, The Student Hotel

As a purpose-driven thought leader in impact and sustainability, Amber Westerborg is the relentless driving force behind The Student Hotel’s ambitious green and social change agenda as Director of Sustainability and Impact.

With unwavering optimism, infectious energy and a naturally engaging manner, Amber has taken big strides in the world of corporate social responsibility (CSR) over a career packed with thoughtful strategies, altruistic agendas and life-changing initiatives. From her role at GoodUp as Customer Success Manager, where she set up the Cheetah Fund to support young African entrepreneurs, to her work with large-scale NGOs as a Freelance Project Manager at ING, she has never been one to shy away from holding the moral compass. Today, she lends her credentials and expertise to The Student Hotel (TSH), overseeing the group’s ambitious agenda on positive social impact and sustainability in the built environment.

Day Two

11:00-12:00

Quietness With Attitude

We start Day 2 on a more introspective note.

‘Wellness’ has been a staple topic on hotel conference stages for the last 10 years, and we still feel compelled to include it on ours. Covid pressed ‘fast forward’ on the mental health and wellness conversation, removing social taboos, and heightening people’s awareness of wellbeing, their own and of those around them.

And in between the 2020 UK lockdowns we met nestwell, a group of people who have set about (re)defining wellbeing in hospitality whilst creating an agreed standard. Their international collective of design studios for HIX will create immersive installations within the event whilst presenting these concepts on stage.

Think slow design, silent architecture and design for wellbeing. Thankfully, this conversation isn’t going away and remains firmly on the agenda as hotels and guests’ journey towards an enlightened understanding of wellbeing.

Christian Sieger

Owner, sieger design

Christian Sieger’s career milestones include developing the Ritzenhoff brand (1992), reviving the Arzberg brand in the 1990s and cultivating successful, decades-long partnerships with Alape, Dornbracht and Duravit.

Projects for Deutsche Bahn, Sony and airberlin underscore the breadth of agency services that the company offers, as do innovative marketing concepts: for example, for Nanjing Road in Shanghai.

The company has been honoured with over 200 design awards. His personal awards include the “Simon Taylor Award for Lifetime Achievement”, which was awarded to him (aged 47) and his brother in London in 2013.

Hen'a Yadav

Principal, Studio Carter

Hen’a Yadav, Principal at Studio Carter is an award-winning interior designer and creative director for spectacular projects across the world, from royal palaces in the Middle East, to a boutique lifestyle-driven projects in Western Europe and Southern California. She is a visual storyteller that prides herself in creating unique lifestyle driven hospitality experiences.

It’s an uncanny chain of events that led her to this exact moment. She was born in Bombay, raised in Katmandu, and studied in Dubai, followed by Basel. With this unusual upbringing and paradoxical perspective on different cultures, she became curious about the various environments she lived in and how they mould us. Thus, her innate drive to study interiors led her to Montreal, to where she came with an ambition to revolutionise and rethink the word ‘lifestyle’.

After graduating, she started her career in Dubai by designing royal palaces. The opulence of that lifestyle led her to seek a role specialising in hospitality. She continued to explore different design communities and cultures by working in Hasselt, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore, quenching her creative curiosity with fabulous mentors and celebrity designers along the way.

After 18 years of this nomadic, creative journey, she has seamlessly accumulated a vast and versatile portfolio with unique set off experiences. This has now all culminated in a fabulous role in London after Los Angeles, and as a Principal of a boutique, a lifestyle-driven firm called Studio Carter, she continues to spearhead the London office.

Cédric Etienne

Founder, Studio Corkinho

In 2007, Etienne Cédric obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Interior and Design from the Catholic University College in Mechelen. He continued his education with a Master’s degree in interior design at the Politecnico di Milano. In 2010 he founded the Moodstudio, a design office for brand poetry & scenic spaces. This multidisciplinary design studio is specialised in concept thinking, set design and event production. They design scenic spaces to generate emotional awareness, both in a temporary and in a permanent context. Aligning the worlds of graphics, architecture, design, fashion and the visual arts allows them to convert the script of a project into a unique experience.

12:15-13:00

Redefining materialism: Bethan Ryder in Conversation with Tom Dixon

Founder and eponymous Creative Director, Tom Dixon, is a restless innovator who rose to prominence in the 1980s as a maverick, untrained designer with a line in welded salvage furniture. A master of material innovation, his experimental hands-on approach to design has driven an illustrious 40-year career which has evolved into a globally renowned luxury brand, with representation in 90 countries.

