Pots, Pans, and Five-Year Plans: My Journey from Dishwasher to CEO

When Haitham Mattar started washing dishes in an Atlanta hotel, he had no idea it would be the start of an illustrious, multidecade career in hospitality that took him from the kitchen to the front desk to the top of the corporate hierarchy, from the Deep South to Dubai.Pots, Pans, and Five-Year Plans is more than a striver’s story of incredible success against the odds. It’s an inside look into the globally important yet little understood hotel business. Mattar has worked in almost every function in hotel operations, corporate hospitality management, and tourism, and has the stories to show for it, from dining with monarchs to building the world’s longest zipline on the top of a desert mountain. He recounts dazzling tales of travel around the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and chronicles the dangerous side of ambition, like how to keep going when others want you to fail. And how to survive when the stress of overwork leaves you fighting for your life.In this memoir, Mattar deftly interweaves a personal tale of grit, perseverance and resourcefulness with the bigger, behind-the-scenes story of the hotel business itself—an industry that reveals so much about how we live, work, and play when we venture far from home.ABOUT THE AUTHORBorn in Beirut and raised in the U.S., Haitham Mattar has over 25 years of experience in hospitality and tourism. He has held senior positions in global hotel brands such as Hilton Worldwide and Marriott, and in the governments of Ras Al Khaimah and Saudi Arabia. Mattar currently serves as Managing Director of the Middle East, Africa and South West Asia region for the Intercontinental Hotel Group. Read more