CEO MONTHLY / Female CEO of the Year Awards 2022 8 Mar22259 Mobile Guest Innovation CEO of the Year (Sweden): Tess Mattisson -The hospitality industry is looking for new solutions around the world to elevate the customer experience. The team at Zaplox have the answer, as market innovators renowned for their contact-free mobile guest journey and mobile key services. Leading the firm forward is Tess Mattisson. We take a closer look to uncover the secrets of her success in the Female CEO of the Year Awards 2022 Since 2011, Zaplox has been a staple of the global hospitality market, offering hotels a mobile guest journey and digital selfservice products. This turnkey platform has revolutionised the check-in and check-out processes, offering keys sent directly to a guest’s mobile phone. Putting the digital at the heart of the hospitality industry has created a new experience of luxury and convenience that many have revelled in. Zaplox has gone from strength to strength over the years and has been listed on the NASDAQ First North Growth Market as of 2017. As of 2022, Tess Mattisson has led the company as President and CEO to greater heights and its most successful year to date. Tess comes from a background in the travel and hotel industry, having held senior leadership roles in digitization, sales & marketing, building and developing customer centric, insight driven and business performance focused teams on an international level. When we caught up with Tess, we were keen to know what drives her forward. “My main objective has always been to surround myself with amazing talent and then develop them to outgrow me and my company,” she tells us, “simply because that’s what’s best for the company! I know this might sound strange, but if you think about it, it means I’ve developed amazing employees who have done amazing things for my company, instead of allowing them – and the company – to stagnate.” For Tess, empowering her team has involved taking a slightly different approach to building a team. “Women are typically underrepresented at leadership level especially in IT jobs,” she explains, “and we need to close this, as well as the overall diversity gaps across industries and leadership levels. To help increase female employees in this field of work, I believe that hiring managers need to recruit based on experience and potential combined, and not just experience alone. If you hire based on experience only, you will only get more of the same” Championing everyone in the workplace is one of Tess’ passions. “In general, we are not comfortable to take on a challenge we are not convinced we can win at the first try,” she says. “If I’d only taken on things I 100% knew how to solve, I wouldn’t have learned something new, nor would I have been given the opportunity to take on a new challenge after another. You can often do more than you think – just say yes and give it your all.” The incredible growth of Zaplox has been in no small part to the values Tess has described above. For her, the team is paramount to providing exceptional service. Naturally, the hospitality industry took a bit of a hit over the last few years, but as this sector recovers, the importance of a digital solution becomes increasingly obvious. “Hotels are turning to technology to adapt to the guests’ new digital needs but are facing significant challenges,” Tess explains. “After the downsizing caused by the pandemic, hotels are in recovery mode and struggle to attract talent while faced with limited financial resources. For us, this means exciting times, as we can help them tap into new technology faster and at a significantly lower cost, thus enabling them to increase guest satisfaction and profitability.” For Tess, Zaplox offers a solution to an industry that she has worked in since the age of 17. The chance to give something back is incredibly satisfying. What has made this satisfaction complete, however, is her ability to work with people and encouraging them to grow to new heights of success. “Although this award is for Mobile Guest Innovation, it can’t be achieved without people,” Tess says with a smile, “and in the grand scheme of things, creating relationships with people will always be more valuable than anything else!” Company: Zaplox AB (Sweden) & Zaplox Inc (US) Name: Tess Mattisson Email: [email protected] Web Address: www.zaplox.com Sep 076
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