JACKSON, WY—Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts has appointed Michael Mestraud as general manager of Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole.
Mestraud arrived in Jackson Hole after 15 years with Four Seasons. He started in late 1999 in the front office of Four Seasons Hotel Chicago and moved into food and beverage before relocating to become room service manager of Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. A little over a year later, he left the company briefly but returned in 2003 to manage room service at the former Four Seasons Resort Provence at Terre Blanche.
In Southern France, Mestraud climbed the management ladder, becoming first banquet and pool manager, then assistant director of food & beverage. Then, in 2008, he became director of food & beverage of Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora. Three years later, he was appointed resort manager of the island property, a position he held for close to a year and a half.
In 2012, Mestraud returned to the U.S. as resort manager of Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara on the coast of California.
Throughout his Four Seasons career, Mestraud has embraced the company’s core tenet of connecting positively with managers and employees. “I learned early on that you can’t change anything if you don’t get to know the people,” he said. Similarly, he is always careful to listen to guests rather than think for them, likening his attentiveness to client comment cards to “pressing a lemon and extracting the juice of what people really need.”