Welcome to This Way Forward, the podcast where C-suite leaders unpack the bold strategic bets that changed everything.
In this episode, Charlie Newark-French sits down with Elaine Zhuang, General Manager of Strategy, Transformation, and Value Delivery at nbn, Australia’s National Broadband Network. She unpacks a pivotal moment from earlier in her career where a single boardroom challenge not only transformed a struggling hotel chain but also earned her a promotion to the Executive Committee, making her the youngest in the group's history.
The bold strategic bet
Juna Hotels was a struggling state-owned group, losing ground to global giants. Its growth plan was to keep building expensive, capital-intensive hotels with a dismal 3% ROI. As a junior observer in the boardroom, Elaine saw the flawed model and made an unprecedented bet: challenge the chairman and abandon ownership.
Her vision was a radical “three-way partnership”—uniting developers (to build), an international brand (for marketing), and Juna (for management). It was a career-defining risk that nearly got her kicked out of the room. But that single bet created an asset-light model that doubled the company’s portfolio and beat international incumbents at their own game.
In this episode:
Why building new hotels was a losing strategy (and the 3% ROI that proved it)
The three-party partnership model that outsmarted global giants
The boardroom challenge that led to a history-making promotion
What to do when you see a gap and need to step in to fill it
Why "scale does not require you to own everything"
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