Burnell Goldman is the only African-American general manager of a St. Louis hotel, according to the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission. He leads a team of assistant managers, sales and accounting team members and hourly staff at the Omni Majestic Hotel.
The historic hotel is one of the smallest hotels in downtown St. Louis, he said. It is also one of 50 in the luxury Omni Hotel and Resort chain with locations throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.
“I get to do what I love every single day,” said Goldman, who has worked 20-plus years in the hospitality industry. “My job is to create memorable experiences for our guests.”
In fact, the Omni was voted “Highest in Hotel Guest Satisfaction among Upper-Upscale Hotel Chains” by J.D. Power and Associates in 2012. That same year in a Readers’ Poll conducted by Condé Nast Traveler, the Omni in St. Louis ranked as one of the Top 10 Hotels in the Midwest. It was also rated one of the Top 3 Best Hotels in Missouri by US News and World Report.
Goldman said his top priority is to create a diverse and inclusive work environment to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity.
“The biggest thing we can do is cast a wide net,” he said.
Originally from Chicago, Goldman always dreamed of running hotels. His mother, Emma Marie Goldman, a home economics teacher for the Chicago public schools, greatly influenced his career choice. She had a way of making people feel welcome, he said.
His mother, however, hoped he would pursue a career in medicine, law or engineering. It didn’t help his cause, he said, that there were no examples in their experience of people who looked like him running hotels.
He graduated from Cornell University, an Ivy League school in upstate New York, with a bachelors in hotel administration. Cornell University has one of the top hospitality programs in the country, he said.
While in college, he gained valuable experience working in various hourly positions at Cornell University’s student-run Statler Hotel. During the summer, he returned home where he worked at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Chicago. These experiences groomed him on how to become an effective leader, he said.
“I was a bellman, bartender and banquet houseman,” he said. “I understand what my staff goes through on a regular basis.”
He has lived in St. Louis since July 2011, after assuming his general manager role at the Omni. He was previously employed as director of rooms at the Omni Severin Hotel in Indianapolis, Ind., a position he held for five years. He oversaw all front-of-house departments, excluding food and beverage. He was also director of rooms at the Interstate Hotels & Resorts – Renaissance Las Vegas, a leading U.S.-based global hotel management company.
He said one of the Omni’s core values is local market leadership. Each year during the Omni’s budget planning process, he and his team set goals to generate new sources of revenue.
“It’s our goal that any market we become apart of, we become a leader in that market,” he said. “It is my goal to grow our organization.”
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