Maureen Leary, director of sales and marketing at the Fairmont Breakers Long Beach, Calif., is spearheading the landmark hotel's centennial celebration in 2026. She has more than two decades of luxury hospitality experience across properties like The Ritz-Carlton, The Beverly Hilton, Downtown LA Proper, and Westdrift Manhattan Beach.
1. What first got you into hospitality?
My plan was to pursue a career in diplomacy, first focusing on the State Department but later pivoting to the United Nations. After moving to New York, I needed a job and was able to leverage my language skills into a position at a hotel. There I worked with several foreign ministers, diplomats, world leaders and the realization came that working in hotels, I had greater opportunity to interact with these global leaders and cultural icons and, in the world of hotels, I could realize my dreams in a way I never imagined. It taught me to explore every open door and follow where your passion leads you, even if it wasn’t how you thought it should be.
2. How did your early education in French language and literature helped prepare you for a career in sales? How do skills in communication help hoteliers at the property level?
Language skills are immensely valuable in hospitality. Being able to remove the barriers to communication, like language, and uncover what a guest or client needs allows us to better care for them during their stay or provide a solution that will meet and exceed their expectations. In some of the hotels I have worked in, I have used my second language almost daily, in others, rarely. In the hotels where we didn’t encounter many guests or clients who communicated primarily in French, it felt that much more significant to the guest as a reassurance and comfort away from the familiar.
3. Who were some of your mentors when you were getting started?
I think it is so important to have mentors as well as be a mentor throughout your career. I have had mentors in hospitality and outside of it as well. I have individuals I turn to for guidance on leadership skills, or creative thinking, some on finance and sales coaching. Some are older than me, but others are younger. It was so much harder early in my career to find constructive mentors to help guide me in the right direction because I didn’t always know what that direction was or where I wanted to go. The mentors I had then were more life coaches, and I always had homework. From them (and the homework) I learned how to listen to myself, my heart and my head and find my path that would lead me to my goal. Now when I seek out mentorship and guidance, it is with strategic purpose and helps me clear a roadblock on my path or make the going smoother.
4. What were some of the most important lessons you learned early in your career?
I made so many mistakes … but I learned so much from them. The biggest one would be to not be afraid of failure, because if you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying. And if you aren’t trying then you aren’t growing. From this, I have opened multiple hotels, made jumps in my career from one discipline to another [and gone] back to school while working. … If given an opportunity, I took it.
5. What is the biggest professional challenge you’ve faced in your career? How did you overcome it?
There have been many challenges in my career and each one for different reasons. There was the recession when the business wasn’t booking and I struggled to hit sales goals, there were openings that fell behind schedule and groups had to be relocated. I think the toughest one, though, that was hard on so many levels was COVID.
At the time, it felt like it came out of nowhere, I had groups staying with us looking for guidance, I had a large team looking for guidance and we didn’t have any answers. All I could do was take it a day at a time, one challenge at a time. I remember early on one of my sales managers asking me how I could stay so calm. I explained that we see ducks on the water gliding smoothly along but paddling like crazy under the water, well that’s me, except I’m not a duck, I’m a swan. But it was staying calm in a position of leadership that helps keep everyone calm and able to focus. Then I had to furlough everyone on my team. That was so very hard, not knowing when they would be back. I kept in touch and called regularly to check in to see how they were doing, did they need anything. And I worked through all the cancellations and rebookings and tried to navigate through the new regulations. Months later when we could finally welcome back some business I remember people from the hotel coming to me and thanking me for the business that meant they could come back to work and it changed my perspective on what I do.
6. What is one of your proudest professional accomplishments? Why is it meaningful to you?
During the recession, I was a spa director with degrees in French literature and cultural studies. I was terrified that I would quickly find myself and my experience irrelevant and unmarketable. I decided to go back to school, while working and earn an MBA. I kept giving presentations to the General Manager and Hotel Manager on ideas to drive additional revenues and though most didn’t make it past the concept phase, one day the General Manager came to me and asked if I had ever considered Sales. I was even more terrified now, because I didn’t know the first thing about sales, and I knew she wasn’t asking. But I took a leap. I applied myself to learning as much as I could from as many people as were willing to teach me. I took it all in and found my own style and my own way. I took seminars and classes, and I applied myself in the same way to learning my job as an apprentice, or academic would. Making my goals and finding I could be successful was transformative both professionally and personally.
7. How did you shift from spa director to director of sales? What was that education process like?
At first it was challenging, not communicating face-to-face with guests. You miss so much of the interaction without the visual cues of facial expression and body language. But then you learn to listen to the different intonations in voice over the phone, the language used in an email, the length of an email, and you learn to work a bit harder to get at what matters most to the client. In that way, the two roles are quite similar, you are listening to the concerns, asking questions, checking for understanding, clarifying and checking again before providing a solution. The process is the same, it is just that the problems you are solving are very different. Once that clicks, it becomes a question of adaptability and learning to ask different questions.
8. What do you hope to be doing five years from now?
I hope I am still creating special memories for guests, coaching and mentoring talented people at all stages in their careers and working with my own mentors to continue on my own path of growth and learning both personally and professionally.
9. What is the best part of your job?
There are so many amazing parts. First, the hotel itself. I was here pre-opening so getting to see the spaces transform and come to life before anyone else is a very special opportunity. Then it would be the people I get to work with. From my colleagues who have hospitality in their soul and take pride in caring for our guests, to the travel advisors and partners that we collaborate with on creating experiences to our guests who are away from home and our mission is to create a special place for them filled with memories that make them want to return. In my role I also get the opportunity to create and collaborate on packages, experiences and finding new ways for guests to discover our hotel and ultimately a bit more about them.