40% of Senior Roles Held by Women at Sonnel Hospitality

Women hold about 40% of senior roles across Sonnel Hospitality, and that figure has translated directly into career velocity for operators like Holly Mercer, who joined the group in August 2025 and was promoted to area manager by June 2026.

Mercer stepped into the general manager role at The Australian Hotel and Brewery shortly after joining, working within an all-female senior leadership team alongside head chef Amabelle Garcia. She describes the pairing as complementary: each brought different strengths, but a shared focus on people and results.

"There are strong, industry-experienced women leading at every level of the organisation, and that visibility has been both inspiring and empowering to me," Mercer said.

What does representation change for operators?

For Mercer, the answer is opportunity. Seeing women in senior roles made leadership feel achievable, and she argues the industry needs to pair visibility with real investment: mentorship, development, and chances for women to step into leadership and learn on the job.

"With representation has to come opportunity," she said. "We all have a responsibility to do that for others, whether that is developing someone into their first management role or helping an experienced leader take the next step."

Her own progression was supported by two senior women:

• Jacqui Corbett, general manager of operations, who acted as a mentor and challenged Mercer with the directive "be uncomfortable" — pushing her to take on roles she would otherwise have considered beyond her reach.
• Judith Mackenzie, general manager of people and culture, who exposed Mercer to the corporate side of the business and its strategic thinking.

Mercer now repeats Corbett's message to her own teams, on the logic that growth happens outside the comfort zone.

Results at venue level

In under a year at The Australian Hotel and Brewery, Mercer strengthened the venue's leadership team, set clearer operational expectations and built a culture centred on guest experience. The result, she says, was improved guest satisfaction and revenue growth — driven not just by tighter standards but by a team that grew in confidence and took ownership of outcomes.

Structured development backed the turnaround. Sonnel's Venue Leadership program brings leaders from every level into one room — from the COO and general manager of operations down to area and general managers — for continuous learning. Mercer credits the sessions with grounding leaders in basics that get lost in daily operations, and shifted her own approach to connecting with team members individually and understanding what motivates each of them.

Scaling culture across a portfolio

The promotion to area manager moved Mercer from running one venue to building leadership capability across several. Her focus is putting the right people and standards in place for consistent delivery, and the core tool is culture.

Sonnel has taken a co-creation approach to its values and principles, drawing people from across the business into the process so standards are shaped by those who live them rather than handed down. Mercer's current job with her GMs is turning those values into everyday habits — in how teams are led, how colleagues treat each other, and how guests are looked after every shift.

"For me it always starts with the employee experience," she said. "When people feel supported, see their leaders living the values, know what is expected and take pride in their work, it flows through to the guest experience, and guests who have a great time return, recommend us and become regulars."

Her measure of success in the role: building that employee-to-guest chain across the venues while developing the next generation of leaders.