#267 - Hospitality Meets Hannah Swarbrick-Done in The Story of Two Left Flip Flops and the AI Non-Exec

Hannah Swarbrick-Done followed a boy to Thailand with dreams of an idyllic island life.

The relationship lasted approximately one weekend.

Hannah stayed for two years.

What followed included living in a house made from bottles, running one of the world’s largest pub crawls, guiding travellers around Thailand and becoming sufficiently relaxed about footwear that she once wore two left flip-flops without noticing.

Eventually, Hannah returned to Manchester with plans for her own hostel, including the uniforms, interiors and complete guest experience.

There was just one minor omission.

A business plan.

Today, she is the founder of The Yellow Group, helping hospitality businesses align their people strategy with their plans for growth - while also building AI tools, employing a virtual non-executive director called Simon and developing a highly influential golf account with nearly 400 followers.

We Cover

• Following that boy to Thailand - and outlasting the relationship by nearly two years
• Travel
• Designing an entire hostel before learning how to operate one
• The leader who asked Hannah one simple, career-changing question
• Why promoting somebody is pointless unless you also build the support around them
• The difference between holding a leadership title and actually leading
• Why hospitality develops skills that transfer far beyond operations
• Being told she was “not very good with data”
• How AI removed the barrier between Hannah and the story inside the numbers
• Creating Simon, her AI non-executive director
• Building The Yellow Group as a collaborative people consultancy
• Becoming a professional golfer and part-time influencer

Quotables

“I did follow a boy.”

“I had everything, honestly. It was everything but a business plan.”

“At one point I realised I was wearing flip-flops - the two left feet ones.”

“There are managers, and there are people who are leaders by job role. But an actual leader? They’re not common.”

“I am the funniest thing that happens to me.”

Final Observation

Hannah describes her career as a winding journey, but there is a wonderfully clear thread running through it.

Travel taught her to understand people. Hospitality taught her to support them. One excellent leader noticed what she did naturally and gave her the structure to build a career around it.

Now, Hannah is doing the same for businesses: finding the gaps between what they want to achieve and what their people actually need to succeed.

She may not believe in five-year plans, but she has built something far more useful - curiosity, adaptability and an apparently endless willingness to try the next interesting thing.

Even when that thing is golf.

Show Partner

A big shout out to today’s show partner, RotaCloud — the people management platform built specifically for shift-based teams.

RotaCloud lets managers create and share rotas, record attendance, and manage annual leave in minutes — all from one simple, web-based app.

It also makes life easier for teams, allowing staff to check rotas, request holiday, and pick up extra shifts directly from their phones.

To find out more, head to RotaCloud

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