Emma Cullen oozes charm, which as the general manager of one of Dubai’s most prestigious private-members clubs, she puts, along with her wide smile, to good use. Whether she’s talking to a VIP guest, one of her staff or Friday, her natural allure as the head of the Capital Club in the city’s trendy Dubai International Financial Centre is evident.
The 44-year-old is very persuasive and always has been. “I always directed everybody in the family since I was a kid,” she says. “I was quite the organiser.
“I consider the club like a home and try to create a family environment for my staff here.’’
The Australian insists that she’s firm when she needs to be, but her steeliness is wrapped in her motherly nature.
Emma and her husband, Russel Matcham, don’t have any children, “But I have a cat, Lolo, and I am actually the mother of 120 – my staff!” she quips.
She may be joking, but her family attitude towards business is a big reason why the club is so successful.
“We’ve created this family environment within the teams,” she says. “We treat everybody as we would want to be treated ourselves. That’s our philosophy.”
An all-inclusive organisation
Having so many staff with different backgrounds would present issues for most bosses, but Emma makes a special effort to understand and include everyone in the organisation. “It’s very important that we understand each other’s cultures, each other’s values and our upbringing,” she says.
In her four months at the helm of the club, which has 1,500 members and encourages professional and social networking, Emma has been involved in overseeing all of its operations – a daunting task, but one she relishes.
“I’m extremely passionate about work,” she says. “I know it’s a cliché, a buzzword everyone uses these days, but that’s the truth. I feel the passion in my stomach. I often ask myself what it is that drives me, and I am not afraid of asking even my subordinates if I don’t know something. It’s not competitiveness, it’s about doing the best.”
She learnt this most valuable lesson as a child when her grandfather, a farmer, taught her the saying, ‘Good, better, best; Never let it rest; Until your good gets better; And your better becomes your best.’
“That is really is my driving principle,” she smiles. “It’s just taking something and doing the very best you can, and always looking at it from every angle and making sure there’s room for improvement.
“Today I may look at an issue from one angle, but tomorrow I may want to look at it from another. How do I improve it, how do I make it better? That’s the thought that drives me.”
Emma loves celebrating successes with her staff and acknowledging individuals who go beyond the call of duty.
“It’s very important to celebrate together whenever something big is achieved,” she says. “We support each other and look at strengths and weaknesses in each other.”
Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, determination and drive was instilled in Emma by her father, Alan Cullen, from an early age. “He was a very driven businessman – a serial entrepreneur,” she says. “Work was such a big part of his life. My younger sister, Amanda, and I learnt to be workaholics from him.” Although she loved her old job in marketing for the Australia Post, Emma knew deep down that her future was elsewhere. “I wanted to get into the hospitality industry,’’ she says. So she went to the William Angliss Institute, Melbourne, and studied for the Certificate of Hospitality, while also running her own catering company on the side to earn some extra income.
“I get bored quickly, so I need to keep reinventing,” says Emma. “Reinvention is the most important thing for work. To me that’s what work is, the passion, and not just about the job.”
Learning the ropes
After travelling for a year, Emma settled in Port Douglas, Queensland, where she first got into the club business.
She learnt the ropes at Quicksilver, a resort company on the Great Barrier Reef, and moved on to Port Douglas Reef Resorts, “which had a couple of hotels and was developing a golf course which became a very personal and passionate project of mine,” she says. “I was involved right from the real estate stage when the golf course was being designed.”
That stood her in good stead when Club Corp, a Texas-based development company operating clubs across the world, eventually bought the golf course. She moved up the ladder as the company’s sales and marketing coordinator.
While on an assignment for Club Corp in Singapore, Emma met her future husband, South African Russel, and in 2003 she moved with him to Dubai.
“When I first arrived in Dubai I went to a barbecue where I met Linda Mahoney, the chairperson of one of Dubai’s first real estate agencies, Better Homes, and she said ‘come and work with us,’” Emma recalls. “I told her I was going to play golf and take some time off.’’
But Emma soon got bored doing nothing, so she gave Linda a call and accepted the offer. “And I didn’t take one day off for a year straight! I worked so hard, but it was so rewarding. I worked in customer care, it required people skills – caring for people.”
After six years with the company, she resigned and did some consultancy work before taking up her position at Capital Club.
“The hospitality industry is all about caring for people. Going the extra mile and making a difference for the guests is what it is all about.
“In the club, we have to keep everything turning, which is what makes it so exciting. Doing things differently makes members want to come on a very regular basis.”
Emma says caring and creating experiences are the key to hospitality. “It’s quite different between running a hotel and a club, though both are about connecting with people,” she says. “You have to work at a much deeper level so the member feels like the club is his home.”
She makes sure that her staff know the score. “Any staff can deliver the coffee, but if they don’t present it with a smile on their face and in their hearts, then it means nothing. The cheer and pleasure to serve should be genuine.”
Drop the pretence
Emma’s key advice is to never pretend. “Never tell a lie when the truth will work,” she says. “In fact, it always does. Last week it was just too busy at the club, we were fully booked, and a mistake was made on the bookings. One of our regular members could not be accommodated and was very upset. I just ran up to her, grabbed her hands and said, ‘I am so sorry about this, we made a mistake’. I don’t think there are too many general managers who would do that, but for me honesty matters. And then you fix it. We arranged her a better spot on another day that was convenient for her. That’s the whole point.”
Being true to yourself is also important. “I am genuine, tenacious and hard-working. I lead by example. I am direct, which can be a strength or a weakness depending on how it works out, but it ultimately works for the best,” she says.
Emma aims to turn the Capital Club into the hottest location in town. “My dream for this club is to have the Fomo [fear of missing out] factor! People should feel they are missing out on something vital if they are not members.”
For her, work is everything. “I don’t have kids, so I don’t have a responsibility outside the club,” she says.
Although she has a lot of trust in her staff, Emma is very much in control of the club and she has her say in every area. “We have heads for the several departments at the club, but I often go in everywhere to find out what’s happening,” she says. “I roll my sleeves up and I get stuck in. I am not good at hierarchy. I am fair, but I expect results. There has to be a certain level of engagement, but the staff have to be happy and have fun while doing it.”
Despite her huge workload, Emma still finds time for relaxation, too. “I relax by running,” she says. “Safa Park is my place. I run every day and I want to be able to clock 10km in 40 minutes!”
She’s also a very good cook. “I love to cook a type of cuisine called Nonya – a blend of Malay, Chinese and Indonesian, which is quite spicy,” she says. “I like to eat very spicy food.’’
Her other passions are the arts. “I am interested in music, art, architecture – anything visual,” she says. “I studied music too at one point. I was great at the theory but did not have the talent to play an instrument.”
Although she’s driven in her professional life, Emma’s great dream is actually nothing to do with work; she wants to walk the Pyrenees.
“I love the great outdoors,” she says. “So it’s a big dream to walk the 1,000-odd kilometres across the Pyrenees.”
Emma is well aware that work doesn’t always have to come first. With free time at a premium, she believes that sometimes it’s better to go with the flow.
“I live my life a little bit off the cuff,” she says. “Don’t try to control too much of your life, just take bite-sized chunks. Anyway, one cat and 120 kids take too much of my time!”
