About Eric

Eric Kudlak brings together two complementary perspectives on hospitality: practical experience within hotel operations and the broader commercial understanding gained through hotel brokerage. His subsequent work as a broker brought him into direct contact with operational teams, management and ownership across a wide range of properties, deepening his understanding of how a hospitality business works at every level.

His career began in hotel operations, progressing from frontline service roles through food and beverage management to hotel general management. That foundation created a practical understanding of how a hotel actually functions — not only from the perspective of the guest, but also through the realities of staffing, service delivery, departmental performance and day-to-day execution.

He later moved into consulting and then hotel brokerage, where he spent a significant part of his career advising on and selling hotel assets. This broadened his perspective considerably, adding a deeper understanding of hotel profitability, asset performance and the commercial relationship between individual departments — particularly restaurants and food and beverage operations — and the wider financial performance of the property.

As a broker, Eric spent extensive time visiting hotels and conducting detailed property walkthroughs with general managers before presenting those assets to potential buyers. Those visits became an important part of his professional development and provided exposure to a wide range of management styles, operational cultures and leadership standards.

Some general managers embraced these walkthroughs. They carried a notebook, recorded what they saw and treated every observation as an opportunity to improve the property — a curtain that needed adjusting, a stain that required attention, a maintenance issue in a particular room. They noticed the detail and, more importantly, took responsibility for it.

Others might see the same defect and simply say, “Yes, that happens all the time,” before moving on. That difference was revealing.

Recognising a problem is not the same as owning it.

Even the smallest details could say a great deal. A general manager who walks past a scrap of paper on the floor without picking it up is communicating a standard, whether intentionally or not. If the person leading the hotel is prepared to overlook it, it becomes difficult to expect the team to behave differently.

Over time, Eric developed a strong instinct for assessing how effectively a property is being managed — by observing what a general manager notices, what they accept, how they respond to problems, how they speak about their people and whether they take genuine ownership of the business around them.

Today, that experience informs the way Eric approaches every Opus Servus engagement.

He is comfortable looking at a hospitality business from both ends of the spectrum — from the larger strategic and commercial picture down to the smallest details of day-to-day execution. That means understanding the performance of the property as a whole, while also being able to focus on the details that ultimately shape that performance: the way a service is delivered, the way a kitchen operates, or even the balance, presentation and profitability of an individual dish.

His approach is practical, observant and direct, with a focus on identifying the changes that can genuinely improve standards, strengthen operations and create lasting value.