We had the good fortune of connecting with Richard Kveton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Richard, what habits do you feel play an important role in your life?
I believe that a few old school habits really have helped create the base of my experiance and had really boosted my career over the years.

Discipline: Getting up early, being prepared and being on time, finishing your projects on time, and on budget are the minimum! Never have anyone waiting for you, especially your team! Be prompt and be responsive, and never have anyone chase after you. Always be ahead of schedule.

Leading by example: Never ask someone to do something you would not do yourself! Never feel that as a top manager, you are above cleaning up your own mess, always be the first to jump in and put out the fire, lend a hand to a colleauge, and be kind and respectful to everyone on the team, regarless of thier position and status. Never forget where you came from!

Listening: In large and small challenges, always seek feedback and guidance from your team. Even as the top person in your organization, you dont know everything! Generally speaking, the higher you are, the less you may know and never be deluded to think you know everything! Seek feedback and encourage your team to challenge you!

Celebrate everyones achievements: As you develop in your career, you benefit from positive feedback and grow in experiance and confidence along your journey, be the champion of everyone in your team, and encourage them to develop and move up, and sometimes move along. Everyone in your rich network benefits!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I fell into Hospitality at a young age, I started my career working in a restaurant as a dishwasher and busboy, as a part time job in High School, a fews years later, a chance motorcycle accident diverted my University plans, and I decided to persue a career in the Culinary Arts, decades before the “glamourous” TV exposure it has now. I went from cooking at a Steakhouse to an apprenticeship at the Four Seasons and began an adventure that spanned the globe, where after a number of years working in some excellent Hotels and Restaurants, to the desire to work internationally took hold.

In 1997, there was little market for a “Canadian Chef” in the exciting markets I was interested in, such as Asia and Europe, we were normally sent to the Caribbean, but I recieved an interesting offer from a recruiter, to go to Moscow Russia, which was just half a dozen years after the fall of the Soviet Union. I thought he was crazy at first, but I interviewed for the job, and on the second interview, I was hired sight unseen, and signed a one year contract at a Canadian-Russian Joint Venure called the Aerostar Hotel, just a few subways stops from Red Square. It was exciting and challenging, a new job, in a new country, with a new culture and language. Little did I know at the time, but I ended up working in Russia and the CIS for almost 25 years! Graduating from Sous Chef, to Executive Chef, to taking some extremely eye opening courses at Cornell Universitys school of Hospitality, I moved into Food and Beverage Management for a Gaming company called Storm International, where I worked for 12 years and became the VP of Hospitality, also running teams like IT, Purchasing, and Transport. After Gaming was made illlegal in Russia, I spent a year converting our Casinos into Restaurants, and took a step back to open a property in Georgia while I completed my MBA at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. A more economic and finance based program was a departure from Hospitality and my colleagues were a range of Bankers, Automotive and Pharma Execs from mainly Germany and Switzerland as well as some other European countries. I then returned to Hotels were as a General Manager and Project Manager, opened up 3 hotels, for 3 different Hotel groups over the course of 10 years! In the spring of 2019, I then took a short GM position back in my native country Canada, in the picturesque Rocky Mountains in Whistler BC. but as the year was closing out, distant rumbles and stories of a virus spreading in China were in and out of the news. At the same time i was offered a position as General Manager of a Boutique Hotel in Bishkek, Kyrgystan, one of the leading independant Hotels in Central Asia, the Orion Hotel Bishkek, so in early 2020, I moved myself and just a month later my family to Bishkek, just days before the world went into lockdown! I spent 6 months in quarantine with my family, returning only a few days a week to work and plan our re-opening with new safety protocols. With very understanding and patient owners, who supported me and the staff during this period, we re-opened and never closed again during the course of the whole pandemic. After three years in Bishkek I returned again to my home country of Canada, to take another new challenging role, of Group General Manager of the Brydson Group, running a historic property, Canadas largest urban day spa, the Elmwood Spa, elmspa, and the Terrace and Bangkok Garden Restaurants. After two years of working back home in Canada, after some 25 years away, I can say the challenge of returning home is almost as jarring as my first move abroad all those years ago!

I have to credit my early upbringing, where I was encouraged to try new things, experiment, and not be afraid of challenges. I started “working” very early, from about 10 years old I was shovelling snow, cutting grass and delivering newspapers. My generation was one of latch key kids, walking the streets, taking the buses and wandering through downtown at 10-12 years of age. We were wanderers in our early life and for me, that example from my parents of making big changes, not being afraid of challenges, inspired me to look far beyond what was possible in my home city, and that great example gave me the confidence to not limit myself to conventional thinking. I didnt think twice about moving jobs, or evolving my career, opportunities arose, and I took them, and I did not allow self doubt or external critisims or negativity hold me back! Success to me is enjoying what you do, bringing joy to people (both staff and customers), building successful teams, and seeing your former employees develop and grow in thier careers, its not about how much money you make! I know I will get heat for that comment from the type A community, but sorry, you cant take it with you! Success it about the journey, and who you work with alonge the way, its not about the destination, and one should enjoy the ride, even though it brings you challenges and frustrations, that is an integral part of the process.

Every professional may have their own defintion of success, and as I have matured in my career, and seasoned from many years of quite far out there experiances, if you asked me the definition of success at 25, my answers would have been much different. At this time in my life, in my view, to be truely successful, one must be endlessly curious, one must not be afraid of change or new things and one must be open to new and unique experiances! When one faces a failure, take it as a learning experiance, brush yourself off and move on and up instead of getting negative or blaming someone else or the environment. Always be positive and be open to every opportunity, for yourself and those around you, and relish the experiances that comes your way!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
As I have been away for many years, I have had the unique experiance of re-aquaniting myself with my home town of Toronto! We are a very international city, with cultures and cuisines from around the world, so we have an exciting food scene. I am not one for going out too much these days, but I do have some favorite spots around the city. Starting off in China Town we would go to Rol San for Dim Sum, then head to the Art Gallery of Ontario, and enjoy, some indigenous art as well as the Group of Seven, the Canadian pioneers of landscape, to some modern masters. Then on to little Italy to have dinner at Giulietta or Il Covo. You can spend weeks exploring the different neighbourhoods of the city, each with thier own cuisine, from Greektown of Pape, to Koreatown on Bloor St. to Little Tibet, Little Poland, Little India and the cross cultural explosion that is Kengsington Market. There is so much to see and do in Toronto, and so much to eat and enjoy! With other sites like Casa Loma, The Royal Ontario Museam, St. Lawrence Market, Fort York, Toronto Zoo, and our wonderful Parks, like Edwards Gardens, and High Park, there is so much to see and experiance here.

Not far from Toronto is the wine country of Niagara, where several wineries, such as Jackson Triggs, Chateau Des Charmes, and Inniskillin wineries provide tours, and wine and meal tastings. One could spend your whole week just here! And just half an hour away is Niagara Falls, where you can experiance the better side of the falls :).

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My family is my strength! My wife Olga, and twin girls, and I would not have made the successess in my life if it werent for my parents, Otto and Jana, who were such a strong example of determination and grit, arriving in Canada with only a few hundred dollars and a dream, as immigrants from Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardkveton/

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