Mr. June: Jannes Sörensen on Checking In and Why Hospitality’s Future Is Human

The former Beaumont GM and Kepler founder talks presence, purpose, women in leadership and his new book, Checking In - The Power of Presence and Attention to Transform Hospitality.

Jannes Sörensen’s career began with curiosity, not a grand plan. After finishing his schooling in Berlin, he considered traveling, then followed a friend into an apprenticeship at the Adlon Hotel. What started as a temporary step became a life in hospitality, first as a concierge in Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and New York, then in rooms leadership at The Connaught and Le Bristol, and eventually as General Manager of The Beaumont in London.

Along the way, his focus shifted from serving guests directly to creating the conditions for teams to thrive. Today, through Kepler, he is rethinking what luxury hospitality can be: not simply a business of rooms, restaurants and service standards, but a platform for presence, community, sustainability and human flourishing.

His new book, Checking In: The Power of Presence and Attention to Transform Hospitality, co-written with Philippe Krenzer, explores the social and emotional role hospitality can play in a world that is overstimulated, lonely, digitally distracted and often disconnected from what actually makes people happy. In our conversation, Jannes talked about the mentors who shaped him, why his executive team at The Beaumont was largely women, how AI could create more humane work, and why hospitality has an opportunity to help society live better.

You started your career as a concierge. How did you first find your way into hospitality?

It was always more about curiosity than ambition.

I completed my schooling in Berlin and I wanted to travel. Then a friend told me she was going to work at the Adlon Hotel as an apprentice. At the time, I was quite determined not to go to university. I wanted to do something, but I was not quite sure what.

The Adlon was a much smaller property then, but it was this incredibly interesting place. It was like the one true luxury hotel in the east of Berlin. It had this almost Grand Budapest Hotel feeling. I did my apprenticeship there, and before it ended, I said again that I was going to travel.

Jannes as a chef during his apprecnticeship at the Aldon Hotel in Berlin

Then the head concierge, Raffaele Sorrentino, said, “No, you’re not. You’re going to become a concierge.”

So he took me under his wing at the concierge desk. I stayed for a year, then went to Paris, worked at Four Seasons, became a member of Les Clefs d’Or in France, and then went to Barcelona because I wanted to learn Spanish. Later I went to New York to work as assistant head concierge at the reopening of The Plaza Hotel.

The motto of Les Clefs d’Or is “in service through friendship,” and I loved that. The concierge world gave me some of my greatest mentors. These were not just professional hoteliers. They were writers, poets, intellectuals, people who spoke multiple languages and saw hospitality as a human craft.

Was there a moment when your focus shifted from guests to teams?

Yes, that happened in New York.

I loved being a concierge, but at The Plaza I realized I would never compete with my team on knowing the city. Some of them had been head concierges before. They knew New York infinitely better than I ever would.

So I wondered, how can I add value? How can I help these fantastic people become even better?

Jannes as a concierge at the George V in Paris

That was the shift. I moved from focusing only on the client to focusing on the team as the enabler of everything we want to create for the guest. I realized that my role was not about me. It was about helping others be successful.

That is really why I decided to leave the concierge world. From assistant head concierge in New York, I went to The Connaught in London as a reception supervisor. It was many steps back and much less money, but I was never driven by money. I was driven by what I could learn.

You became General Manager of The Beaumont quite young. Did you feel imposter syndrome?

Yes and no.

It was so unlikely that I would get that job that I almost thought, “Well, I might as well get on with it.”

I would not have applied for it. I was rooms manager at Le Bristol in Paris. I had no GM experience. But many of my former team from The Connaught had gone to open The Beaumont, and when Jeremy King was looking for a new GM, I think some on the team said, “We really recommend this guy.”

I met Jeremy and his CEO, Zuleika Fennell, and I loved speaking with them. Jeremy is not your typical hotelier. He is a restaurateur, a creative, an intellectual and he is entirely focused on the guest and his staff rather than the spreadsheets. It felt like home territory for me because I had grown up around concierge figures who thought about hospitality and life, not just procedures.

So I did not spend my time asking, “Do I deserve this?” I had the job. My question was, “What can we do now?”

What did you learn about leadership at The Beaumont?

That every part of the hotel matters.

I was never a GM who saw himself as only a rooms expert or an F&B professional or a finance person. You are a general manager, so you need a general approach. The hotel only works if every area contributes.

