During a featured conversation at HD Expo + Conference 2022 in Las Vegas, Todd-Avery Lenahan, president and chief creative officer of Wynn Design & Development, will share his vision for a new era of development in luxury experiences. He helms teams across architecture, interiors, construction, procurement, finance, HR, F&B, wellness, nightlife, and concept development to create the future of Wynn Resorts. Here, we revisit an interview with Lenahan from our August 2021 issue.
What keeps you passionate about the industry?
The thrill of increasingly complex challenges with new people in new places in a rapidly evolving world culture.
How do you see hospitality evolving in the next five to 10 years?
I’d like to see our industry become more socially and environmentally responsible in our development, design, construction, and operating practices. Hotels and resorts have a profound ability to heighten social and environmental consciousness.
The Delilah restaurant and lounge at Wynn Las Vegas
What have you learned from the past year that has changed your approach to hospitality?
The past year has proven that surprise, uncertainty, and crisis will continue to be systemic within our industry. In the past 30 years, we’ve experienced terrorism, wars, recessions, seismic political shifts, and a global pandemic, all of which have had an unprecedented impact. After each crisis, people yearn to travel, explore, escape, and reconnect, and our industry’s ability to be agile, anticipatory, and responsive is what sustains us time and again.
What’s a project you’re working on, or one that has recently opened, that you’re most proud of?
Each of the projects I’ve worked on or am currently working on is a child that I love as much as its siblings. However, the work I completed on the island of Lana’i [in Hawaii] has helped restore the local people’s optimism and pride-of-place, and has therefore been exceptionally rewarding in that the impact goes far beyond what most guests will ever consciously decode, but that they’ll certainly feel in the soulful health and spirit of the people serving them.
Piece of advice you would tell your younger self?
Metaphorically speaking, enjoy the sensation of soft hair on your head, as it won’t last forever!
Hear more from Lenahan:
HD Conversation on Thursday, April 28th
11:15 a.m. –11:45 a.m.
Location: HD Park
