Will Guidara

Will Guidara is the bestselling author of Unreasonable Hospitality and the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, which under his leadership earned four stars from the New York Times, three Michelin stars, and was named the number one restaurant in the world. He speaks on customer experience, hospitality-driven leadership, and creating magical moments that turn ordinary interactions into extraordinary ones. Will’s philosophy of unreasonable hospitality has transformed how organizations across industries think about service and human connection.

Restaurant & Hospitality Career
Will co-led Eleven Madison Park’s rise from a good New York brasserie to the top of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, a journey built on obsessive attention to detail and a commitment to making every guest feel seen. His approach went far beyond food, creating personalized, unexpected moments of delight that became legendary in the hospitality world. He also co-founded Made Nice and the Welcome Conference.

Author & Speaker
Unreasonable Hospitality chronicles the leadership and service lessons from Will’s career and has become a bestseller embraced by organizations far beyond the restaurant industry. His frameworks for creating remarkable experiences apply to any business that serves customers, clients, or colleagues. His keynotes deliver actionable strategies for building cultures of hospitality, elevating customer experience, and inspiring teams to go above and beyond in every interaction.

Unreasonable Hospitality: How Giving People More Than They Expect Can Get You To #1

Will Guidara took Eleven Madison Park from a middling Brasserie to the best restaurant in the world when he realized something revolutionary – in a restaurant, the food, the service, and the design are simply ingredients in the recipe of human connection. When Will encouraged his team to be present with their guests, take what they do seriously without taking themselves too seriously, and employ a “one size fits one” strategy, magic happened. In this talk, Will shares why these lessons took EMP to #1, and how an unreasonable approach to the pursuit of human connection can help you win – and give people an experience they’ll remember forever.

How To Build A Brand Centered On Unreasonable Hospitality

For most of America’s history, we functioned as a manufacturing economy; now, we’re a service economy—more than three-quarters of our GDP comes from service. So, whether you’re in retail, finance, education, healthcare, computer services, or communications, you are in the business of serving other people. Making good products is no longer enough, and serving efficiently is no longer enough – now, it’s how you make the people you work with and those you serve feel that matters most of all. In this talk, Will will share why he believes our world is on the precipice of becoming a hospitality economy, and how every business can choose to be in the business of hospitality, by transforming ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences.

Why Hospitality Is Today’s #1 Leadership Skill

We know that people and teams excel at a high level when they feel in community with each other – aligned and connected. In the corporate workplace, this used to happen organically but in today’s post-pandemic world where most work is done remotely, the conditions of the game have changed – which means leaders must change how they’re playing the game. Today’s leaders need to be skilled at very intentionally creating the conditions for their teams to come together, to genuinely connect – and that’s what is at the heart of hospitality. Leaders who know how to take a collection of individuals and make sure they operate as a team will create more connected, inspired, effective, and happy employees. By applying ideas honed over the course of his career operating the world’s #1 restaurant, Will helps others do whatever it takes to be better hosts, and thus better leaders.

Giving More vs. Less: Why Hospitality Is The Greatest Tool In Problem-Solving

Too often, when we’re faced with a pernicious problem in business or our lives, we fall back on the tried-and-true: push harder, be more efficient, and cut back. Imagine, that instead, you asked yourself: what is the hospitality solution? What if you forced yourself to be creative, to develop a solution that worked because of—not in spite of—your dedication to generosity and extraordinary service? These are usually harder to execute, and coming up with them will definitely call on your creative side. But they’re almost always a win. During times of struggle – particularly in today’s economic climate – people tend to operate from a place of fear. In this talk, Will makes the case for why this is the perfect time to root your decisions in hospitality and give more, not less.