Leading with Heart: How Angelina Koay is
Rewriting the Hospitality Blueprint
• Featuring Angelina Kueh, General Manager at Novotel Living Singapore Orchard
In the competitive landscape of Asia-Pacific hospitality, ascending to a first-time general manager role represents a significant career milestone. For Angelina Koay, newly appointed General Manager at Novotel Living Singapore Orchard, this milestone is uniquely historic: she is navigating her inaugural GM position by launching the very first Novotel Living property in Asia.
In an exclusive interview with Inspiring Women in Travel Asia, Koay shared key operational blueprints from her 20-year journey, charting her rise from an 18-year-old hospitality novice to a high-performing sales leader and pioneering brand trailblazer.
Transient Hotel Stays Extended Stay Residences (Novotel Living) Short-term, high-volume guest rotation Long-staying residency (up to one year)
Focus on standardized brand consistencyFocus on localized community, relationship-building, and personalized experiences
The Paradigm Shift of "Unlearning"
Transitioning from traditional mid-scale and luxury hotels to serviced residences required an operational shift. Managing an 85-room extended-stay property means catering to long-staying residents, introducing distinct licensing, community compliance, and relationship-management dynamics.
To succeed, Koay advocates for a professional philosophy she terms "unlearning." Reflecting on her previous experience orchestrating the pre-opening of Accor’s first luxury MGallery brand property in Singapore, she noted:
"I had to unlearn what I've learned in the mid-scale, which was consistency, reliability, and giving the best value, and move into guests paying for experiences and stories... We should unlearn, take a step back, and look at it from a different point of view."
Servant Leadership and Ground-Level Empathy
Managing a lean, highly effective team of 40 requires exceptional emotional intelligence. Rather than managing strictly from behind an executive desk, Koay practices visible corporate leadership. On any given
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day, she can be found clearing tables during the breakfast rush or assisting housekeeping teams in reviewing rooms.
"To lead the team, I have to know what they go through," Koay explains. This ground-level approach builds organizational empathy and a cohesive culture capable of resolving service bottlenecks quickly. When strategic hurdles emerge, Kueh advises executives to take a physical step away from the office—even for a brief moment—to reset and pivot from analyzing mistakes to designing active solutions.
Strategic Advice for Future Industry Leaders
As an executive balancing a high-stakes commercial footprint with family life, Koay actively encourages the next generation of women in travel to assertively enter traditionally male-dominated sectors, such as hotel engineering.
Her tactical roadmap for leadership development centers on three main tenets:
Embrace Ambiguity: Never shy away from milestones that demand stepping entirely outside your commercial comfort zone.
Cultivate Open Communication: Ask the right questions and routinely verify findings across departments to maximize operational clarity.
Fail Forward: Operational mistakes are unavoidable data points that ultimately refine commercial acumen and personal resilience.
By blending sharp asset-management expertise with a deeply empathetic, hands-on leadership methodology, Koay is setting a new benchmark for operational excellence and female executive representation across Southeast Asian hospitality.
