Gary Kaas

Senior Management Associate, Spearhead Training, U.A.E.

Gary began his career in the leisure industry in the U.K. in 1986 as a Management Trainee. In 1990 he left the U.K. to work in Bermuda for one year, followed by a seven year stint in Holland. In March 1998 he returned to England as Conference and Banqueting Manager with Swallow Hotels, a leading UK hotel chain. When the chain was bought by Whitbread PLC in 2000, Gary was asked to focus on staff training and development, as well as his day-to-day management tasks. In his management role Gary led a team of over 60 people and gained immensely from encouraging them to achieve personal and team goals.

In 2001 he joined the Marriott Group and began his full time professional training career working for the Renaissance Chancery Court Hotel, Holborn, London as their first full time Training Manager. This quickly became a dual role with responsibility for the Marriott Hotel, Park Lane, London. Following his very successful tenure in this post, in early 2003, Gary relocated with his family to Kuwait with the task of re-branding a newly purchased hotel, to JW Marriott standard. He then worked with another Marriott hotel in Kuwait – which at the time was the Marriott’s largest ‘Courtyard’ style hotel outside the US. Following his successful Kuwait posting, in September 2004, Gary was promoted to Director of Training for Marriott International, with responsibility for 5 Marriott brands in the UAE. In this post he was responsible for all aspects of soft skills training, including new hire orientation, service training, supervisory training, and management training - which included Stephen Covey’s, ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.

In every property that Gary has worked in, he has always encouraged and initiated the creation of ‘in-house’ trainers. These have been developed from high performing, role model managers and supervisors, who believe in the value of training. Gary trained these individuals to be able to deliver quality training sessions, and coached and mentored them as an on-going process.

Gary has an ability to motivate and engage all attendees of his courses by delivering training in a passionate and motivated, high-paced inter-active manner. Whether working on a one-to-one basis, or with a large group, Gary’s view of training is that it is a two-way process. Everyone has valuable opinions and each delegate has something to bring to the table. He believes the key to training is sharing, working together to find the best outcome, and ‘buying in’ to ways to implement it.

Gary is an avid reader, committed to keeping up-to-date with all training methods and styles, and the latest corporate developments – especially those that may have impact in the training room. He believes that organizations must have clearly aligned goals - from the person on the floor standing in front of the client - up to boardroom level. With over 20 years experience in the hospitality business around the world Gary has a great amount of ‘hands on’ experience in all levels of management and corporate activity.

Gary has this to say about how he approaches training: “From my time here, it is evident that in the Middle East it is essential that organizations must strive to be the best. Awesome results, or incredible visions, can only be achieved when everyone in the organization is trained to fire on all cylinders, is fully committed, and knows that their role is vital to the big picture and the success of their company or organization. They will then relish the training they receive.”

Courses that Gary is able to conduct are:

Management & Leadership
> How to Conduct Effective Meetings
> Developing Management Skills
> Supervisory Management Skills
> Event Management

HR Management & Training
> HR Management Skills
> Interviewing Skills for Recruitment and Selection
> Train the Trainer

Customer Service
> Customer Focused Management
> Etiquette for Excellent Customer Service

Sales & Marketing
> Improving Your Sales Skills - The Key Elements Of Successful Selling
> Presentation Skills - Making a Powerful Impact on any Audience
> Advanced Presentation Skills (NEW)

Personal Development
> Brilliant Body Language
> Be a Better Listener – Active Listening Skills
> Self and Time Management

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