Wissam Koukash is the Operations and Franchise Manager of Glee Hospitality Solutions LLC. He is highly passionate about brand growth with more than 14 years of experience in the industry. He is a team-oriented person who believes in achieving results with the help of a motivated team. Furthermore, Wissam Koukash always aims to expand his knowledge and help businesses expand their F&B firms effectively.
Glee Hospitality Solutions LLC is a company that helps F&B firms to establish their business from opening and managing to operating. They help people through all the setup processes. In addition, they have excellent expertise in restaurant management and restaurant concept development of outlets across the wider Gulf.
With Glee Hospitality Solutions, Wissam Koukash aims to maintain a positive corporate culture while also paving the way toward the company’s growth. They are helping restaurants to open up in the region. The company also has an online presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Learn more about Mr. Wissam Koukash and Glee Hospitality Solutions LLC through our interview with him below.
Explain the background of you and the company in detail.
I entered the food industry with a big appetite in hopes of trying different cuisines to feed my hunger. However, I discovered that my appetite for brand growth was even bigger. So, 14+ years in the industry kneaded me to become an operations and franchise Manager.
Glee Hospitality Solutions was established in 2009 with headquarters in Dubai. The company has evolved over the years to become the leading hospitality management and consultancy company across the region. In addition, they offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions and has proven expertise in restaurant concept development and restaurant management of outlets across the wider Gulf.
Furthermore, with its industry-wide experience in just a short span of time, Glee Hospitality has successfully launched over 50 plus F&B concepts, unveiled 70 plus outlets across the region, including the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, and Jordan, among others and manages a team of nearly 500 employees.
What are your goals?
A business without a motivated team does not achieve results in today’s world. Therefore, I believe in the importance of encouraging employees to outperform their greatest achievements. This allowed me to be commended by my peers for my ability to ensure adherence to established organizational processes while maintaining a positive and motivating corporate culture.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of yourself/company right now?
My big appetite gave me opportunities to work on pre-opening projects that included Casual Dining, QSR, Fine Dining, Retail, Dark Kitchens, and Cloud Kitchens in MENA, GCC, and Asia, in the Mediterranean, Italian, American, Japanese, and different international cuisines. While my belly wasn’t satisfied working on healthy ones, they gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge in consultation and project management.
What was the path you/your company took to get to where you are today?
For the past 13 years, I have been building my career to reach this level. In addition, moving around 3 countries in the world (Lebanon, USA, UAE) taught me a lot about business.
Why did you start (or want to be the head of) this company?
My vision for Glee hospitality is to increase the growth of the company. Furthermore, Glee Hospitality Solutions has already developed a strong reputation for its brand and services in the hospitality industry regionally and beyond, serving the sector with a unique blend of hospitality solutions covering a wide array of restaurant management needs. From its modest beginnings to the present, Glee Hospitality has developed, deployed, and implemented innovative concepts backed by its team of industry experts who possess over three decades of experience in the domain across the globe.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The industry continues to grow, with more employees being expected to be hired every year. Thus for companies to remain competitive, they need to ensure they have employees with strong qualities, skills, and knowledge. Employee expectations are always changing and growing. Organizations need to keep up with the latest trends for attracting and retaining employees, which is proving to be an ongoing challenge within the hospitality industry.
Give us one word that describes you the best.
Motivated and friendly.
What makes you excited about Mondays?
The best day to start the week.
What do you value most about your culture and vision?
Great company cultures support involvement and provide positive, fun ways for their employees to get together for personal and professional development activities, both within and outside normal company hours. Positive company culture has values that every employee knows by heart.
Tell us about a project that forced you to be innovative and creative.
In the past years, I worked with different client, and Sumo Sushi and Bento franchise outlets as our client that forced me to be more creative about how to increase the growth in the UAE and GCC region.
What are your company’s strategies, and how do they stand unique from your competitors?
The company was established in 2009 and has become involved over the years, becoming the best leading company in the region. Further, as part of its strategic role, Glee Hospitality offers its consultancy and focuses on business development, sales, marketing, and operations of F&B ventures in the region. The company’s expertise ranges from a business plan and concept development to conducting financial feasibility, securing location, interior design, brand identity development, fit-out contract tendering, accounts, recruitment to staff training, and menu design.
What are the key values that helped you overcome the roadblocks/challenges in your career? Tell us something about your memorable incident in your leadership?
There are times when it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make the right decision. Under these circumstances, we have two major options. We can keep analyzing, thinking, talking, looking for more information, and waiting to see if things become clearer. Or we can deliberately take some action, see what happens and then revisit the decision.
How do you see the company changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?
The company will grow globally, and in the coming two years, I see a big growth in the company by reaching more countries worldwide.
Where is your leadership going? What benefits do your clients get from your company in this competitive world?
Our goal is to grow profitability, and sales, for all the clients, providing services such as operational management, HR management, purchase management, accounting, cost control, monthly reports, and audits, besides expertise in the development of franchise operations and consultancy on securing franchise agreements.
Find Wissam Koukash on LinkedIn.