1. What surprised you most about Pattaya when you first came to live here?
I was pleasantly surprised with all the many things there is to do with children including a full mall dedicated to children and children activities - Harbor Mall, our kids love to go there and try out some of the many activities.  

2. Friends are in town for just a few days - what must they absolutely see and do?
Pattaya has a wide range of activities on offer like Boat Trips, Diving, Water Parks, Cabaret's, several great malls for shopping and so on. Personally I like the Khao Kheow Open Zoo and Sheep Farm, great for families trips with children.  

3. What is your favourite Thai food / word?
I'm a big fan of Noodle dishes as long as not too spicy and especially like the many Thai dishes with Coconut milk.  Sawadee Krab and Wai'ing as very unique Thai gesture, which I think is a very nice way of showing respect and gratitude to others.  

4. What do you miss most from home?
Family, friends...and the food.  When choosing to live as an Expat one has many great experiences, meet many wonderful people and learn from different cultures but naturally the family and friends at home is always missed. 

Food of course is different for us all but I think most of us always prefer the food we grew up with, the food I grew up with myself is very different than the places I've lived the past 25 years.

This year we are lucky to have Christmas vacation in Vienna and my native Denmark and the food will certainly be a highlight of our time there.  

5. What is the secret of your success?
I've always had a great passion for what I do, I see everyone as equal, I believe everyone's role is equally important to be successful and treat everyone with respect, I believe these facts combined have had a  positive influence on my career. I'm a firm believer in if you treat people good they will treat you good in return and good things happen to good people.

6. What career other than yours would you also love to pursue?
 I've always been very interested in Interior Design & Music, so a different direction would definitely be something within those genre's. 

7. Where did you spend your last vacation?
Omsk in Russia, the hometown of my wife.  

8. Where is your dream holiday destination?
The World, I love to travel and think everywhere is interesting to explore. 

9.  What would you say is your personal motto?
"Everything is possible"  

10. What attracts you to working for luxury hotels?
In the year 2000, after 10 years in my first hotel in Denmark, I left my home country to move to London to learn 5 star international hospitality, I've always been fascinated by hotels and especially luxury hotels and wanted to get experience in some of the best.  

London has a great and long history of luxury hospitality, and after 5 years there I decided to move to Dubai where I was lucky to be able to work at the 7 Star Burj Al Arab Hotel for 8 years, since then it's been to great properties back in Denmark, Qatar and Thailand where I'm currently based with Centara Hotels & Resorts and their famous family resort Centara Grand Mirage Resort.  

I'm fascinated with both classic and modern hotels, luxury hotels brings people the greatest experiences and memories, for me it's very interesting to be part of the teams who bring our guests these by ensuring that product and service is to the highest standards.   

11. When you dine in a restaurant, what else do you look at besides the menu?
Service, designs, layouts and condition of things like furniture & structures - sometimes I wish I could stop noticing everything but unfortunately after over 25 years in the hospitality industry I notice every little detail, essentially because that's normally part of my job. But in any case I love experiences other hotels and restaurants beside the ones I work in myself and this is mostly great experiences and give inspiration and ideas when you see how well and creatively things have been done.  

12. What are the most challenging issues you are facing on your current job?
Being a large 5 star hotel with 555 rooms we naturally have challenges with the large amount of people we want to ensure gets the best possible experience when staying with us. 

We continuously look at this and have late introduced things like entertainers and bands in our in our large lobby area as well as all managers spending significant time there to ensure all our guests are both entertained and given personalized service. 

13. What is the best compliment you've ever received?
"You treat everyone the same no matter what position they have and you have no agenda except for the hotel and the team to succeed" 

14. If you must make a choice, would you do the things right or would you do the right things?
Do the right things.

15. At work, what puts a smile on your face?
Happy guests, happy colleagues, new ideas and seeing projects & ideas we work on being executed well and being successful.