Her origins

Rana was born in Beirut in 1977. She speaks Arab, her native tongue, but she speaks just as well in French and English, indispensable tools when working in the Hospitality industry. She received a Lebanese literary high school degree then she tried out management at the University which is “way too theoretical” for her.
Rana knows that she wants to travel and meet all kinds of people. Her cousin works in Hospitality and a friend spoke to her about the Paul Bocuse Institute whose reputation has largely surpassed French borders. She comes to visit Lyon, one week during the summer… Rana is convinced.

The Institut Paul Bocuse years and 6 years later

Rana Ghandour integrated the school to study Hotel & Restaurant Management in 1997.Her class, made up of about 15 students of all nationalities, made a profound impression on her. Together, they made up a ‘solidary and attentive family’. As most of them, Rana lived in the Clipper- the student housing- where the group bonded. 6 years later, they still keep in touch. Rana also remembers the two parts of her studies that are indispensable for learning her job: the classes and that of the internships. If the Institut is a “young school, the training offered there is no less efficient and adapted, in phase with reality”. Her first internship allowed her to discover the backstage of the Ritz in Paris, a six-month unique experience in an exceptional and luxurious hotel. During her second internship, she had the post of “cost control” for the reopening of the Phoenicia Intercontinental which had been closed since the beginning of the war: what a symbol! “It was huge” 450 rooms, 8 restaurants and 900 employees !

From San Francisco to Dubai

At the end of her studies at the Institute in 2000,Rana is sufficiently qualified to follow an 18 month “Management Training” at the Sofitel in San Francisco at the post of head of reservations. Returning to Lebanon, she works for a while in a software company dedicated to the Hospitality industry. Strong from this new experience, she links backs to the core of her job in the capital of Qatar, where she spends one and a half years at the Intercontinental Hotel as head of reservations, a domain in which she excels. Today and since October 2005, Rana lives in Dubai and works for the two Dubai Meridien Hotels that have no less than 1700 employees. This “fabulous experience, in the image of this city” confirms the choices she has made because “If I work a lot, this career is all that I love, the only thing that makes me happy”.

The projects…

Her determination and her curiosity encourages her to always learn more, to travel more, “avoid all routine” and “why not set up her own shop”…