Our hotels at Castlewood Hotels & Resorts are supported by our Head Office team. Our values and our actions are shaped by open and honest communication as well as a family-like atmosphere. Team spirit and solidarity are very important in our family. Behind a successful company there is always a strong team. In the following we would like to introduce ourselves and our competencies and show you how we combine our individual strengths into an advantage.
CEO
Walter C. Neumann
Walter C. Neumann, the current Chief Executive Director of Seetelhotels, will become the CEO of the Castlewood Hotels & Resorts Group and the Grand Metropolitan Hotels starting January 2024. Neumann, a trained hotelier, boasts an extensive professional career in the hotel industry. In the early years of his career, he worked in various departments and held managerial positions both domestically and internationally. He has been part of renowned hotel groups such as Lindner Hotels and Rocco Forte. In 2006, he assumed the role of CEO at Travel Charme. His career eventually led him to Azimut Hotels, where he served as CEO from 2013 to 2018, contributing to the growth and development of the company during his tenure.
CFO
Richard Eder
Richard Eder joins us having previously worked in different capacities with the Hyatt group and IHG in controlling and finances. Initially staring his career working in different fields of operations including time on the ship MS Astor, Richard soon started focusing on the field of finance in which he worked for several top addresses including Crowne Plaza Hamburg, Crowne Plaza Heidelberg and at Hotel Park Hyatt in Hamburg.
COO
Sebastian Krämer
Sebastian Kraemer, formerly Chief Executive Officer of the international hotel group Azimut Hotels, is the COO of Castlewood Hotels & Resorts since 01.10.2021. Sebastian Kraemer started his career in the hospitality industry in 1983. He is a certified graduate of the Academy for Hotel- & Tourismmanagement in Koblenz (Germany) and fluent in german, english, russian and french. Since 1997 he had various leading positions, with being in charge of budgeting- & human resource matters, in hotels of famous groups like the Dorint-Sofitel, Kempinski, Starwood, Rocco Forte Hotels and The Three Sisters Hotel inne. Before joining Azimut Hotels he was working for the Reikartz Hotel Group, where he established an Ukrainian hotel group in the position of chief operating officer.
CDO
Alexey Slesar
Alexey Slesar is an experienced international executive in the hospitality and real estate industry, with over twenty years of experience in hotel and real estate development, acquisitions, and project financing. He began his career in the international hospitality sector as Vice President of Development and Acquisitions in Russia, the CIS countries, and Eastern Europe at Hyatt, where he played a crucial role in the company’s expansion in the region and was responsible for Hyatt’s highly successful entry into the Russian market with the top-tier Park Hyatt brand. Alexey Slesar has held key positions for Fortune 500 companies and has held significant development roles in large international public and private hospitality investment firms, reporting directly to shareholders and global management.
CCO
Wilhelm K. Weber
Wilhelm K. Weber is an internationally experienced hospitality manager with a strong focus on digital transformation and revenue management. He is a managing director and motivational speaker with over 20 years of experience in business development and sales. Weber has worked with a variety of clients, including large multinational corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as startups. Among his esteemed clients are Kempinski, Melia, Dorint, Steigenberger, as well as other renowned hotels such as the Kulm Hotel St. Moritz, Cinnamon Grand Colombo, and Omnia Zermatt. In addition to his consulting work, he is also a highly sought-after speaker and lecturer, holding degrees from Cornell University and the University of Lucerne.
CMO
Janin Blaser
Janin Blaser, certified business economics graduate of the University of Bayreuth, is the Chief Commercial Officer at Castlewood Hotels & Resorts since March 2020. Therefore, she is responsible for sales, marketing, e-commerce, revenue management, PR & communications as well as digitalisation and expansion. Prior to that Janin Blaser used to work in the field of brand development for Kempinski and Dorint. Initially coming from business consulting, she focussed on the sector of e-commerce for several years before managing a content manufactory in Bremen, the biggest fashion photography and film studio of Europe, with well-known clients like Hugo Boss, Adidas, About You and G-Star.
