UTSC alumna Reetu Gupta has been named to a very exclusive list: in late 2020, Reetu was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by WXN (Women’s Executive Network), a title she also picked up in 2019. In 2017, Reetu was recognized with a Canada’s Top 40 under 40 award.
Graduating from UTSC Scarborough with a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in 2005, Reetu went on to complete a Master’s of Business Administration at the Schulich School of Business, York University in 2008.
Currently, Reetu is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Easton’s Group of Hotels, the Gupta Group and The Gupta Family Foundation. She is also co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Rogue Insight Capital.
Tell me a bit about you and your family. Where did you grow up?
One of the first things people learn about me in the first three minutes of meeting me is that I’m from Scarborough. I love Scarborough!
My family business started when my parents moved from India. They opened a truck stop, a Harvey’s and a Swiss Chalet in Port Hope, Ontario. They opened up their first hotel there.
Now, my family has 17 operating hotels, all in Ontario and Quebec. We own, develop and manage all our own hotels.
My heart and dreams were always within the hotel industry. When we were kids, my sister wanted to play house, but I always wanted to play ‘office.’ My dad had given me a business cardholder, and I would use that as a little briefcase to play.
Was your time as a student at UTSC valuable to meeting your career goals?
With business, if you have the education you can do so much more. I was closer to U of T’s downtown campus, but I wanted to go to UTSC. They had a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and the co-op program. I wanted to focus on management and marketing, and the BBA at UTSC was more a ‘business-centric’ degree than an economic or commerce degree, like the one at St. George campus.
My co-op experience was very, very good. I did co-op for one session because I wanted to graduate on time. I was just so excited to apply what I had learned! It was through the co-op placement that I learned that my heart and dreams were with my own family business.
There were so many great profs at UTSC. I loved my marketing classes, and marketing is still my passion. That’s what pushed me to become VP of Sales and Marketing. I ended up taking what I learned back to the hotels.
How do you define effective leadership?
For me, a good leader has to have love and respect for everyone around them. It’s about diversity in thought, and unity. The human element has always been important.
Philanthropy is also important to me. Before the pandemic, we would do fundraising for different charities. Once the pandemic hit and the whole world was at standstill, our company focused on kindness. We launched “Project Kindness” last year. Within the first 24 hours, our staff had collected more than 1,800 pounds of food for the Second Harvest Food Bank.
The hotel industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, but our company has reminders that there are people out there worse off than us. We’ve donated masks to the University Health Network, goods to senior’s homes, breakfasts to homeless shelters. We have been active all year.
Were there any “glass ceilings” you needed to break in order to move up in your industry? Or, did you feel you needed to “earn your stripes”?
When I started at the hotels, it was all Caucasian men. I was the only woman, I was the only South Asian woman and I was the youngest. It wasn’t an easy path. Being the boss’s daughter was also not an easy thing to be.
It taught me to believe in myself. I wasn’t going to let any of that stop me. Fear wasn’t going to stop me. I tuned out all that negative criticism and the looks I would get. People would try to make it seem like I wasn’t doing the right things, so I worked hard to prove what I was doing to myself and nobody else.
I’m also blessed to have really supportive parents. My father raised us with respect and always empowered us as women. When my Dad and I discussed my taking the role as CEO, I had posed the question to him, “Do you think there will be an issue with the role being taken over by a female?” He replied, “What difference does that make?”
You have been frequently recognized as a powerful leader. What is the “secret” of your success?
Education has always been so important. In life, wealth can go, health can go. But when you educate yourself, nobody can take that away from you. Education is intrinsically empowering.
I do think that [as women] we tend to doubt ourselves more. I think men doubt themselves too, but they just do a better job of hiding it. Sometimes, women need that extra push to believe in themselves.
I don’t think there’s any one secret. But what I would say, the advice I would give to all people, boils down to what I call the “3C’s”: Courage, confidence and conviction.
Have the courage to believe in yourself. Have the confidence to believe in every aspect of yourself. And then go down that road with absolute conviction.
Learn more about the UTSC Department of Management and its renowned co-op program.
Photo: Reetu Gupta (Arthur Mola)