Julie Kinnear will bring her expertise in customer service and tourism to Hilton Lac-Leamy Hotel and Casino and the Casino de Mont-Tremblant as she prepares to take over as general manager on May 27.
Kinnear began her career in a variety of positions in marketing and customer service, working behind the scenes for companies such as Home Depot, Kraft Foods, and Costco. One of her earliest roles was for Intrawest at Blackcomb Mountains in Whistler.
“Basically, I’ve been managing teams with large organizations for over 20 years now,” she told OBJ. “It’s kind of funny. I started my career in tourism at a ski resort, and now I’ve kind of come full circle.”
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Five years ago, she broke into the tourism industry. She originally joined Tourisme Outaouais as senior director of marketing and partnerships, eventually working her way up to CEO.
In that role, she said she’s had the opportunity to partner with Hilton Lac-Leamy on multiple occasions.
“The casinos are some of our greater attractions,” she said. “People come to the region to go there. We’ve worked closely with them. I’ve gained a great understanding of the hotel and entertainment and attraction industry.”
Her experience with Tourisme Outaouais is one that she said she’ll be able to bring to her new role overseeing the the casinos and hotel, especially as they continue working to bring more tourists back post-pandemic.
“I have an understanding of the visitor patterns — what they’re looking for, the level of service they want,” she said. “One part that’s really important right now is business tourism. It’s extremely big in our region. There’s been a great recovery for Hilton, luckily. Everyone’s after that specific segment of the population, because they come, they eat, they stay for quite a few days. I’ll continue to work on that, just from a different place.”
Kinnear will be the first woman to hold the GM position at these locations. In the gaming industry as a whole, there are still very few women in leadership positions.
“I’m really excited,” she said. “I always like to show my worth in terms of my hard work and the extra hours and everything else. I haven’t had any special favours. I’ve definitely earned every position I’ve gotten by my commitment and hard work. I think it’s important to show young women that these positions are attainable. I would love to be a good role model in that way.”
Kinnear said one of her first priorities will be connecting with her leadership colleagues and the rest of her team to draw up new objectives.
“My plan is to come in, assess, then set myself some specific objectives. But I want to come in and listen to the teams to align myself with their priorities,” she said.
“It’s very important to me to be the conducting channel between the vision and strategy (of senior management) and how to implement them. Even though I can make some quick decisions, it’s important to hear the people that are there on what their challenges are and how to move on to find what we can do to improve operationally and through customer service.”
