Hello! My name is Tanna Swann- an American in London with 15 years privilege recruiting alongside some of the UK’s top hospitality partners. Hospitality IS people, in my opinion, so I refer to myself as being in the people business and I love what I do! Listening to businesses and individuals stories, witnessing their journeys and helping them to help each other along the way is my particular skill set.
Not unlike many people, my relationship with hospitality began as needs/must situation i.e. to fund my scholastic career. Once armed with degrees in Journalism and French, I arrived in London “for a summer” some 25+ years ago and at the live-in White Horse pub, Parsons Green. Caught the travel bug from my fellow Horses and after two years of backpacking, made London and hospitality my home. Working with truly amazing and unforgettable people, I spent the next ten years building my career by working in hospitality operations and sales in London’s high street and Michelin starred restaurants and luxury hotels.
It was while looking for my next hotel sales position that I first met recruitment consultants and my career took a new course. One in particular, asked the right questions about what drove my ambitions and what did not; where my skills lay and where I might need more development to move forward- a pointed, but informal conversation. In the end, he suggested that I seriously consider hospitality recruitment- his job- and indeed helped me to win my first recruitment position at Portfolio (now PSD).
Portfolio welcomed me into its hotel sales team in 2005 and that is where I learned the foundations of recruitment. Over the next 7.5 years, I constructed a vertical strength in luxury hotel sales & marketing continuously buttressing that with new connections across the operations and HR disciplines.
While attending a BBQ in 2012 and speaking to ex-colleagues Miranda, Suzie and Justine of Troika Recruitment, I realised I was ready to build a multi-discipline hotels desk. They invited me to join them and that is exactly what I did! Starting with my personal network of hotel candidates and clients and expanding into the quality restaurant, luxury retail and private members club sectors, I made it my business to know those businesses and their people. Partnering on integral leadership position searches was my privilege and joy under the Troika banner for 7.5 years. I worked with and for the best and was ready to grow again.
Stretch Recruitment is my new business baby, born in 2020 to the chaos of Covid-19 and a fully baked desire for personal growth: my own company! If not now, then when? Stretch Recruitment is my stretch and I look forward to helping candidates and clients across the hospitality industry and beyond find theirs!
Stretch Recruitment 