EP 7: Aaron Ginsberg

Transcript

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Welcome to Hospitality On The Rise, the podcast about the people shaping the hospitality industry and their journeys. I'm your host, Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, hospitality's go-to hiring platform. And I'm here to give you your dose of virtual mentorship.

Here, we'll be sharing the stories, lessons learned, and advice from hospitality leaders who've carved out their own path to success. After all, this industry is where many get their start and go on to do incredible things.

Whether you're a pro, starting out, or just love the hustle, this podcast highlights what makes hospitality extraordinary, the people.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

I'm so excited to have Aaron Ginsberg with us today, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Industry Development at American Express/Resy. That is a mouthful. I met Aaron, wow, almost 11 years ago, and he had already done so much by the time we met. And what he's done since then is nothing short of pretty incredible. And I kind of think he has the best job ever right now.

We're really excited. Thank you so much, Aaron, for being with us today. We want to hear all about how you got to where you are, any tidbits of advice you picked up along the way that you're willing to share. Just all about you. Spill it.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's a good excuse for us to catch up, and other people can listen in on that. And has it been 11 years? Wow. I mean, a lot has changed in 11 years, but then a lot hasn't at the same time, right?

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. I remember it was in the front section area of EMP, and we were just sitting at that little little table.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Yep, yep, yep. I don't even know if that front section is there anymore, but I do remember trying to actually take some of that furniture when the renovation happened.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Awesome. Well, how did you get into this? I mean, what's awesome here is that you are a career changer to a certain extent. I mean, you're all kind of in the vicinity of stuff, but career changer. And I think that is something that's super interesting. How did it all begin?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

It's a great question, and I feel like I've gotten good at answering it because I probably don't have the typical path to getting where I'm at today. But I also very much think of myself as someone embedded in hospitality, and I didn't start there at all. I started in advertising. I helped launch Verizon Fios back in 2005 when I was at an ad agency. Fresh out of college, and I didn't know what I wanted to pursue, but I knew I loved food. I think moving into New York City–I was in Brooklyn at the time–and realizing what food and restaurants meant to me. It was just something I wanted to pursue as a career, but wasn't sure how to do it. I didn't have a culinary background. I didn't go to culinary school. I worked in pizzerias as my restaurant experience, but that didn't necessarily equate to a floor job.

I kind of set my goal on getting into the industry however I could. And after a couple of years, I was in PR and marketing for restaurants and restaurant-adjacent brands and companies, and things just kind of continued to snowball in a positive way from there. But in the early days, I was one of the many people that had a food blog. I ran that for...

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

You did?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

I did. I don't think I shared this with you. So I had a food blog called Always Eating. And I remember my greatest perk was I got invited to a lot of food events and openings and New York Food & Wine Festival. So I got to go to these things as–I wasn't influential at that time, but in a sense, as an influencer. And it gave me a different lens to the industry.

Allowed me to network, allowed me to connect with people. And so I was doing advertising by day as my job, but then I started to explore this other world, and I started working at a company called Baltz & Company. And I think between the food blog experience, between the love and interest for cooking and food in general, the advertising and marketing background definitely still transitioned me well, and it helped. 

But I also just knew that's what I wanted to touch in some capacity. I wasn't driven by advertising big box brands like Verizon or Kraft or Nestle. I was driven by “what can I do to support the food and restaurant industry?”

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

I love it. It's like you're pioneering and trailblazing the future of food blog. I mean, that was super cutting-edge, food blogging back then.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Yeah, yeah. It was a creative outlet, if anything. Like it just got me an opportunity to write about something. It got me writing in general. And I only had it for a couple of years, and this was in 2005, 2006. But that was when, like, I remember I would get included in like Eater’s roundups or like Time Out’s roundups. That was a big deal for someone that did not make a career out of that nor thought of it as a career, but it was a nice stepping stone.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, I feel like it's still a big deal.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Never thought of myself as a pioneer.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

I'm adding all sorts of titles to your career timeline here. So is that how you started kind of building some more relationships with restaurateurs and owners? And how did you get to the next phase of this journey?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Yeah, I think I was never one to shy away from introducing myself to someone. So I was already, I was brought to network, brought up to network. That was a value that my parents instilled in me kind of at a young age. And I don't think I realized at the time, like most of us probably don't realize when our parents are teaching us those lessons. But I would go out for dinner or go out for lunch, and I would talk to the chef or the host or someone just to start up a conversation. 