For example, our executive bonus criteria were the same for the whole executive team. It did not make sense to me for the head engineer to be rewarded only on managing his technical spend, because then in order to meet his expenditure budget, he might not buy the pump he needs. That creates a problem for the rooms. So I said, if the hotel is successful, you are all successful.

It was always about shared success, not individual silos.

After The Beaumont, you created Kepler. What problem were you trying to solve?

After I left, people approached me about other roles. The conversation was often, “We have this great project,” or “There is a lot of capital spend,” or “This is a fantastic hotel.”

But what I was missing was: “This is the problem we need you to solve.”

I was not motivated by a bigger hotel or more money. I was concerned about what I could contribute.

So I imagined the ideal company I would want to work for. Who are the clients? What are their needs? What is luxury? Where is it going? What does the hotel company of the future look like? What is its role in society? What positive impact can it have?

Eventually, all of those questions came back to one simple idea: can hospitality help solve problems?

We explore that question in our book, Checking In - The Power of Presence and Attention to Transform Hospitality, which argues that attention, presence and genuine care have become the rarest and most valuable forms of modern luxury, with the power to transform hospitality in all its forms.

That thinking became the foundation of Kepler Hotels, where we are creating a new category of emotionally intelligent and distinctive hospitality concepts designed around service, human connection and a different understanding of modern luxury.

From there came Kepler Academy, because we saw a need to equip the senior professionals who will shape the future of hospitality with the strategic clarity, emotional intelligence and service culture needed to lead at the highest level.

We also work with hotel owners, developers and investors to build, reposition and operate hospitality concepts, helping them bring those same principles into practice.

Your book is called Checking In - The Power of Presence and Attention to Transform Hospitality. What is the core idea?

We talk a lot in hospitality about creating experiences but spend too little time asking whether people are actually present enough to receive them.

Guests often arrive tired, stressed, digitally distracted and displaced from their normal lives. We say, “Here is this wonderful experience,” but they may not be ready for it. And, in many cases, it may not answer their needs.

Jannes and his new book, Checking In

The core idea of the book is that attention has become one of the rarest forms of luxury. Hospitality should not simply provide beautiful places or memorable experiences; it should help people become more present, so they can genuinely experience them.

In Japanese hospitality, the person providing the service and the person receiving it both have a role. A tea ceremony cannot work if the guest does not know how to receive it. There is a reciprocity. Both participants have to be fully present.

In the West, luxury has often become "everything goes" and "the client is always right." But I think there is something deeper. Rather than seeing a lack of presence as a personal failure, we should recognise it as a social phenomenon. Then the question becomes: what can hospitality do to help people slow down, pay attention and reconnect with themselves, with others and with the place they are in?

You write about “miswanting,” the idea that hotels often give people what they think they want rather than what they need. What do you mean by that?

Hotels have become very good at giving people what they think they want, rather than what will genuinely make them feel better. Through clever marketing, we suggest that you can buy your way into happiness.

Guests envision the beautiful suite, the infinity pool, the perfect view, and imagines this will satisfy them and make them happy. Then they arrive and are sometimes quietly confused because it does not feel as good as they thought it would. Anticipation has over-promised.

Psychologists call this “miswanting”. We assume that external things - winning the lottery, a promotion or a luxurious holiday - will change everything and make us happier. But we quickly adapt and the emotional uplift fades much sooner than we expected. 

We often pursue the wrong things. And hotels respond by providing more and more material excess, outdoing each other in a futile arms race.

What gives us lasting fulfilment is rarely material. It is relationships, personal growth, curiosity, learning and a sense of purpose.

So in the book we argue that, in an increasingly disconnected world, hospitality should focus less on satisfying endless wants and more on meeting the human needs that have never changed.

Luxury hotels spend so much on the product. Are you saying product matters less?

The product has to be good enough. It has to work. You need to sleep well. You need to eat well. The hotel has to be well maintained.

But beyond “good enough,” the product is not necessarily the competitive advantage.

For the book, we studied almost 2,000 guest comments. Only a very small percentage were really about the product, and most of those were negative. That tells us the product matters when it fails. But when it works, what guests remember is something else.

The question is not whether the fabric is more expensive or the marble more rare. The question is whether the hotel creates meaning and connection.

How do you train people to deliver that kind of hospitality?

You focus on human needs, and you help people understand what actually matters.

One of the things I learned very early is that yes, there is a service provider and someone being served, but we are both humans. What matters to the guest also matters to us.

At Kepler, we often say, “It is not more, it is better.”

