Long before she had the leadership titles associated with her, Janice Tugaoen was already mastering how intention, preparation, and presence could quietly transform outcomes. An early entrance into the hospitality sector soon became a career characterized by rapid growth, daring choices, and an extraordinary maturity that was well beyond her years. Moving from basic operations to top management in her twenties, she established her reputation in places whereby age, gender, and background she was often the only one, yet she always felt not at all out of place.

Recently Janice was the Area Director of Sales and Marketing for Shorebreak Resort and Palomar Phoenix at Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, where she was recognized for the combination of the commercial strategy with the deep human approach to leadership, winning the IHG Hotles and Resorts 2025 Sales Excellence Award. She created high-performing teams through being real, disciplined, and trusting, and she is convinced that the miracle of good connection is the main reason for success that lasts. Her trip mirrors a leader who was not made by tradition, but rather by bravery, loyalty, and a distinct understanding of her goals.

Breaking Barriers in Boardrooms

Tugaoen’s career trajectory defies conventional timelines. She earned her undergraduate degree at just 18 and entered the hospitality industry a year later as a front desk agent at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans. After joining Hyatt’s Corporate Management Training Program, she became a Sales Manager at 20. By her early twenties, she had secured her first Director-level position at the Copley Square Hotel in Boston.

Yet her youth, gender, and Asian heritage often positioned her as an outlier in boardrooms dominated by white male executives in dark suits. Rather than shrinking from these barriers, she used them as fuel. She would arrive at high-stakes meetings in bright red pantsuits and four-inch stilettos, a deliberate choice that turned visibility into purpose. She endured repetitive questioning designed to test her knowledge, raised voices intended to create emotional discomfort, and skepticism that demanded proving herself repeatedly.

Her response was simple: overprepare, stay composed, and deliver results consistently. “In order to gain respect, you have to respond instead of react. You share insights, not just opinions. You admit mistakes without making excuses and outline how you course correct,” she explains. Through strategic thinking, emotional maturity, and unwavering integrity, she transformed skepticism into respect and obstacles into steppingstones.

Leading with Authenticity at Kimpton

For nearly seven years, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants has provided the ideal environment for Tugaoen’s people-centered leadership philosophy to flourish. The brand places heartfelt human connections at the center of its service model and encourages team members to bring their authentic selves to work. This alignment between organizational values and personal principles has proven essential to her approach.

“While strategies may change, your core values such as respect, genuine care, transparency, and authenticity do not,” she emphasizes. These values guide every decision she makes as a leader. She actively listens to guests, monitors evolving traveler behaviors, and solicits real-time insights from team members who interact directly with customers. She fosters a culture where ideas emerge from every level and where teams feel empowered to deliver exceptional experiences.

Redefining Leadership Through Empowerment

Tugaoen defines modern leadership as helping others go through the process of finding their own superpowers so they can effectively drive change and create positive impact in their personal and professional lives. This philosophy manifests in tangible ways. When a new mother on her team faced an unexpected client meeting without childcare, she met her at the door, took the diaper bag, and cared for their baby during the meeting. The gesture resonated throughout the team, becoming what they called a “Kimpton Moment” an example of leadership that prioritizes empathy and genuine support over rigid professionalism.

The Discipline Behind Effectiveness

Tugaoen effectiveness stems from strategic discipline, paired with emotional steadiness. Each year begins with intentional planning: short-term and long-term goals, financial targets, family adventures, and new experiences to pursue. She breaks these aspirations into actionable items with timelines. Her team jokes that Outlook is her love language, a reference to her meticulous organizational habits. Yet beneath the structure lies flexibility. When stress mounts, she resets through walks in fresh air and sunshine, ensuring her team experiences consistency in her energy, communication, and expectations.

She commits to continuous learning as a non-negotiable principle. When digital marketing emerged as a transformative force, she enrolled in Harvard Business School Executive Education. Now, as artificial intelligence reshapes the business landscape, she trains with MIT to understand generative AI architecture and leverage it to reinvent business value streams.

She draws inspiration from leaders who balance innovation with humanity: President Obama’s advocacy for empathy, Richard Branson’s comfortable relationship with failure, Herb Kelleher’s use of humor as a leadership tool. Yet her favorite definition comes from Sheryl Sandberg: “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and ensuring that impact lasts in your absence.”

A Legacy Rooted in Family Values

That philosophy extends to her most important legacy project: raising her daughter Harper, 11, and son Knox, 8. She teaches Harper emotional intelligence, agility, the spirit of competitiveness and the courage that comes from vulnerability. She teaches Knox intentional listening and respect for women, joking that he will be her “gift to womankind.”

These lessons reflect the foundation her own parents built with her mother’s grit in migrating from the Philippines to work as a nurse and support five children, and her father’s hard work and strategic thinking that carried him from a poor farming community to becoming a senior political adviser to the President of the Philippines.

Charting a New Entrepreneurial Path

In 2026, Tugaoen launches MOVE Marketing, a digital and AI-powered marketing agency dedicated to elevating hospitality and luxury brands. As Chief Marketing Strategist, she brings years of hospitality expertise, systems training and deep knowledge of revenue generation to help hotels, resorts, restaurants, and lifestyle brands maximize their commercial strategies through intelligent storytelling and data-driven precision.

Janice Tugaoen’s journey reflects a truth often overlooked in business leadership: the most powerful strategies emerge not from creating efficiencies and automation but from deep connection, to culture, to people, and to the values that make us fundamentally human.