And once I got my foot in the door, I kept doing that. And I, in 2009, I got laid off. It was terrible at the time, like many people that I know around that time during the recession. But it ended up being the best thing for my career because it forced me to kind of take control of things. And I had already had a solid year in the industry in some capacity that I could then chart my path. 

So I did consulting for other PR firms. I took on some of my own clients. And one thing led to another. You know, you just get introduced to people, and you share meals with people, and you share stories with people, and you think, “Well, how can we work together?” And that led to a job at First Press PR where… I think that like was where I transitioned into starting to accelerate my career in the industry more.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Awesome. And for those who aren't familiar with First Press, they have more focus on food and beverage and restaurants, etc. OK, so you spend your time, agency, working with other people. You did a little thing for yourself. Now you kind of know what you want. Is this kind of when you knew, “I want to pursue things in this industry going forward”?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Yeah, I did. And I spent about three years at First Press, had a great job, a lot of trust and autonomy, worked with the partners there and a lot of clients. But no knock on PR, I realized I didn't want to be pitching stories. That wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to think differently. I wanted to problem-solve. I wanted to focus on partnerships. I wanted to focus on development, expansion of restaurants, and it was hard to do that in PR agencies at the time. I think PR agencies now have kind of remodeled themselves in many ways to reflect that. Pitching stories wasn't necessarily what I was most excited about when it came to supporting the industry and being a part of the industry. 

But like many things in this industry, you meet people, and that leads to opportunities. And I met Will Guidara at a James Beard afterparty. I think it was at Dave Chang's Midtown restaurant at the time, RIP that location. And we struck up a conversation. I realized we grew up 15 minutes from one another. They were going through some transition. I was looking for opportunities, and next thing I know, we were having an interview. So that six-and-a-half-year journey of working with Will and Daniel on the Make It Nice team was my dream job. 

I know you jokingly said that I have the best job now, but at that point in time, I believe I had one of the best jobs in hospitality, and it was exactly what I wanted to do. And I got to do that for six-and-a-half years, which was something that I still look back on and feel very fortunate I had that opportunity and that enough people trusted me to take that responsibility on.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, I think I'm gonna double click on that. I was just waiting to say something really cheesy. Sorry, that didn't come out. That didn't come out as smooth as I wanted it to.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

I mean, it's corporate lingo you just folded in there, which, you know, our past and current corporate experience, I hear that plenty, so.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Exactly. Because I want to emphasize a little bit this time that you spent with Will and Daniel and the Make It Nice team. Because so much change happened, was built during that time. So what were some of the cool projects that you took leadership over? Because you started, I think, more in communications and strategy, and then you ended up launching concepts with them and running all sorts of programs.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Yeah. I think what's interesting, and I've talked to several people that want to have jobs like that in the industry, is that it’s a nice-to-have job. It's not a must-have job. So I think for lots of businesses that end up having a role like I did, you end up wearing a million different hats. And so from day one to my last day, I had so many different responsibilities, sometimes a function of just how the business is working, but also you just need to be efficient. How can you make sure every person that you have on salary is doing the maximum amount that they can? 

