Tech Talks Part 1 The Rise of the Tech GM?

After attending Hospitality Tech360 at Food, Drink & Hospitality Week, we pulled together two short reflections on where hospitality tech appears to be heading. First up: the rise of the “tech GM”, and why better tools still need joined-up systems, clean data and strong operational foundations behind them. Jump in…

“Back at Food, Drink & Hospitality Week this week at ExCeL London, which I always value for the breadth of the industry it pulls into one place. In the space of a few steps you can go from food to hotels to suppliers to operators, then straight into Hospitality Tech360.

One of the sessions I listened in on was "The Rise of the Tech-GM: Are hoteliers ready for a leadership reset?" I wanted to catch it because I instinctively questioned the premise and so was curious to hear the discussion. Tech is now so central to hospitality that it can shape the way we talk about leadership itself and yet I am still not convinced a “tech GM” is the right answer, especially for hotels, where the role is already stretched across people, operations and commercial performance. No one on the panel was pretending there was a clear answer, which made the discussion more useful. It felt less like a verdict and more like a live question the industry is still working through.

That openness was what stayed with me. Event panel conversations can often sound very definitive and overly certain. This one showed that there is room for people at the top of their game to say they had not really thought about it like that before.

This theme carried into the wider AI conversation, too. The topic is everywhere, obviously, and it clearly already has real applications in hospitality. But in a lot of businesses, the information underneath is still messy, fragmented and not properly pulled together. Why create 20 different AI agents when your data is messy and they work in silos? What’s the point of that? This also was one of the best reflections from yesterday. Not because it makes the AI opportunity any less exciting, but because it feels like we may finally be looking at it a bit more realistically.

Hospitality clearly needs technology. It already depends on it in all sorts of ways and, much like sustainability, it is not just a tool, but a business imperative. But that is not the same as being a tech business (which after all, hospitality is not). For all the noise that can surround hospitality tech, it was good to hear a more measured conversation. Yes, get ahead of the opportunity, but do the groundwork first. Foundations over flash.

Thank you to Jane Pendlebury, Gavin A., Mahesh Nair and Neil Braude for an excellent session that stayed on point and yet gave real food for thought well beyond the panel topic itself.

Stay tuned for more from Hosp_tech insight in our next blog.