Jonathan Frolich has worked for the Hyatt and Andaz in both North America and the Asia-Pacific region. Now, as managing director of Carlyle & Co, Frolich is tasked with leading the concept, development, design delivery and executional operation of the club
Private members’ club Carlyle & Co has become a hub for connection and inspiration. Born from Rosewood Hong Kong CEO Sonia Cheng’s vision, Carlyle & Co celebrated its three-year anniversary in June, unveiling three weeks of events and curated experiences. We speak to the club’s managing director Jonathan Frolich about his leadership style and why Lenny Kravitz is on his wish list of performers.
With over 20 years in global hospitality, how have your previous experiences shaped your approach to managing Carlyle & Co?
Carlyle & Co is really all about experiences and experience design. To create these unexpected experiences takes a lot of thought, strategy, innovation and creativity. I used to work for the Hyatt for many years, beginning in Adelaide in Australia, where I was born—I actually started as a bellboy in that hotel when I was doing my hospitality management degree— then I worked in the Park Hyatt in Sydney, then in Los Angeles, then Hong Kong for the first time, [from] 2007 for two years. Then I was sent to the corporate office of Hyatt in Chicago. I became the general manager for the then newly built Andaz on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The beauty of this role was that it was my first go at brand creation and journey mapping. It’s all about crafting experiences that are unique and special—at the core of hospitality is creating memorable moments for people that really last. That might sound simple, but it’s not, because you’re dealing with people’s emotions.
Jonathan Frolich is the managing director of Carlyle and Co (Photo: Zed Leets/Tatler Hong Kong)
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Was heading a members’ club always the goal?
Not in the early days; I was super passionate about hotels. Private members’ clubs only really came up later in my career through an opportunity with Rosewood, which was looking for somebody to help drive this new concept. I always want to grow and stretch myself and, after 23 years of working in hotels, I felt I needed another challenge. Hospitality is my calling, but I wanted to find something that was tangential to hotels but still allowed me to express my hospitality passion. With Carlyle & Co, I really felt like I had to go back to school and adopt a student mindset, because it’s a fundamentally different business to hotels. I really needed to learn and understand how the business worked in order to try to make it successful.
Café Carlyle—Hong Kong’s tribute to the legendary jazz bar at the Carlyle in New York—celebrates its third anniversary this month. How would you describe the journey from inception to now?
It’s been an amazing experience. Café Carlyle within Carlyle & Co is only the second Café Carlyle in the world. Café Carlyle in New York has been around for almost 70 years as an icon of entertainment, cabaret and live music. The journey [in Hong Kong] started with being extremely respectful, careful and intentional in our approach to ensure that we maintained the [standards] that Café Carlyle has set for a live music venue. We were aiming to raise the bar for live music and entertainment in Hong Kong; that was our north star. It’s about the act of storytelling; the connection with the audience; the design; the close seating and style of service. It’s about having the right balance between international acts that have never been to Hong Kong before and celebrating the best musical talent across Hong Kong.
