Corporate Director of Operations in Carlsbad, California at Sethi Management

Sethi Management

Location: Carlsbad, CA (Strongly Preferred, Relocation Assistance Provided)
Role Type: Full-Time
Reports to: COO, Mohsen Khaleghi

About Sethi Hospitality

Sethi Management is a second-generation, family-owned investment, real estate development, and hospitality management company rooted in a simple belief:

Opportunity belongs to everyone — and at Sethi, we open doors.

We lead by prioritizing our people first – not just performance and profit. This is how we continue to create opportunity and build something enduring.

Sethi is, at its core, a community — a place where people stay connected across properties, support one another, and lead with shared values. Across more than 500 employees, partners, investors, and guests, Sethi embraces different perspectives while staying united by a shared purpose of opening doors and expanding opportunity for all.

Founded more than 40 years ago by J.P. Sethi and now led by CEO Ganisha Sethi, the company has built an award-winning and expanding portfolio that currently includes:

• 14 hotels

• A deeply loyal, long-tenured team

• A culture grounded in humility, care, excellence, and transparency

Sethi is known for having consistently high brand audit scores, exceptional guest service, and a rare culture where people feel valued, supported, and able to grow.

Today, under the leadership of CEO Ganisha Sethi and newly hired COO Mohsen Khaleghi, the company is entering a new chapter. The team is building a stable foundation for its next chapter of innovation and service.

The Opportunity

Sethi is hiring a Director of Operations — a values-driven hospitality operator who understands how the industry has traditionally worked and is ready to thoughtfully evolve it. This role pairs operational leadership with meaningful innovation: rethinking how people, risk, performance, and systems are designed in order to build a more sustainable, human-centered hospitality company. The Director will partner closely with the COO to honor what has made Sethi successful while actively shaping what comes next.

This role is ideal for a leader who:

You will be leading not just an operational portfolio, but a community of people who genuinely care for one another and believe hospitality changes lives.

The Role: Corporate Director of Operations

The Director of Operations is responsible for ensuring the operations of every property reflects the company’s values.

This role spans four core areas:

1. Operational Leadership

(~85% of the role) – managing with a hands-on approach

You will lead operations and ongoing innovation across Sethi’s hospitality portfolio, ensuring high performance, financial health, and exceptional guest experience. This includes:

• Leading and developing two Corporate Directors of Operations
• Supporting and elevating hotel General Managers
• Maintaining strong performance across brand audits and guest satisfaction
• Ensuring operational discipline, consistency, and continuous innovation and improvement
• Bringing a systems-level lens to people, process, and performance
  

Beyond running great operations, this is where the COO will have meaningful freedom to try the things they’ve always believed would make the industry better — and see them through, from concept to execution. That includes rethinking compensation, reducing turnover, improving structural cost forecasting, and challenging long-accepted hospitality norms in service of both people and performance.

You will be a central thought partner for how the company runs, evolves, and grows.

2. Strategic Forecasting & Performance Intelligence

At Sethi, forecasting goes far beyond revenue. You will help anticipate and navigate:

You’ll track leading indicators, identify patterns, and help the company take action before challenges arise.

This is one of the most strategic pieces of the role.

3. People Leadership, Culture, and Talent Development

Sethi’s culture is one of its greatest strengths. We operate as a community, not a hierarchy, and the COO plays a central role in strengthening that sense of connection, belonging, and shared leadership.

You will:

• Lead with humility, curiosity, and emotional intelligence
• Coach and develop leaders across the organization
• Build the company’s first formal leadership bench and pipeline
• Foster transparency, safety, and shared ownership
• Model conscious leadership practices and values
• Inspire high performance without unnecessary urgency or pressure.

4. Sales Strategy

You will collaborate closely with the CEO and Controller on:

• Investor communication and reporting
• Loan compliance, lender conversations, and financial stewardship
• Evaluating potential new development or acquisition opportunities
• Representing the company with franchise partners and brand leader
• Building relationships that support long-term growth
• Partnering to support strong investor outcomes, with a continued target of 10% annual returns for investor partners
• Over time, you shape the company’s strategic expansion and future deal flow

Who You Are

You are a hospitality operator who has led multi-property teams and understands the realities of ownership groups, investors, lenders, and franchise partners.

And equally important, you are a grounded, conscious leader.

The ideal candidate is:

Operationally Excellent

• 12+ years of experience in hotel hospitality, ideally within multi-property hotel management companies
• Fluency in Hilton/Marriott/Hyatt systems and standards
• Deep comfort with financials, forecasting, and operational analysis
• Detail-oriented, thoughtful, and calm in complexity

People-Centered

• Leads with humility, kindness, and accountability
• Coaches instead of commands
• Builds trust quickly and authentically
• Grows people and elevates teams

Emotionally Mature

A Values Match

• No false urgency
• Transparency, clarity, and shared ownership
• The belief that people are the foundation of performance
• Purposeful innovation – never settling for industry standards, driven to create and model new standards

Location

• Based in Carlsbad/San Diego (or willing to relocate eventually)
  

Compensation & Rewards

• Base Salary: Up to $200,000
• Annual Performance Bonus
• Profit Pool (launching 2026)
• 401(k) and benefits
• Exceptional industry travel perks: deeply discounted rates at Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt hotels worldwide (including luxury properties)
• Relocation support