Airport Experience® News - Leadership Issue 2024

MENTORS & MENTEES Industry Players Share Teaching and Learning Experiences

BY AIRPORT EXPERIENCE NEWS

Editor’s Note: There are few who can truly say they’ve reached their career goals solely on their own. Instead, we emulate, we learn and we grow in our careers due in part to the people who surround us. Some of those individuals take an active interest in our career growth, becoming mentors who can be relied on for guidance.

Once established in a career, some of those same people who benefited from mentoring on their career journeys also reach behind them, giving a hand up to others along a similar path. Each relationship is personal and unique. Below, a few individuals from our industry share their stories.

ERIN HUMPHREYS, Founder of Enroute Spa and Partner of both SSP America and Hudson Growing up in an airline family, my parents were my first mentors. Both my mother, a flight attendant, and my father, a pilot, not only loved their passengers but also dedicated themselves to serving their unions at both the local and national levels. Through their work, I learned early on the importance of advocating for colleagues while still aligning with company goals. That “both, and” mentality became a cornerstone of my worldview. There’s no “us vs. them” – it’s all of us. For most of my career as an entrepreneur, I never had a mentor – until I met Bob Stanton. I didn’t realize what a loss this was until Bob came into my life. Bob has been instrumental in expanding my understanding of business at scale, particularly in the airport environment. He’s helped me grow beyond the small concessions operator I’ve been for the past two decades. But what’s even more powerful is how Bob embodies that “both, and” mentality in his approach to mentoring. Bob understands that leadership isn’t about choosing between results and relationships, efficiency and empathy – it’s about integrating them. He teaches me that you can be both a fierce business strategist and a deeply caring, people-first leader. You can prioritize the bottom line and invest in the well-being of your team, because when you do, the bottom line thrives. What I admire most about Bob is his ability to see the bigger picture while never losing sight of the people in it. Bob is the perfect example of the adage, “leave this world a better place.” If anyone has lived that out, it’s him.

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AX NEWS DECEMBER 2024 / JANUARY 2025