In education, I think we overestimate answers. Answers are everywhere now. What matters more is helping people ask the right questions. What are the relevant questions for you, your business, your team, and this beautiful life you have?

At the Kepler Academy, we do not start with a module on leadership. We start with self-leadership. You cannot lead others if you cannot lead yourself. You need to understand what fills your cup. How are you mentally healthy? Physically healthy? How do you inspire others if you are depleted?

Let’s talk about women in hospitality. You mentioned several women who shaped your career. What did you learn from them?

I have been very fortunate to work with great women. Nathalie Seiler-Hayez, for example, was maybe the best GM I worked for. There were others too, and I learnt so much from them.

But I am always careful when speaking about this because you can very quickly fall into generalizations. Women are not one thing, and neither are men. There is no single way that women lead, just as there no single way men lead.

What I can say is that I often felt a different emotional layer in the women I worked with, and it resonated with me. They were sharp. They were not afraid to argue. But the argument was about the cause, not about themselves.

Your executive team at The Beaumont was mostly women. Was that intentional?

No. The women on the team at that time were just better.

I did not set out to create a woman-led executive committee. I did not say, “I need to hire a woman.” It happened naturally because I felt they were the best people for the job.

Sales, marketing, finance, housekeeping, many of the senior roles were held by women. I found that many of them were less self-focused and more focused on the community and the cause.

Again, I was lucky. I had great women on the team. But it was not a diversity exercise. It was about excellence.

Why do you think we still do not see enough women in GM and C-suite roles?

I think we are seeing more and more, but historically hospitality leadership did not always look like a career women were encouraged to choose.

That is changing.

I am convinced a big part of the future of luxury hospitality will be women. The kind of hospitality I believe in, one that is more human, more emotionally intelligent, more connected to community and purpose, creates enormous opportunity for women to lead.

But we also need to be careful not to add pressure without taking anything away.

For women, especially those with families, society has said, “Be the career woman, but also have the children.” So the responsibility on those people has doubled. It is not yet in healthy balance.

How can hospitality become more supportive of people across different life stages?

I think AI and robotics will change work significantly. Humans will not do as much of the repetitive work they have done in the past.

Hospitality is one of the most future-proof industries because it is about human relationships. 

But there is much in hospitality today that humans will not need to do anymore. That creates the possibility for more part-time work, fewer hours, more flexible schedules and better-quality work. It is not always about quantity. It is about quality.

When I was at The Beaumont, I wanted people to want my job not because of the perks, but because I lived a good life. I was healthy. I looked after myself. I had a healthy relationship.

If the leadership model is someone who is burned out, divorced, does not see their children, is unhealthy and has a problem with alcohol, is that really the role model?

Businesses need to create space for people to have children, careers, health, relationships and lives. And AI will help to create that space.

You also write about loneliness and community. What role can hotels play there?

Humans have become lonelier. The wealthier we get, the more we can spend ourselves into isolation.

Historically, travel brought people together. You met people in train carriages, in dining rooms. Children were raised by a village. Neighbours, grandparents, church, local community, all of these people and organisations had a role.

Today many people live individualistic lives. Hotels can help rebuild some of that community.

They can also connect people to craft. We live in a world where we do not understand how things are made. Something arrives at our doorstep, and we have no relationship to who made it, how it was built, or what journey it took.

Hotels can reconnect people to food, craft, place, people and process. That is part of hospitality’s opportunity.

You have written about serious challenges, from overtourism to sustainability to loneliness. Yet you remain optimistic. Why?

Because I think humans are good. Fundamentally, I think we are kind.

People go through hard experiences, and that can harden them, but I do believe in people.

Jannes with Emily at his favorite coffee shop, Alex Coffee in Marylebone, London

Also, is the world better if I am pessimistic about it? Probably not.

With Kepler, we are trying to do something. We do not want just to write white papers. We want to contribute. Hospitality has an opportunity to lead society into a better future, but it starts with choices.

What is the next thing you are going to eat? What is the next conversation you are going to have? What is the next decision?

It is not always the five-year strategy. It is one guest at a time, one conversation at a time.

What do you hope hospitality leaders take from Checking In?

That hospitality is a vehicle to create the world we want to see.

For me, Kepler is about so much more than hotels. Hotels are simply the vehicle I know. Hospitality can help us rethink how we live, how we connect, how we work, how we care for each other and how we create a more sustainable future.

I am 45 now, and I feel I want to do something meaningful.

Hospitality is not just about hospitality. It is a tool for change.