Aparthotel brand Native has appointed Alexandra Brunner as its new chief operating officer.
Brunner has over 20 years’ experience in the hospitality sector, working across various sectors and countries.
As an area manager for Premier Inn, she oversaw a portfolio of 17 full-service hotels, with full accountability for an £80 million annual turnover, asset management and responsibility for 800 employees.
Prior to that, she held various positions for the Ascott Group (part of Capital Land), Jury Inns and The Doyle Collection.
She will roll out the brand strategy across Native’s rapidly growing aparthotel portfolio, with particular focus on driving consistently strong customer service satisfaction, building local corporate relationships and maintenance of asset quality.
Native is a pioneer of the aparthotel sector in the UK and will operate more than 1,000 units by the end of 2018, growing to 2,000 units by the end of 2019.
The firm recently announced a £250 million development programme to launch its new lifestyle-led aparthotel concept, with partners spanning boutique food and beverage operators, fitness, co-working and retail brands including BLOK, Bistrotheque & Di Maggio.
Native founder and CEO Guy Nixon said: "Alexandra joins Native during an exciting time of fast-paced growth for the business.
"We recently launched Native Bankside on the Southbank and Native Glasgow at the Anchor Line and these will be joined next year by Native Manchester at the London Warehouse.
"Furthermore, we have confirmed schemes in Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and two additional sites in London’s Soho and Covent Garden over the next 24 months.
"Alexandra will be instrumental in ensuring that Native maintains the highest level of ‘guest experience’ as we forge ahead in delivering our new design and lifestyle-led, aparthotel concept across key UK locations."
