What Does It Take to Become a Club CEO?

Becoming a club CEO takes practical experience built from the ground up, not a straight line through university. Michelle Pascoe, Certified Speaking Professional, talks with Young Services Club CEO Lewis Butterworth about the journey from bar work in Manchester to running a growing regional club, and what it actually takes to get there.

So what actually separates someone who spends a career behind the bar from someone who ends up running the whole club?

Michelle Pascoe is a Certified Speaking Professional and hospitality training expert with over 30 years' experience helping clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues build service cultures that retain staff and delight guests. In this episode, she sits down with Lewis Butterworth, who started behind a bar in Manchester at 15, dropped out of law school in his early twenties, and moved to Australia with nothing more than hospitality experience and a willingness to work. Today he is CEO of Young Services Club in regional New South Wales.

Becoming a club CEO works because Lewis treated every step of the journey as a deliberate skill building exercise, not a fallback career. He explains how interviewing for jobs he did not necessarily want gave him honest feedback on where he stood, and why he chased opportunities a pay grade above his own rather than waiting to be handed one. 

The conversation moves through why hospitality's middle management pipeline has thinned since COVID, why staff have to ask for opportunity rather than wait for it, and why a club CEO's job is closer to custodian than owner. Lewis also makes the case for regional hospitality careers, comparing the real cost of a city apartment against a 115 acre regional property, and argues the industry needs to stop treating "club" as separate from "hospitality" altogether.

Key Takeaways

Why becoming a club CEO rarely follows a straight or predictable path.

How interviewing for jobs he didn't want gave Lewis the feedback he needed to grow.

What Lewis inherited from predecessor Dean Cave's 20 year tenure at Young Services Club.

Why hospitality's middle management pipeline collapsed after COVID and how to rebuild it.

Why a club CEO's role is closer to custodian than owner.

Next Steps