Wayne Hunter

Name: Wayne Hunter

Date of birth: 22/07/60

Job title: Safety & loss prevention manager

Location: London

Route to job: At college, Hunter did a degree in hotel and catering administration. On leaving in the early 1980s he got a job at a nightclub as a food and beverage manager. With this experience, he set up and ran his own business in catering food and supplies between 1984 and 1990.

Between 1990 and 1995, he decided to stay at home as a house husband with his son Wayne Junior. In 1995, he went back into the hospitality business, opting for the security side, and joined Whitbread's Marriott Marble Arch in London as security and duty manager. In 1998, he moved to Travel Inn, also owned by Whitbread, as its safety and loss prevention manager.

What does the job involve? Hunter is responsible for providing a safe environment for guests and staff. Day-to-day that may mean consulting with fire and police authorities, ensuring the external lighting around a hotel is sufficient to deter criminals, or having input into design ideas such as handles in bathrooms to help guests safely get in and out of baths and showers.

What do you enjoy most about your job? Every day is different, there's always a fresh challenge or problem to sort out.

What do you most dislike about it? There's a lot of driving to our 280-plus hotels. I'm on call 24 hours a day and probably get woken up two nights out of seven.

What attributes do you need to do your job? Flexibility, organisation and an ability to think quickly. You have to believe it is important and be able to convince people that they should do things in different ways. Communication skills are important because you have to communicate at all levels of the business, from the managing director who is about to abseil off an 18-storey building for charity to the kitchen porter who is throwing buckets of water on the floor.

What's your next move?
I'm doing an MA in health and safety management at Leicester University focusing on the safety culture in the customer service industries. The MA will further my growth and enable me to move into senior management. I'd like to have more control and become a safety director.

What's your ultimate goal? I'd like to get involved in the teaching of safety on a part-time basis and perhaps work in the business sector.