Numbers muncher

I'm up at 6am and, after a shower and no breakfast, I'm out the door at 6.40am for a brisk 15-minute walk to Streatham train station in south-west London. It's about 20 minutes to Victoria. Depending on the weather, I might walk to Park Lane.

I'll do a tour of the hotel at about 7.30am to appraise how things have gone overnight. The key is always to ensure that any problem is sorted out early on, and that direct contact is made with the complainant. During this time, I'll grab a coffee and a pastry.

At 9am I hold a daily briefing with the three senior members of my team. These are the director of operations, the F&B sales manager and the executive conference and banqueting manager. They oversee different elements of the Grosvenor House product. Later, I'll also meet with our executive chef, Fabrizio Cadei.

Apart from the in-house catering, I oversee 86 Park Lane, our meetings and conference product. It includes 25 individually styled private suites and its unique selling point is its privacy. The tariff is about £1,000 per day. Catering is extra.

Without wanting to sound pretentious, we provide a tableau that can be dressed up or down according to demand. It might, for instance, involve an ice sculpture filled with caviar, or a cocktail party for diplomats. Occupancy across the year is about 80%. It is used a lot by companies when signing important deals and contracts.

I think the foot-and-mouth crisis has had a marginally adverse impact on business there, as well as in the main hotel. I blame the foreign TV images of burning carcasses for distorting the reality.

At 9.30am there is a hotel-wide briefing for all heads of department. This is a very efficient, written daily briefing. It's a bit like a notice board and allows everyone to see which VIPs are coming and going, occupancy numbers, as well as what's happening in conferencing and banqueting.

After this, I'll pick up on any outstanding issues from these meetings and follow up on them. By 11am I'm back in the office and ready to start my daily admin and tasks with my PA. I see all departmental post, and a lot of my work involves liaising with product suppliers and events organisers. I'm also busy looking at internal strategic matters.

I do normally stop for lunch, usually at about 12.30pm for about 40 minutes. If I'm in the hotel, I'll go to the staff restaurant and have something light like a salad. If I'm out entertaining a client, I'll take my lead from them but normally will have just two courses. I never propose alcohol but, if he or she wants some, I won't let them drink alone.

In the afternoons there are more meetings on areas such as forecasting, sales development and payroll monitoring. Accounting does excite me. I love the tangibility of numbers and being able to analyse and solve a problem through using numbers. I also love e-mail, because it allows me to work in any time frame.

After 6pm, I'll make sure all is in place for that evening's functions in the hotel. Or I'll head off to attend events or networking groups such as the Executive Gold Club, of which I'm a member.

Otherwise, I'll be home by 9pm. My wife will normally cook me something simple. And if there's raspberry ripple ice-cream in the house, I'll always have that, too. I'll get to bed some time around 11.30pm.

Interview by David Tarpey