Fostering a Culture of Inclusivity with Paul Damico

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:18)
Welcome back to the Bliss Business Podcast. I'm Tullio Siragusa. Workplace culture is no longer just an internal issue. It is a business performance factor. According to Deloitte Research, organizations with inclusive cultures are six times more likely to be innovative and twice as likely to meet or exceed financial targets. In industries like hospitality and franchising, where large teams operate across many locations, leadership has an even greater influence on whether people feel connected, valued, and motivated to perform at their best. Today we are exploring what it takes to foster a culture of inclusivity in complex organizations and why leaders who invest in people often see the strongest long-term results. Our guest today is Paul Damico. He is President and CEO of Ascent Hospitality Management and a respected leader with more than 40 years of experience in the hospitality industry. Throughout his career, Paul has held senior leadership roles across major organizations including Host Marriott, SSP America, FOCUS Brands, Naf Naf Middle Eastern Grill, Global Franchise Group, Fuzzy's Taco Shop, and Dine Brands Global. While serving as President of Moe's Southwest Grill, he led the brand's expansion from 170 to more than 700 locations and delivered 23 consecutive quarters of positive same-store growth sales. Paul has also appeared on CBS on the Undercover Boss series, where he worked alongside restaurant teams and helped transform the lives of employees. Known for his ability to scale brands while investing deeply in people, Paul brings decades of leadership insights into building strong, inclusive cultures across large franchise organizations. Paul, welcome to the Bliss Business Podcast. I've always wanted to have a Undercover Boss guest on the show, so it has happened. So excited to have you.

**Paul Damico** (2:33)
Thanks for having me, Tullio.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:35)
Tell us a little bit why this topic is so important to you and so timely for you.

**Paul Damico** (2:41)
I have found throughout my decades that leaders normally don't get connected at what I call a granular level to the employees of the organization, no matter where those employees sit within the organizational structure. I was brought up in the industry first as a high school student in my father's catering business, where everybody knew everybody's business, everybody knew everybody's family. I think that that's where it all started.
Then you leave that environment and you go off to college. I'm at culinary school and I'm interacting with people that I don't go to class with for two hours a day. In culinary school, you're with them for nine and 10 hours a day. Again, you get to know these people at a very granular level. I think that's where it all started for me. Then I started with the Marriott Corporation right out of college back in, what seems like a million years ago, but 1986
That was just a fantastic, back then, it's been a lot of years since I've worked there. But back then, that was a fantastic organization that the industry talked about how they cared for their employees. But in reality, they really cared for their employees. And the opportunity to move throughout that organization was real for me. And I spent the first 14 years of my career with that company through HMS Host, and Host Marriott, and Marriott International over those 14 years.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:17)
Amazing. Yeah, we've actually mentioned them a few times during some of the host, some of the producer series with Stephen Sakash earlier in this show. So now, Paul, you've led organizations with thousands of employees and many, many locations across the country. From your perspective, what does inclusivity truly mean to you inside of a hospitality or especially a large hospitality organization? What does that mean to you?

**Paul Damico** (4:47)
You know, for me, it's doing certain things. So for one, not when I was running groups with thousands, but certainly hundreds.
I was intimately involved in the interview process with every person that got hired into the company. As the CEO, I had senior VPs, I had VPs, I had directors, I had managers, I had field people. But people that were going to join the team, I always started the conversation with, you know, welcome.
You're about to enter my sandbox, right? And as the leader, they're trying to figure out what that means. And I go on to explain, my sandbox is my home. I spend more time in this sandbox than I do with my wife and children back at the house. And so I'm going to be very careful about who I let into my sandbox. Because only two things can happen in a sandbox. We can make beautiful sandcastles together, right? Or you can kick sand in my face and run away. And I want to be sure you're going to be the sandcastle builder, and not the person that destroys everything that everyone around you is trying to build. Because building sandcastles takes a lot of time and there's a lot of structure, and we have to make sure the foundation is right, and all of that stuff. And if I let you in as the new hire, and you just kick it over, a lot of work and a lot of people are frustrated. And so that's how I would greet every single new employee that was being interviewed for the organization.