So I was sometimes a catchall for a lot of different projects. I would search for service pieces that we were going to use on the floor at NOMAD. I would look to get historic books that we wanted to roll out for a course, like the Waldorf salad. I had to find some of these historic books that those initial recipes were in, that we could use for kitchen tours. But then I also worked with our publisher on cookbooks. I worked on press releases. I worked on our social strategy. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Worked on the website and the career pages and the recruiting with Culinary Agents.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

I worked on the website, career pages. I remember that, I remember that. We had a white labeled skin. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

That's right, number one, you were the first ones.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Yep, yep. And I think it still exists today. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

It absolutely does.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Which is amazing. And looking at tech solutions for us like that. And we weren't necessarily the most tech savvy at the time. We were fortunate we didn't necessarily need to be. But I got to, like you said, I got to open new restaurants with them. I, along with several others, was like a key to bringing EMP Summer House to life, which was just a crazy, ridiculous thing that we did when we closed down Eleven Madison Park for renovations after winning World's Best Restaurant, which we didn't know that was going to happen at the time. 

I look back on those things and just think, “I don't know how I would do those now.” We were so scrappy and creative, and there was just an amazing team around all of us that brought these things together, and I got to be a part of all of those.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, and I think it's important to note that all the experience, and the hard work, and the networking, and all the exploration that you did leading up to landing this role then working in it and involving it enabled you to be successful in it, right? I'm sure you were defining your role. I'm sure you were, like you said, catchall jack-of-all-trades because you've had the experience, and you did that done that. 

I too often get questions about “How can I have such a role?” or “I enjoy these things, and I'm trying to get to the next step.” And I think it's important to emphasize that in order to define those roles or to get those roles, you need to have that foundation and the experience so that you can be successful in them. Because nice-to-have roles sometimes are nice to have, and that does not equate to job security sometimes.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Yeah. It doesn't. I think job security and hospitality industry is just a challenge, period. We know how this industry operates. And I totally agree. You know, I was lucky enough that timing worked out for me in getting that role. But just because I struck up a conversation with Will, that wasn't the only thing. Like I'd had the right experience to get me to that place. I'd had enough conviction and confidence in what I could offer. I was malleable enough that I could adjust what I've done to fit what they needed and curious enough to pursue things I didn't know. 

But there was a base of knowledge. I had my marketing background. I had my PR background. I had my communications background. I had contacts in the industry. And I knew what my worth and value was. I got a crash course in running one of the best, most high-stressed restaurants in the world–which I didn't have that exposure to before–but I had those skills that I think are the hard skills. Not the learned skills, but some of the personality skills that I think also made a lot of sense for what they were looking for.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, yeah. Well, I've certainly enjoyed working with you in your various different roles. 

Talk a little bit about mentorship. I'm fortunate enough to also know Will, and I feel like having a conversation with him, you just have to have a pen and paper unless you have a photographic memory. Because he throws these tidbits at you that you're like, “Oh wow, that's pretty good.” Would you say that there is a natural kind of relationship there? Or did you seek mentors outside of your immediate workplace? Who did you have in your network that supported you through a lot of this time?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Yeah, I think based off of how we worked together and the role I was in, Will was definitely a mentor for that 6+ year period. Did I go into it thinking, “This is my mentor”? No. But like you said, you just start to pick up these things, these Will-isms, these leadership-isms. I helped write speeches for him and Daniel. I helped write the cookbooks. I had to know their language, how they talked, their stories.

In the early days–actually in the latter days, like when Will was starting to think about book, like even some of those concepts I was engaged with. I think that with any good leader, you might not know that they're mentoring you. That doesn't need to be explicitly said, but you're soaking up these tidbits, these lessons that they transition with you wherever you go. And I look back now on that time and I'm bringing those things to my team today, whether I recognize it or not. 

How we talk about hospitality, how we talk about empathy, how we talk about delivering feedback. I remember one thing that Will always talked about that I really believe in is “Don't sandwich feedback. Just be clear about it.” If you're giving someone criticism, it doesn't need to be, you know, preceded or followed by a compliment. You're masking that feedback, and I think you're actually making it so it's not heard. 

