Robert Whitfield
About a week ago the Members’ Advisory Committee received a copy of an internal email that went to the employees of the Four Seasons and Hualalai Resort from Patrick Fitzgerald concerning changes in the management of Hualalai. Pat and I tried to connect so a message could be sent to the membership about this change, but we couldn’t coordinate schedules and now Pat is in Europe, which makes connecting with him even harder.
Sunday Robert Whitfield and I chatted on the phone in order to update members via the blog.
As of June 1, 2015, Monday…today, Patrick will no longer be the CEO of Hualalai Resort. After ten years he is transitioning to the position of President of Hualalai Development Company. He will spend 50% of his time in this new role at Hualalai and the other 50% of his time pursuing his own new ventures investing in and developing other real estate. Patrick will remain the head of Hualalai Development, Real Estate and the two utilities (Ka’upulehu Water and Waste Water companies.)
The other components of Patrick’s CEO job will be under the purview of Robert Whitfield, who has been the general manager of the hotel for the past eight years. Robert will be taking charge of Club Services, resort and member and homeowner operations.
As you know for the past year Hualalai Resort components have merged under the Four Seasons umbrella. The Resort’s six hundred-odd employees have become Four Seasons Employees and now the full resort management has been placed under Four Seasons’ General Manager Robert Whitfield.
Robert reports to Chris Hart, President of Hotel Operations, of Four Seasons Hotels. He does not officially report to MSD Capital and Kohala Partners, the investors in Hualalai. This is typical of all Four Seasons agreements in all of their hotels and resorts worldwide. As he has since arriving at Hualalai, Robert will however continue to work very closely with MSD and Kohala Partners. Florian Riedel will report directly to Robert as of June 1st. Robert has been actively involved in the merger and has been on the Resort executive committee that oversees not only issues regarding the merger, but many other on-going issues as well.
His objective includes supporting Florian Riedel in his new position, and overseeing the full integration of the Hotel and Resort staff into a smooth running whole. He fully recognizes that the hotel and the residential/member components must be a community that is fully united.
Robert feels Four Seasons will seek to earn the privilege to continue running all of Hualalai; that it is not an entitlement. Right now, Robert’s (and his staff’s) priority is to continue to focus on the results of the member survey that was sent out about a year ago. Using that as a blueprint he wants to continue to focus on improving members’ experience all around.
When I asked him who would represent the members/residents in the event of a divergence between the Four Seasons’ and the members interests, he said he didn’t have an answer for that yet, but he would report back to share that information.
He indicated that he would attend the Members’ Advisory Committee meetings when needed and that he will be available to the membership and is excited to spend more time with us, though Florian and John Freitas will be directly handling Club and member issues.
He did not think that there would be any changes in representatives on the Hualalai Community Association board, but representation to the HCA will fall under his supervision, he believes, as will landscaping, security and the front gate.
I asked him whether our residential component will be branded as “Four Seasons” and he said no.
Our conversation was short because I wanted to get this information out ASAP. I hope to follow up with Patrick when he returns from Europe and I will follow up in a month or so with Robert, too, as he begins taking over the reins from Patrick.
Mike Sack
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