St Ermin's Douglas McHugh to head up management team at new Bankside hotel
Douglas McHugh is to head up the newly appointed management team at Bankside, the 161-bedroom design-led hotel set to launch on London's South Bank in October.
He will oversee the new hotel alongside his current position as general manager of the four-AA-star, 331-bedroom St Ermin's hotel in Westminster.
Bankside, like St Ermin's, will be managed by Amerimar Enterprises, a US-based company which owns the new hotel in conjunction with Canadian property investment company Realstar.
During the past eight-years at St Ermin's, McHugh has overseen the £37m relaunch and repositioning of the hotel as a four-AA-star property. After studying hospitality management at Napier University in Edinburgh, he worked at Heritage Hotels, Macdonald Hotels and Millennium & Copthorne Hotels before joining St Ermin's.
He said: "For me, Bankside is a place to work, play, live and be, where service is genuine, honest, natural and full of love."
McHugh has been joined by Laure Ruegger as hotel manager, Ashwini Lakshman (director of people and development), Fiona Fraser (director of sales), Soyful Alam (front of house manager) and Marina Szymczak (head housekeeper). Ruegger joined Bankside from the Crans Ambassador hotel in Switzerland and Lakshman from the Savoy in London, while Fraser, Alam and Szymczak all previously worked at St Ermin's.
The hotel will feature interior design from film set producer turned interior architect Dayna Lee of Powerstrip Studios, as well as a 78-cover restaurant, al fresco dining space, bar, lounge, gym and function space for 120 guests.
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