And I remember very early on, I got very direct feedback about something I did that could have been better. Unemotional, done, moved on. That's how I want to lead my team, and how my team should lead others today. I think that at the time, it was just, you take it, and you kind of think, “I'm not going to mess up again,” but you're actually learning a lesson.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, that's great, because you do often hear that sandwich, that feedback sandwich as advice from folks. So I agree. I like that. So how did you continue to find inspiration through the chaos? You guys are at this point, you know, number one in the world. World's 50 Best. You're doing the coolest stuff that other people haven't even dreamt up yet. Who does that? You did. There is a Summer House when there was also the Aspen House. 

I remember getting the calls like, “We're going to hire up a whole team in this other city.” I'm like, “OK, great.” It just seemed that you were all kind of charting your own path of, like, “this is what we want to do and we can do whatever we want.” Where do you specifically get your inspiration? Before and now, because you're still in the industry, just adjacent.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Yeah, I think at the time it took me a minute to realize that you could have these crazy dreams and not have to self-edit. In the early days it would be, “How are we going to do that? We don't have the time, the energy, the space, the money. How are we going to figure it out?” And then I think that you drink the Kool-Aid enough and you start to realize, “Actually no, let's not get in our own way. Let's figure out. Like if we're going to dream big, let's dream big.” 

And then you come back down to earth a little bit, but you allow yourself to think creatively, unhinged a little bit, and have this vision. And when you're surrounded by a team that shares the same ethos, then the sky's the limit. It's a harder thing to conceive of when you're maybe at a corporate space or a much smaller space, but I do think that there are lessons in there that I've tried to carry forward.

I even think about the Welcome Conference, when that was like my side gig, when I was at Make It Nice, was launching that. And we started that as 180-people event, saying we want this to be like the Ted Talks, we want this to be what the hospitality industry does. Because there's chef conferences everywhere, but there's nothing for hospitality. We comped like 80% of those 180 seats.

To think now that, you know, I'm not affiliated with it anymore, but Will and team brought that to a 1400-person venue at Lincoln Center and sold it out in minutes last year. That's mind boggling. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

It is.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

And I think if you let yourself get in the way of thinking big and thinking too rational upfront, you don't allow for that creative thought for your team to stretch, for you to have the ambition that I think that greatness actually requires.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah. And thank you. I was one of those comp tickets back in the day. I was. I am fortunate enough to have gone to, I would say, almost–I missed one because I was out of town–I went to almost every Welcome Conference. I think to your point, getting started or doing it oftentimes is the hardest. Once you do it, then you can learn from it. You can optimize. You can grow it. But I think too often people get stuck with actually moving to the next step because it's not perfect, or the risk is too high, etc. So awesome. Thank you. 

The industry thanks you for that conference that I still attend to today. And you're still kind of adjacently involved anyway. It's like a reunion, too. I'm sure when you go back there, it's like the industry reunion of the century.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Oh yeah. Yeah.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

So now take me to what's next. So [you] co-founded the Welcome Conference, started as kind of a side hustle while you were doing all your cool things at Make It Nice. And fast forward and you're at Amex/Resy now.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Yeah. So I joined here in 2021. So I left Make It Nice in 2019, I was going to pursue growth for the Welcome Conference. Something happened in 2020 that obviously shook the world and the hospitality industry. So I came to Amex and Resy. I'd already worked with both brands, which at that point was one, given the acquisition while I was at Make It Nice. 

My goal in coming here and their goal for hiring me was to come and bring a deeper restaurant sensibility to some of the things we were doing. It started as a contract gig, and it turned into a full-time gig, and now it's four years later. So things are going well. I'm still here. And I think what's been really exciting for me here is there was a point during COVID where I considered leaving hospitality. I know many people did or thought of. You didn't know what the industry was gonna be like. You didn't know what the future was gonna be.

But I deeply believe that hospitality can exist anywhere. It's not just hospitality in the form of what you're serving people or the experience, but you can have a hospitality culture. You could have a brand that is a CPG brand and have hospitality as part of your ethos. So I was looking outside of hospitality. When this opportunity came about, I thought, “Well, here's an opportunity that I have to support the restaurant industry that I love so much, but at a scale I've never seen before with a set of resources and a team that I've never been exposed to before. And bring something to the table that I believe is a superpower of mine, which is my connections and my ability to understand the industry.” And I'm glad I did that. I'm glad I didn't leave this industry that I love. If anything, I love it now more than ever. And I think we've done some amazing things over the past four years, and there's so much more to come.

