My name is Haris and I am Sales Development Manager within Distribution Sales. There’s a lot that happens up front - front of house - that everybody sees from guests to employees but it’s the things behind the scenes that people don’t really recognise and appreciate.

In context of Hilton what we’re distributing is our commodity, which is bedrooms and meeting space in the hotels. Hilton is working with commercial websites. They offer a lot of marketing opportunities. There is obviously a lot of competition on these websites, so we want to be first in the listing so that we’re seen first and booked.

These deals have proven to be extremely successful, I mean we’re tapping into a market literally that we haven’t had any impact into previously, so it’s a very enjoyable piece of the business to be in really. Once you speak to someone and they ask you know what’s your history within the company and you mention that you’ve come from the Elevator programme, there’s always that gasp ah really. Everybody understands the value of the Elevator programme within the company so there are people out there that will help you. It’s not as if you're on your own and now I’m in Commercial Operations centrally I’m finding other avenues that I didn’t know about before and I’m starting to explore and enjoy, so I’m just enjoying what is coming my way at the moment and what I think I can achieve.

You’ve got to be a go getter on the Elevator programme. There’s no sitting back, you’ve got to – you know it’s hard graft to get through the Elevator programme and progress after it. The most satisfying part of my job now is just seeing all the results come in and your work paying off, but your work paying off for the company as a whole and for the individual hotel. It’s quite a good feeling.