Throughout her career, Kimberly Grant has contributed greatly to the success of numerous brands in the hospitality and food and beverage industries. This intentional pathway was established by Grant early on, stemming from her choice to pursue a career in hospitality by learning from the ground up and reflecting her tenacity for personal growth and development. Grant started as a server for a local restaurant chain in Reston, Virginia in the early 90’s. Seeing opportunity for upward mobility, she remained with Morrison Restaurants, which became Ruby Tuesday Restaurants, and realized a genuine passion for the hospitality industry.
Using that role as a cornerstone, she worked her way through various roles within the restaurant chain, achieving promotions to trainer and manager. The experience was a unique avenue to learn the industry from the inside out, giving her a clear perspective on day-to-day operations, employee challenges, and customer feedback. “My professional career in leadership roles began in my mid/late 20s,” Grant recalled. “I was a young, eager traveling executive responsible for many outlets of a restaurant chain in the southeastern United States. I had a lot to learn but was eager to work hard and do my job well.”
Realizing she wanted to become even more involved in the industry and company, Kimberly Grant went on to pursue her MBA in finance and banking from Boston University, adding a new qualification to her growing list. In 21 years with the company, her tenure culminated with her taking on the role of president and chief operating officer for Ruby Tuesday Restaurants; in that capacity, she helped the company achieve a total revenue watermark of $1.8 billion in 800+ restaurants across in 45 states and 13 countries.
Adding to her responsibilities of strategy and operations, Kimberly Grant has also taken it upon herself at each stage of her career to ensure that the companies she leads foster a strong culture and a ‘do what’s right’ attitude. As a leader, she believes that ensuring a safe, inclusive, and respectful work environment is a critical priority for every company. When the MeToo Movement became mainstream and in particular, was a high-profile issue in the culinary/chef community, Grant became proactive in her company’s efforts to advocate for a broader agenda of overall respect in the workplace. I felt the responsibility to talk about it more generally because lack of respect and hostility against others was so pervasive in the culinary community and things needed to evolve,” said Grant. “MeToo obviously was focused on women, but it was important to me that we leveraged this moment in time as a catalyst for bigger and broader change that was long overdue.”
This inclusive approach has become a part of Grant’s personal beliefs, permeating the work she does at every organization she influences. “The pursuit of a diverse and inclusive workforce at all levels of an organization is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Kimberly Grant. “But in this race, there really is no finish line — it is more of an evolved journey in business and life. Many of the organizations I am involved with have successfully fostered impact groups to create a deeper sense of community and allyship for often marginalized social groups.” Rather than being discouraged by the lack of diversity, Grant uses her platform to promote change. She regularly advocates for women in business, believing that others can use her story to fuel their aspirations for intentional growth. “What I tried to do is just lead by example and be able to demonstrate there’s a pathway for all types of leaders,” she said. “It’s something that we work at every single day.”
This example is evident across over 30 years of corporate experience. During her time as global head of restaurants and bars at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Grant demonstrated her ability to drive innovation and growth while relaunching an F&B strategy that impacted over 621 restaurants and 127 hotels and resorts worldwide. As a result of the transformation strategy, Four Seasons highlighted its image as a luxury brand known for exceptional dining experiences provided to guests and creative, collaborative environments its craftsmen and women.
By setting intentions backed by goals and strategies that are as deployable as they are transformative, Grant continues to innovate with each organization she works with. In her current capacity as an independent director on boards and strategic consultant for hospitality companies, she regularly provides insights into developing key strategies across operations to attract, recruit, hire and develop a diverse workforce. “Having a more diverse leadership team always begins at having strong levels of diversity in the entry-level roles and championing intentional programs that help under-represented emerging talent successfully navigate a career pathway in the organization, explained Grant.
