Noélia Reis

There can be no personal or professional growth without a little pain or some setbacks. All our achievements are the fruit of our choices and our ability to transform problems into challenges and pains into life lessons. My first contact with this company happened when I was 15 years old, during a summer internship programme. Financial need and the resulting glimmer of the future were my driving force! Back in the 1990s, after I graduated from high school, I went to Algarve University to study tourism. After the first two weeks I left and came back to the island as I felt that going to university would worsen my financial problems. That’s why I went back to a guaranteed job as a receptionist at Estalagem Onda Azul inn. That’s where the adventure started and has lasted until today... I was well aware that I needed training to be able to handle the demands and challenges of the job and so I enrolled in the academy to learn German (back in the day, when it still took an hour to get to Funchal). My idea was to acquire the knowledge I needed to be hired by the prestigious Hotel Calheta Beach, which was under construction at the time. After the hotel opened in 1999, I worked there as a receptionist for three years, after which I was promoted to head of reception, where I stayed until 2015. When the Hotel Saccharum opened in 2015, a new opportunity appeared as a result of ‘our’ growth as a group. Thanks to this, I worked as a management assistant for a year. After the takeover of the Savoy Group in 2016, I was promoted to management advisor. Here, as in any job I do, I put my heart and soul into MAKING IT HAPPEN. I recognise that my inspiration is the people I work with every day and I’m very lucky because I have the people that I want with me. I owe them everything!