General Manager, Hospitality at Lagos Business School

Lagos Business School (LBS) is seeking a visionary and strategic professional to serve as the General Manager, Hospitality. This leadership role is responsible for the strategic oversight, operational excellence, and quality assurance of all hospitality services across the School. The role aligns with the School’s mission of delivering world-class services and requires a passion for exceptional customer experience, financial oversight, and effective people leadership across all hospitality functions.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:

The ideal candidate will possess a Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management or a related discipline. A minimum of fifteen years of progressive hospitality experience is required, with at least eight years in a senior leadership role. The candidate must demonstrate proven expertise in multi-unit hospitality management, strong commercial acumen, and extensive experience managing large-scale budgets and diverse teams.

The role requires an advanced understanding of institutional hospitality, F&B, and hotel management, strong familiarity with health and safety, environmental, and food regulation compliance, and a sound grasp of hospitality budgeting, reporting, and vendor contracting. The successful candidate will demonstrate excellent verbal and written communication, strong leadership, team building, delegation skills, and competence in negotiation, scheduling, and supply chain coordination. Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office, POS, and hospitality management software is essential.

Personal attributes include high integrity and professional ethics, a results-driven and customer-focused approach, calmness under pressure with a hands-on, can-do attitude, and a flexible, diplomatic, and empathetic approach.

DUTIES:

The General Manager, Hospitality, will play a pivotal strategic and operational role in the delivery of world-class hospitality services across Lagos Business School. Key job roles and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Strategic and Operational Leadership: Formulating and executing the strategic plan for the hospitality department in alignment with institutional objectives. This includes overseeing the end-to-end operations of catering, events, accommodation, and retail outlets, and establishing quality benchmarks and service standards for all hospitality units.
• Catering and Culinary Operations: Leading menu development and service protocols across institutional and event catering. This involves supervising food procurement, preparation, storage, and service to ensure high standards of taste, hygiene, and safety, and coordinating nutritional planning for students and programme participants, including dietary and religious accommodations.
• Retail & Gazebo Operations: Managing the daily operations of the gazebo outlet as a standalone profit-generating business unit. This also includes developing seasonal and themed promotional events to enhance traffic and customer engagement, and monitoring inventory turnover, waste management, and revenue targets.
• Guest Accommodation Management: Ensuring the smooth functioning of guest services, including room readiness, housekeeping, and concierge operations. This involves developing SOPs for check-in/out, room service, and maintenance to ensure comfort and satisfaction, and implementing feedback mechanisms and rapid response systems to resolve guest issues.
• Event and Venue Management: Liaising with internal departments and external vendors to deliver seamless event services. This includes leading logistical planning for academic ceremonies and other engagements and programmes, maintaining booking systems, venue readiness checklists, and post-event reviews.
• Financial Management: Preparing and monitoring departmental budgets covering payroll, procurement, equipment, and operations. This involves tracking revenue from catering, event hosting, accommodation, and retail operations, and implementing cost-saving initiatives while maintaining or improving service quality.
• Leadership and Human Resource Development: Leading a multidisciplinary team comprising chefs, service staff, and operations personnel. This includes defining job roles, recruiting staff, conducting performance evaluations, planning succession, and ensuring full compliance with labour laws, institutional policies, and training requirements.
• Quality Assurance and Health & Safety Compliance: Ensuring all facilities comply with statutory and institutional hygiene and safety standards. This involves coordinating regular audits, risk assessments, and compliance inspections, and implementing proactive safety procedures and emergency response protocols.
• Stakeholder Experience and Customer Service: Driving a culture of hospitality that reflects institutional values and delivers a consistent experience to all stakeholders. This includes monitoring guest satisfaction through formal and informal channels, analysing feedback, driving improvement plans, and resolving escalated complaints swiftly and diplomatically.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Acting as liaison between hospitality and departments such as Facilities, Finance, ICT, and Academic and Executive Programmes. This includes representing hospitality in cross-departmental meetings, audits, and planning forums.

Short-listed candidates will be invited to prepare and present their strategic vision for enhancing the quality of LBS’s Hospitality over the next five years.