Built by hoteliers, for hoteliers.

Every great hospitality business is a machine for producing hellos — the remembered name, the coffee made right, the light left on for a late arrival. Warm instinct is where it starts. A business is what makes it repeatable.

thousandHellos builds the machinery. Documents, tools and software for owners and operators who love the craft and need the systems behind it.

Who builds this

Two founders, both French, both in Lisboa, both still working inside hotels rather than writing about them from outside. Between us, more than forty years in the industry: one from operations, one from brand and marketing. Neither of us has done a day of it from a boardroom.

Thierry

More than twenty five years inside Starwood and Marriott International, every department from the kitchen up.

He started in 2001 as Food & Beverage Manager at the Sheraton Porto Alegre in Brazil, and stayed five years. Then Sheraton Barra in Rio de Janeiro, running the operation. In 2007 he came to Portugal as Director of Food & Beverage at the Sheraton Porto, and in 2009 to Lisboa as executive assistant to the General Manager.

In 2011 he went to Paris as Hotel Manager of Le Méridien Étoile — 1,025 rooms, the largest hotel in France. Then London, as General Manager of the Sheraton Skyline at Heathrow. In 2019 he returned to Lisboa as General Manager of the Sheraton Lisboa Hotel & Spa. Since September 2026 he has been opening General Manager of Quinta do Mar, an Autograph Collection hotel in Sintra.

Four countries, three languages, and the 6 a.m. delivery in all of them.

Pauline

Brand & Marketing Strategist, with more than fifteen years in luxury hospitality, on the side of the business that fills the rooms rather than runs them.

She started in 2008 in public relations in Paris, at Porter Novelli and then Ruder Finn. In 2010 she joined Starwood, running marketing across its five Paris properties — Le Méridien Étoile, The Westin Paris Vendôme, Prince de Galles, W Paris Opéra and the Sheraton Paris Airport — and took Starwood's EAME Marketing Award in 2014.

In 2015 she moved to London as Director of Marketing at W London, where she built an events programme running to more than forty a year and was named Brand & Marketing Leader of the Year in 2017. Since coming to Lisboa she has coached more than 120 founders in marketing at LiveMentor, run brand and partnerships for Lisbon and Porto Coffee Weeks, and served as Brand & Marketing Director of TEDxMarvila. One of her latest projects is leading brand and marketing for Villa Dorothéa in Lapa, which she has taken from pre-opening to launch.

Brand, positioning, content, partnerships, and the uncomfortable question of whether anyone outside the building can tell what makes a property different.

Why both

Most hospitality tools are built by one side or the other. Operations people build things that work and nobody adopts. Marketing people build things that look right and do not survive a Tuesday in February. We would rather argue it out between us before it reaches you.

Hospitality is simply an opportunity to show love and care.

Why thousandHellos exists

Most operators we meet are good at the hello and short of the machine. They know exactly how the guest should feel, and have no system that guarantees it on the third Tuesday of a bad month.

The consultancies that sell them the machine tend to remove the hello in the process. You get a deck, a set of KPIs, and a business that runs on numbers nobody in the building believes in.

The machinery exists to protect the welcome, never the other way round. Occupancy, staffing, the 6 a.m. delivery — none of it matters on its own. It exists so the guest is met, known, and remembered.

How we work

Open numbers. Every recommendation arrives with a figure, a margin, or a case. If a recommendation can't survive being explained, it isn't one.

Open prices. What things cost is on the page. You will never have to ask to find out.

We write to you, not to the industry. No "operators should." You can, or you shouldn't, and here is why.

Show the workings. You get the spreadsheet, not a screenshot of the spreadsheet. Our assumptions are visible and you are welcome to disagree with them.

Generosity before the contract. Something useful is always free. Some people take it and go. That is a fine outcome.

What we don't do

We don't do brand identity, interiors, or architecture — we will happily tell you who to call.

We don't sell advice by the hour. We build things you keep.

We don't take a percentage of your revenue.

The name

thousandHellos — one word, lowercase t, capital H. The capital H is the hello standing up to greet you.

The mark is a lowercase t and a capital H joined by a single shared crossbar. The t is the host — taller, because the host rises first; lowercase, because a good host is humble. The H is the guest. The crossbar is the hello.

Remove the crossbar and the letters fall apart. Without the hello, there is no business.

Say hello

Lisboa, Portugal · hello@thousandhellos.com

We build the businesses behind a thousand hellos.