Spotlight on Lee Smith

Prior to joining Cater Care in 2012, Lee worked in the luxury hospitality industry for many years.  He started his career in the F&B department as a qualified Chef, working his way through the many departments within hotels, gaining vast and varied experience and exposure to hotel management.

In 2012, Lee decided to make a change to his career aspirations and we were very fortunate that he joined Cater Care.  His transition into remote site management started as a Site Manager at Ouyen; a 192 man Village located 1 hour from Mildura and one of Cater Care’s historical sites.

Over the next 5 years Lee grew with Cater Care, capitalizing on his successful village management style moving to manage larger multi-service sites including the Homeground 1500 bed full service facility, at Calliope, Buffel Park and most recently Lake Vermont Village

One of two  key influences that shaped Lee’s management style were

Dene Motoike that he met whilst working at Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney,

Lee said, “Dene and I worked together whilst I was with the Intercontinental team and she always had her finger on the pulse when it came to organisation and leadership; I learnt alot from her as my Manager It is from her that I developed my philosophy in management and the way I operate. I believe that to achieve success you need to give your staff the tools, the training, and the time to do the job.”

The other person to influence Lee is Christine Charlton, Cater Care’s Senior Business Development Manager.

“I really admire Christine, and how much knowledge she retains. She’s up-to-date with what’s happening within our business, and the industry,” he said.

Not content to be a Project Manager with Cater Care and always looking for continuous improvement and development, Lee successfully went on to completed his MBA in Business Management in 2015.

Lee had long been identified as a future Senior manager through our succession planning program and when an Operations Manager position became available it was a natural progression for him to transition into the role.

“When you’re in a job, you want to hear that there are new positions to aspire to. I’d been interested in working as an Operation manager for a while”, said Lee.

We wish Lee all the best in his new position, Congratulations Lee!

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