Johnston Gilfillan

Hometown: Sherrard, IL

Current Location: San Francisco, CA

Why did you choose SHA? I grew up with a passion (and obsession in many ways) with hotels. SHA was the perfect place to become a hospitality professional, to hone my customer service and empathy skills, learn the back ends of both the hotel and restaurant businesses, and being a jumping stone to an incredibly fun and successful career. SHA provided the best mix of a top hospitality education and an international city to get real world work experience that I simply could not pass. Moreover, they require you to study abroad and have programs all over the world! What better opportunity to have an adventure where you’ll have a guaranteed internship and learn a new culture? Those are two things critical to understand hospitality and travel in this ever-shrinking global economy.

What is your favorite BU memory?
One of my favorite BU memories was just before graduation where a group of us SHA students got to spend some quality time with professors at the BU pub sharing memories, stories, and talking about our future. Of course some pints were involved, but it was truly a valuable experience to get to know how professors as friends and acquaintances that would forever act as a support net in our careers. Additionally, I loved TA’ing for the intro cooking course – early mornings in the kitchen prepping for the chef’s lessons, learning knife skills and cooking basics, and of course getting a free meal out of it. Spending time at SHA’s amazing new classroom building and HQ back in 2006 was a real treat. I loved working on projects for F&B, HR, and Hotel Development courses. Lastly, walking down Comm Ave to class at any time seems surreal. What an incredible campus to attend!

What was your first full-time job, and how did you end up in your current position?
My first full-time job post-graduation was Staff Accountant and Manager in Training at Kimpton’s Onyx Hotel – downtown Boston. It was a unique position where I spent 2 – 3 days a week running AR and AP for our finance department, and the other days running housekeeping or the front desk.

The “how did I end up in my current position is a LONG story”, but here’s the short of it:

I moved to NYC to experience life at a travel startup called Jetsetter.com. I spent two years here before deciding to move to San Francisco. I then joined my second travel startup in SF called ZOZI.com leading travel partnerships (selling marketing opportunities to adventure tour operators). After 2.5 years at ZOZI, I joined my third travel startup called Checkmate.com that was at the perfect intersection of my hotel operations experience and tech experience selling a software to hotels to allow staff to text message with guests. This was a dream role and position that, unfortunately, end sooner than expected. Tis the risk we live every day at startups. After Checkmate, I spent a brief period at Lyft selling their business travel program to companies across the US. Shortly after, I decided to follow a close mentor and old boss to my first job outside of Travel at a company called LeadGenius – the goal being to build my skills within the sales role by selling data to large tech companies. Affirm was my opportunity to jump back into travel as their first Travel Partnerships lead on the sales team.

Please describe your current role, and how your SHA education has impacted your career?
My role is educate the travel industry about Affirm and installment loans as a new convenient way for travelers to book now and pay over time. I work with travel companies across segments – OTAs, Tour Operators, Marketplaces (think Airbnb, Outdoorsy, etc), Car Rentals, and others. My goal is to expand our partnerships within the travel industry and gather data from those partnerships to build a better underwriting model for financing travel purchases.

Any advice for current and prospective students?
Take advantage of the career services and faculty as much as possible to help start your career. Meet with your professors at office hours, take their advice, and when possible take every opportunity to network within SHA and within the awesome city of Boston. You’re going to have one of the best educations entering the work place but the people you meet and network you create will help you go so much further in your career than you would have ever imagined. Also, be open to risk – you never know where it can take your career, and life for that matter. Hospitality is more than hotels and restaurants – it’s something you can translate across industries within and outside of travel. Most importantly, live in different places throughout your 20s. Don’t invest in assets too early so you can be nimble. Seems crazy, but it’s worked really well for me :)