26 SPECIAL REPORT October 2021 | HOTELMANAGEMENT.NET INFLUENTIAL U L IN HOSPITALITY MAKI BARA PRESIDENT/CO-FOUNDER CHARTRES LODGING Maki Nakamura Bara started her career at Sanwa Bank’s real estate group, then went on to The Yarmouth Group (a real estate fund manager), where she learned about hotels as an asset class. She has specialized in hospitality ever since, moving on to Strategic Hotels working in acquisitions, PWC in hospitality consulting and then Oxford Capital, where she rst experienced investing on her own account. “After that, I started Chartres Lodging with my partner, Rob Kline, in 2002,” she said. Bara was hooked on hospitality from the moment she started working in the sector. “I love that there are so many levers that can be manipulated to maximize value,” she said. “From menu pricing at the restaurant to spa offerings—no other real estate class has this level of complexity.” Room rates can be changed “at a moment’s notice” to react to the ever-changing demand/supply dynamics, she said, rather than waiting for leases to turn after years of waiting. “It didn’t hurt that as a 22-year-old newbie in the workforce, I was sent one week to see an of ce building in Fort Worth then the next week to the Westin Maui,” she recalled. “There was no contest after that!” Bara measures her success by how her life and career look today compared to what she wanted to achieve. “I am happy to say that I’m doing what I want, which is ‘creating’—creating value for my investors, employees and myself; and creating a culture and environment for my team that is challenging, rewarding, nurturing and also a lot of fun.” As a leader, she hopes to both be in uenced and to in uence others in a positive way. “If this means I can offer an idea or inspiration for someone that is accretive in some way, that is the type of in uence I’d like to have.” JUDI BIKULEGE CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER EXTENDED STAY AMERICA Judi Bikulege has been in the hotel industry since 1980, having started at the property level while in college. “My rst job in a hotel was a night auditor for a 1,100 room-room Sheraton in Orlando,” she recalled. She appreciated the many different facets of the industry and the lack of limits on workers. “You have beverage, you have rooms, you have accounting, you have sales and marketing,” she said. Taking full advantage of the opportunities, she moved through different disciplines, even spending time as a GM before moving into the corporate side of the business. In 1992, she became VP of acquisitions and nance at Gencom American Hospitality. Under the guidance of the company’s principal, Karim Alibhai, Bikulege began buying hotels and found her corner of the industry. “I spent probably the last 20 years of my career or more in acquisitions, dispositions and capital markets,” she said. While she has expanded into other sectors over the years and done some consulting work, she has always come back to hospitality. One of those consulting gigs was for Jim Alderman, at the time the new EVP for Extended Stay America. “Long story short, it ended up becoming a full-time gig rather than being a consulting agreement,” Bikulege said. She started with the company in March 2017 as senior managing director of real estate and moved into her current position in March 2020. Over the past 18 months, Bikulege has stepped up her mentoring efforts, working with the Castell Project to support other women in hospitality. “I’m trying to spend more time … talking to women that are coming up in the ranks and helping them nd their voice and nd their passion,” she said.