Amex has a history of hospitality. It's a 175-year brand. This is its actually 175th year of existence, which is wild. Resy just celebrated 10 years. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Wow.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

And so you've got these two brands, wildly different, but with hospitality very much in their DNA, and leaning into that even more fully, and being able to have the trust and ability to do that with the work I do with the team I run. It's been really great and not something that I thought of five years ago when I was still working in the restaurants.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, and that's amazing. I think oftentimes–and we had a lot of conversation with many people during the difficult times. And the one thing that was true across the board and continued to show itself was that the skills that you acquire in hospitality are transferable. And if you have a certain level of experience or you reach a point where you're like, “This is not for me anymore,” you can build upon it. It wasn't for waste, whether it's problem-solving or people skills, whatever. We saw a lot of people be able to transition some of that, whether it's temporarily or they're still there, to either adjacent businesses or doing their own thing or something completely different.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Yeah. Yeah. I have 40 people on my team, give or take, and I'd say at least 80% of them have worked in restaurants in some capacity. From working guest relations, to being a general manager, to director of ops, to PR and marketing. It really is a very true statement. You can find other ways to transfer those skills and most of all that passion into, into other places.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, well, it's safe to say then that if you're looking for some work and leveraging your hospitality industry, this path is a possibility, right?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

It definitely is. It definitely is.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

I love it. How do you keep them motivated?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

I think you need to find the joy and the small wins in everything you do. I think that this is a hard industry. Everyone knows that. Many of the people on my team are what we would say in a customer service, just like folks in restaurants are. That can be a great day. That could be a hard day. And I think for us, it's how do we make sure that we feel like the impact we're delivering to our restaurants is meaningful? How do we make sure that the decisions we're making about where the brands are going and the things we're doing are in support of restaurants and the industry at large? 

And that we're not forgetting the little tiny things that make up your day that are successful. I'm not a big New Year's resolution person, but one of mine this year, which I'm telling everyone that will listen, is just finding the small wins. I think sometimes we define success by the big things that we can look at or the big moments that we've achieved. But I think that's misguided because we're not actually grabbing onto these small things that actually might mean more. And I think that when you're running a big team in a stressful environment, you need those moments.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, I don't know. Absolutely. I think hanging out in fun restaurants and bars and in hospitality, I think helps. That's like the gravy on top.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Yeah, 100%. And like that kind of stuff, you know, I'm lucky I get to do that. I'm lucky I get to travel. I get to see a lot of our partners and operators. That's the public-facing part of the job. There's obviously a lot more going on behind the scenes. And even to create those moments, and to make sure that those relationships are positive, and that the restaurants are feeling that we are partners on the same page as what we're doing and what we're trying to do for them. Because if that's all I did, then that would not actually be adding that much value to their businesses. That wouldn't be how I'd want to lead the team either.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, yeah. Well, how do you keep yourself from burning out?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

It's a good question. I think we've talked about this. 

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

You got that blog still?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

I don't have the blog. I felt that that was a conflict of interest, so I got rid of it. But we've talked about this before, and I believe that if you love what you do, it's really hard to draw boundaries. I have to push myself and get reminded to do that sometimes. I don't necessarily… Like today, I don't believe in work-life balance.

I think it's how you bob and weave through your day-to-day and through your life that is most important because I think if you define work-life balance as having really strict guardrails, you're setting yourself up for failure. So for me, if I know that I've traveled a bunch, I'm gonna just say I'm not gonna travel for a couple weeks or I'm gonna lean in more with my family. If I haven't seen partners in a while, all right, I got to get on the road. I've got to have meetings.

