Day in the life, Wendy Strachan

I am a real morning person. I am totally functional at whatever time I get up in the morning - usually about 6am. I have a loft apartment in an old converted warehouse on the Chicago River, although in the morning there's not much time to take in the view. More likely it's: "Oh my God, I'm going to be late for my tennis lesson," then I brush my teeth and go. I practise for an hour and then grab some toast and tea before the 10-minute drive to work.

Technology is a key thing for me. It just saves so much time, and is vital in helping me to cope with the time differences of a truly global operation.

I pick up my voicemail messages on the carphone on my way to the office. First thing in the office, I check my e-mails, which come in from Asia and Europe - there can be 35 to 40 of those. E-mail is very fast, so it doesn't take long to read through.

My office is on the 43rd floor and I have lots of windows and a great view over Chicago and its equivalent to the City of London, which is known as the Loop.

Every day is different, but I might spend an hour-and-a-half on a conference call to discuss a new computer programme we are installing to link all 13 regional human resource managers around the world. This will provide me with key data on the important people in the hotel, and their moves and vacancies.

I have responsibilities apart from the global human resources function, such as for the corporate office team in Chicago, and I provide a support function for my peers. I am blessed in that I have a boss and a team of VPs who are very supportive of the human resources function. Hyatt is a company that puts its money where its mouth is in terms of training and HR.

I may meet with, for example, our regional director from South Asia to discuss our manpower strategy for India, as we have a number of hotels opening there. We pull the regional managers together once or twice a year, and the rest of the time there is plenty of discussion and a lot of e-mails.

I don't have lots of meetings, but the key players in the Chicago team sit down every Tuesday morning, and once a week I have a departmental meeting where we sit down and go through the issues.

Lunch is a pretty quick affair around 1pm, although I do try to get out of the office - it's my time to catch up with my counterparts. In the summer it is fabulous, because in the city squares they have musicians, but the danger about going out is getting sucked into American junk food!

Back at my desk, I will scan through the international papers or go on to the Internet and look at CNN or the BBC Web sites - the US media is not very global. Because the team is travelling, they bring in news too.

Depending on the time of year, I may be getting ready for the worldwide general managers' conference or working on new course training materials. Everything we do must be culturally sensitive. Anything that goes out has to have the look and feel of an international environment. We use British spellings, because that is the international standard, but in the USA we use their spellings.

The end of the day probably involves phone calls to Asia, and I go home about 6pm.

I think I have the balance right between work and getting a life now. Not travelling so much has helped a lot. I go out in the evenings: Chicago is great place to live - it is a cultural, sophisticated city and I love it. I go to the theatre, musicals, dance - we get a lot of modern companies here in Chicago.

Sometimes, visiting Hyatt regional directors are in town, so I'll go out to dinner with them and show them the city.

The downside of getting up early is I have to be in bed by 10-10.30pm or I'm fizzling out!