Marek Rajski

General Manager of the Forum Hotel
By : Robert Wylot

   Marek Rajski’s career in the hotel industry is an American success story that started on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

   When Rajski left Poland in 1978 with a master’s degree in law, he began as a concierge in a Toronto-based hotel and made himself popular with the guests by fixing problems such as supplying them with last-minute concert tickets. By 1992, he had risen to a post in the central reservations bureau in Toronto and was then offered a two-year contract to become the sales and reservations manager at a hotel on the Caribbean island of Antigua.

   After another two years in Toronto as Primrose Hotel’s sales manager, he again jetted off to a group of three hotels in the Caribbean to work as marketing and sales manager.

   He arrived in Poland in 1997 initially to visit his family, but the visit turned into a permanent stay when he was offered a job as sales manager at Sheraton Warsaw Hotel & Towers.

   He then moved to the Holiday Inn and to the Forum Hotel, becoming the Forum’s deputy general manager. He became general manager of the hotel on Jan. 1 of this year.

   Past notes:

   1977 – Graduated with a master’s degree in law from Warsaw University

   1978 – Left for Canada

   1979 – Joined the Four Seasons hotel chain

   1992 – Went to Antigua as sales and reservations manager at Club Antigua Hotel

   1994 – Became sales manager at the Primrose Hotel in Toronto

   1996 – Appointed sales and marketing manager at three hotels in the Caribbean

   1997 – Returned to Warsaw as sales manager at the Sheraton Warsaw Hotel & Towers

   1998 – Became room division manager at the Holiday Inn in Warsaw

   1999 – Promoted to deputy general manager of the Forum Hotel in Warsaw

   2001 – Became general manager of the Forum Hotel

   Word of advice:

   “In this industry you must like people, be tolerant and at the same time think realistically. A person that doesn’t like people will fail.”