Tom continues to push boundaries, unearthing new materials and reinventing classics as part of the creative process in his quest to offer responsible and timeless design solutions. Design touches every aspect of our lives and nowhere more so than in forming memorable hospitality spaces. In 2007, Tom launched his interiors agency, Design Research Studio, and has since created numerous spaces including the Mondrian Hotel in London, the Drugstore Brasserie in Paris, The Manzoni restaurant in Milan and his own multidisciplinary HQ in Kings Cross which includes the Coal Office restaurant.

In this conversion we’ll discuss some of Tom’s latest projects including his Liquid range for VitrA, plus the importance of materiality in creating hospitality spaces, how design is a multisensory discipline and ask can designers make a difference in a post-pandemic world.

Tom Dixon

Founder and Creative Director, Tom Dixon

Established in 2002, Tom Dixon is a British luxury design brand which is represented in 90 countries. Specialising in furniture, lighting and accessories, Tom Dixon has hubs in London, Milan, Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, Hangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai.

Founder and eponymous Creative Director Tom Dixon is a restless innovator who rose to pominence in the 1980s as a maverick, untrained designer with a line in welded salvage furniture. While working with the Italian giant Cappellini he designed the widely acclaimed ‘S’ chair. In the late 90s Tom became Creative Director at Habitat and rejuvenated the brand while maintaining Terence Conran’s vision of enriching everyday life through simple, modern design. In 2001, Tom was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen for his services to British design.

Launched in 2007, Design Research Studio, the design and innovations agency at the heart of Tom Dixon, continue to create extraordinary spaces globally.

Recent projects have included reimagining the modern cruise experience for Virgin Voyages on their first ship, reinventing the layout and interior of The Pullman Hotel in Bercy, the iconic Drugstore Brasserie on Les Champs – Elysees, Paris and designing the Manzoni in Milan, Tom Dixon’s first European hub which acts as a restaurant, shop and office all in one.

Bethan Ryder

Executive Editorial Director of WGSN and design journalist

Bethan Ryder has written about design and interiors for 24 years, contributing to titles including Observer Design, Wallpaper*, Elle Decoration, House & Garden, Interior Design (US), Telegraph Luxury, Hole & Corner, Sleeper and Sunday Times Style.

She is currently Executive Editorial Director of leading global trend forecaster WGSN, where she oversees public-facing content from white papers and live events to webinars and the WGSN Create Tomorrow podcast. Previous senior roles include deputy editor of Elle Decoration, digital editor of Wallpaper*, and deputy editor of Telegraph Luxury. She also provides copywriting; past clients include The Rug Company, David Collins, Absolut and Jo Sampson Studio.

Between 2002-2006 she edited four design books on bar, restaurant and club interiors for Laurence King Publishing. Very sporadically, she broadcasts her own podcast, called Design Principles, focusing on leading women in design.

14:15-15:00

Truth, Trust and Loyalty

You want the truth? The truth is that this session isn’t technically about hotel design.

In fact, Dexter is not from the world of hospitality at all. As the former speech writer for Google, Head of Communications at Facebook, SpaceX, and now for The Oversight Board (the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg’s that makes high profile content moderation decisions), Dexter knows a thing or two about building community and brand transparency.

At HIX he’ll be exploring truth, trust and loyalty in a world of misinformation and instantly responsive social platforms.

For hotel developers and designers these are generation-defining issues and the key to understanding tomorrow’s customer, Generation Z.

This session is not about marketing offers or loyalty points, it’s about building a meaningful relationship with your first ‘digital-native’ guests.

Dex Hunter-Torricke

Head of Communications, Oversight Board for Meta

15:15-16:00

To the Lighthouse

‘Here, where the light is brighter and the wind is wilder, the ocean saltier and the seafood fresher’. The lights go down as we close our talks.

Erik Nissen Johansen tells a story worthy of any Northern European wonder tale. The story of a celebrated hotel designer who buys an island in an outpost of a windblown, barren and exposed Swedish archipelago. Amid winds of 1000 miles per hour, he turns the old Pater Noster Lighthouse into a boutique hotel experience. For more than 100 years, this building gave hope and guided seafarers through treacherous waters, it was home to the lighthouse keepers and their families, a small-scale community.

Now, once again the doors to the old master’s home open, welcoming a new generation of seafarers, nature lovers and pleasure seekers. A safe haven on an island perceived as uninhabitable. An inspiring hospitality metaphor for our times.

Erik Nissen Johansen

Owner, Founder & Creative Director, Stylt Trampoli