Tasneem Mukadam joined Duetto in November 2019 to work with our clients in Asia Pacific. An experienced hotelier, and one of the smiliest people we’ve ever had on the team, she has become a pillar of support for our customers in APAC in recent months.
In October, Tasneem joined our Pulse Team as its latest report author. We look forward to reading and hearing her insights on how hotels are performing in the region and what this could mean for trends to expect in the rest of the world.
Here, we catch up to discover how Tasneem came to join Duetto, and her wide-ranging experiences in hospitality, from Disney, to London’s COMO Metropolitan, a regional role in APAC with COMO Hotels and Resorts, and now Duetto.
What does your role at Duetto entail?
I'm Director of Customer Success in APAC, based here in Singapore. I’ve been with Duetto since November 2019.
I deal with our clients across the region and I am really fortunate to have such a wide range of people in different countries that I'm communicating with daily. I conduct training for all new users of Duetto, I work with them to feel comfortable and confident in using the applications, we then move on to discussing and planning out strategies. In Customer Success we want to ensure teams are using the system to the full to best suit their property needs.
How did you first get into hospitality?
I have very fond memories of growing up in Zimbabwe visiting different parts of the country, staying in hotels and being fascinated by the environment. How exciting and glamorous and there's so many moving parts, coming together to create these memorable experiences. It’s a whole world in one building.
I studied hospitality management in Cape Town, South Africa and just before we were about to graduate a few of us got the opportunity to go and work in Disney for a year, which was a great insight into how one of these big corporations is built and how they are organized and develop teams. And it was a fantastic year of fun.
And how did you move from Disney to Revenue Management?
I sort of fell into revenue really. I was working in hotels in London, looking to move forward within the front office. I applied to COMO Hotels and Resorts for COMO Metropolitan, it was either a role in the front office on night shifts, I had already done my fair share of nights; or in reservations, an area I had no experience in. I joined them in reservations. I really enjoyed it. It was at the perfect time. There was so much development: websites, booking engines and online bookings. I actually remember sitting in our first meeting with the website launching the booking engine where we discussed the possibility of having a different rate on weekdays to weekends, it was big news!
I've been so fortunate to grow within revenue, to be involved with all the steps along the way from being manual to now working for a cloud-based revenue strategy platform.
And how did the APAC move come about?
While at COMO, I had the opportunity to move to Bangkok to take over the revenue distribution for Bali, Bhutan and Thailand. It was my first step into Asia. From there I moved to our head office in Singapore. I’ve been very fortunate in my career to have been involved with urban properties in big cities and resorts in very remote locations. All great experiences!
And how did you come to join us here at Duetto?
Actually, I thought I had left revenue and hospitality. I took some time out to go try my hand at anything and everything doing voluntary work while traveling. Soon after my trip came to an end, I was contacted by an ex colleague that I used to work with in COMO, who is now in Duetto. She told me what a wonderful company it was to work for, what a great team and what great things they were doing. It didn't take me too long to be brought into the team. And I’m loving it! I love the pace of our development, what is an idea or suggestion one day gets carried forward and we get to see them in fruition. It’s something new and familiar at the same time!
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