Guests: Emma Sharma, Meghan Ellis Smith, Fernando Odio, Chelsy Rafael, Isabelle White – aka Team Zenith
Host: Phil Street
What’s Inside:
- The Edge Hotel School students who beat the Swiss at their own game
- From cruise ship dreams to CEO goals
- The EM Cup – Europe’s most competitive hospitality battle
- Public speaking disasters, bonding breakthroughs, and backstage mind games
- How Team Zenith went from forgotten intro to unforgettable champions
- A story of belief, banana-shaped confidence curves, and near-chokehold celebrations
Topics Covered:
- How each student found their way to hospitality (spoiler: not one dull route)
- Why public humiliation at a student conference was actually a blessing
- What it takes to pitch to 500 people and survive a Dragon’s Den Q&A
- The intense selection process (TikToks, debates, interviews – they did it all)
- The Triangle Hands legend and branding brilliance of Team Zenith
- Why realistic ideas beat Swiss-level fantasy pitches
Highlight Moments:
- “Alex said if we didn’t win, he’d quit his job.”
- “We told the other teams we had no idea what we were doing. Classic mind games.”
- “I said we were going to win… but I completely forgot my lines!”
- “Winning felt amazing. Nearly died from a celebratory hug, but amazing.”
A massive thank you to the Edge Hotel School (And previous guest Adrian Martin) for setting this up. Hospitality Meets sends heartfelt congratulations to Team Zenith for this extraordinary achievement
Enjoy!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
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