CHRO
Stephanie Blinken
After successful completion of her international Hospitality & Tourism studies at the IU Bad Honnef, Germany, Stephanie started her career with Kempinski Hotels. While shaping her career in Human Resources, she was working for the group in destinations as Berlin, Geneva, Bahrain and Rwanda. In 2015 Stephanie moved back to Germany and held the position of Director Human Resources for the Althoff Hotels at lake Tegernsee, South of Germany. Her last professional step before joining CWHR was leading the HR & Training department at the Steigenberger Frankfurter Hof from 2019 until June 2022.
Director F&B
Thorsten Sonntag
Thorsten Sonntag, trained hotel professional, is the director of F&B since September 2021. Before that, he held the position of the Group F&B Project Manager of Castlewood Hotels & Resorts since 2019. He supplemented his career in the hotel business with an apprenticeship to become a professional international bartender. The following three years he spent working in the luxury hotel industry close to Hameln. After three years, he took on the responsibility of two bars in the area of Göttingen, followed by joining the shipping company Hapag Lloyd when they first launched the MS Europa and then the Compass Group where he worked in F&B management.
Director Group Revenue
Maximilian Schmid
Maximilian Schmid, coming from a family of hoteliers, is the Director of Group Revenue of Castlewood Hotels & Resorts since August 2020. He had the opportunity to gain experience and discover his passion for the hotel industry at an early stage. After his apprenticeship in the hotel business, he started his carrier as a sales manager in a 4-star business hotel. In 2017 he specialised in the field of Revenue Management for the Provent Hotels GmbH. There, he was responsible for the controlling, revenue generation as well as the technological system architectures of the company, followed by the acquisition into an English corporation.
Director of Sales
Christian Badenhop
Christian Badenhop has been working in the hospitality industry for nearly 30 years. He possesses extensive knowledge in global hospitality and is a passionate sales networker for individual hotels and smaller hotel chains (such as Leading Hotels, Le Meridien, Worldhotels, and Lindner Hotels). Corporate clients, agencies of all kinds, and an extensive network of international clients and partners have been an integral part of his professional life for many years. In addition, Christian is well-known as a moderator, coach, and professional speaker at events in the tourism industry.
Senior Group Marketing & E-Commerce Manager
Lara Beiler
After her graduation in Business Management in Mannheim, Lara Beiler followed her studies with a master’s degree in International Management, focussing on Marketing & Sales. In the course of her studies, she spent 8 months in South Africa, gaining work experience abroad. Here, she worked in the field of marketing and sales for the 5-star golf resort “Plattner Golf”. Now, she is responsible for all Marketing & E-Commerce activities of Castlewood Hotels & Resorts, working for the group since 2017.
Senior Group Sales Manager
Vanessa Wachel
Mario Kalbfleisch has been serving as the IT Group Administrator at CWHR since October 2020.
During his studies in electrical engineering at FH Gießen-Friedberg in the early 1990s, Mario Kalbfleisch gained experience in the IT field. Subsequently, he worked as an independent IT consultant for over 23 years, serving medium-sized corporate clients. In addition to his diverse responsibilities in the IT department of Castlewood Hotels and Resorts Group and its eight hotels, he also serves as the Data Protection Officer for the group.
Group F&B Project Manager
Thorsten Sonntag
Thorsten Sonntag, gelernter Hotelfachmann, hält seit 2019 die Position des Group F&B Project Manager für Castlewood Hotels & Resorts inne. He supplemented his career in the hotel business with an apprenticeship to become a professional international bartender. The following three years he spent working in the luxury hotel industry close to Hameln. After three years, he took on the responsibility of two bars in the area of Göttingen, followed by joining the shipping company Hapag Lloyd when they first launched the MS Europa and then the Compass Group where he worked in F&B management.
IT
Mario Kalbfleisch
Mario Kalbfleisch has been serving as the IT Group Administrator at CWHR since October 2020. During his studies in electrical engineering at FH Gießen-Friedberg in the early 1990s, Mario Kalbfleisch gained experience in the IT field. Subsequently, he worked as an independent IT consultant for over 23 years, serving medium-sized corporate clients. In addition to his diverse responsibilities in the IT department of Castlewood Hotels and Resorts Group and its eight hotels, he also serves as the Data Protection Officer for the group.
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