Front Office Manager

Role Overview

This is a senior, hands-on leadership role for a polished hospitality professional to run the complete front-of-house operation at a luxury boutique property in Nairobi. Day to day, you will coordinate every guest touchpoint from pre-arrival planning and airport pickup through to checkout and night audit, while safeguarding LQA quality benchmarks and revenue performance. We are looking for a passionate, commercially sharp, and results-driven leader who stays calm under pressure, leads by example, and brings meticulous attention to detail.

Key Responsibilities

• Direct daily operations across reception, reservations, guest relations, concierge, bell desk, airport representatives, drivers, and valet, ensuring every handover is seamless.
• Maintain disciplined use of the property management system: room allocations, guest profiles, billing, inventory, and reporting, and verify data accuracy at every stage.
• Own the reservations function end to end, including booking confirmations, room assignments, special requests, VIP arrangements, and clear communication with all departments.
• Coordinate transfer logistics with live flight tracking, meet-and-greet at the airport, driver dispatch, and personalised welcome moments.
• Supervise night audit procedures such as revenue reconciliation, guest account verification, cashiering, adjustments, and correct daily business close.
• Act as an LQA champion by running regular service audits, identifying gaps, coaching team members, and ensuring action plans are completed.
• Anticipate the needs of VIPs and repeat guests, preserving preference histories and handling complaints with fast, graceful service recovery.
• Collaborate with revenue, sales, housekeeping, food and beverage, engineering, and finance teams to maximise occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, upselling, and guest satisfaction.
• Monitor front-office performance metrics and take corrective action where needed; lead, mentor, and hold the team accountable for professionalism, grooming, and engagement.
• Enforce compliance with standard operating procedures, brand standards, financial controls, health and safety requirements, and security protocols.

Requirements & Qualifications

• A hospitality degree or diploma in hotel management, business administration, or a related field.
• At least five years of front-office experience, including two to three years as Front Office Manager or Assistant Front Office Manager in a luxury, boutique, or 4-5 star hotel.
• Advanced working knowledge of hotel property management systems, reservations platforms, and front-office technology.
• Demonstrated track record of running or closely supervising night audit and understanding front-office financial controls.
• Proven ability to handle VIPs, corporate clients, repeat guests, and high-profile individuals with discretion and care.
• Experience coordinating airport transfers and delivering luxury arrival experiences, including flight monitoring and driver coordination.
• Familiarity with LQA or comparable quality standards in five-star hospitality.
• Commercial awareness with the ability to interpret and act on occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, and room revenue data.
• Strong leadership and team development skills, with a calm, decisive, and solution-oriented approach under pressure.
• Excellent spoken and written English and Swahili; additional languages are an advantage.
• Flexibility to cover evenings, weekends, and public holidays as required by the operation.