You just have to adapt to what's going on. I find it hard to go to restaurants and not have my work hat on sometimes. But I also get joy out of that. So I don't want to take that joy away from myself. It's who I identify as a person now. So to be so strict about how I step away from work and my personal life is, I would say, nearly impossible. I don't know if everyone would like me to say that, but that's how I think about it.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, yeah, I subscribe to that as well. I'm taking a couple of days off next week. But of course, everything is lined up to visit clients and say hello and you know

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Right. Yeah. Because you also love that.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

I love it. I love it. Yeah.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

It's part of who you are as a person. So if you're not going to do that, you're going to look back on those few days and be like, “I missed out on something that would have brought me joy.”

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. OK, I think we're one more question and then we're going to go into a quick-fire. 

Is there something that you would go back and say yes to? Is there an opportunity that got away or something that was interesting that you're like, “Oh, that would have been interesting?”

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

You know, it's a good question, and I'm not a “what if” type of person. Like, I really am not. So you might not like my answer that, like, no.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

I'm not a “what if” either.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

I feel that everything I've done was with the right intention. Whether it was the right decision or not, I may have learned something from it that made me stronger afterwards. I took a chance in going to First Press PR. I took a chance in pivoting industries. I took a chance in leaving Make It Nice to pursue Welcome Conference. And all of those chances worked. It wasn't easy, but they all worked. So don't think I would necessarily change any decisions I've made.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Yeah, but I'm going to extract the advice there. Because I know you, I'm sure a lot of thought went into making those decisions. So I feel oftentimes, when I'm talking to leaders or just folks who are trying to figure out the next thing is, putting thought and really asking yourself the hard questions. That way, if you make the decision, you do it. You can extract what you want from it. And there's always an opportunity to change. You know?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG 

Absolutely. And I would be remiss to not say in all of those decisions, I had a partner and my wife to bounce those off of. If I didn't have that support, and I was making them in isolation, I don't know if I would have changed my path, but I would have thought differently or I would have been more anxious. I think whether it's a significant other or a mentor or someone else, sometimes you need that perspective just to ground you and say, “It's okay, you can do this. But what are you trying to get out of it? What do you think this will lead to?” And totally right, you need to have that thoughtful conversation, and not just as an internal dialogue, but I think it's really important to externalize it and talk about it with other people.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I definitely chewed everyone's ear off before I started Culinary Agents. On that note, we're going to go to quick-fire. OK, number one, what advice would you tell your younger self?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Don't be so hard on your parents. Probably invest a little bit more time in school. Don't take any opportunity to travel for granted.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Awesome. I'll make sure your daughters hear that. What's your advice for someone struggling in the industry?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

I think you need to identify what the problem statement is there. What are you struggling with? And once you kind of name what that problem is, you can start to compartmentalize solutions for it. I think I've learned that at Amex and Resy now, that we try to live by a problem statement mentality. And if you approach something from that angle, it allows you to dissect it with much more objectivity than if you just throw your hands in the air and are trying to solve everything at once.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG

What's your advice for fellow hospitality leaders?

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

That's a good one. I think, from a leadership perspective, I feel like there has been so many new leaders over the years that are very vocal. One of the silver linings of the pandemic was them all coming together. I guess my ask and advice would be to remain together. I think that that was something that was really beautiful to see during a time of a lot of darkness, and we're now years past that moment, and I've started to see people going their own directions. I think that this industry needs the community from the most influential people to remain intact on a city level, on a regional level, on a national level. I'm glad I've been able to help support that in my current role, but I think that it requires leaders investing the time and energy to keep that going.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG 

I love that, especially because we may be a couple years away from the height of the pandemic, but I think we all know that the long-term effects of it are still felt. 

So with that, Aaron, thank you so much. It's been super fun actually just catching up with you. A chance to actually have a conversation with you in a while. But thank you so much for your time, for sharing your timeline, and your career, and some of the fun things that you're doing now. We're looking forward to seeing more great things from you and your teams.

 

GUEST: AARON GINSBERG

Thank you so much. It was really a pleasure to be here and good to catch up with you.

 

HOST: ALICE CHENG
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