At Your Service

Okada Manila Managing Director Steve Wolstenholme talks about incomparable experiences and why there’s so much more to expect

- Marga Manlapig

"It’s been a tremendous experience,” declares Okada Manila Managing Director Steve Wolstenholme about the integrated resort’s first year. “We have worked to provide something quite spectacular, something that every Filipino could be proud of.”

Since its preview opening in December 2016, Okada Manila has grown by leaps and bounds, with new offerings up almost every month. At present, the structure already occupies 22 hectares, half of its 44-hectare site. Even then, it still has a long way to go.

“There are still amenities being added,” Wolstenholme admits. “[By the time we get to the advanced stages of construction,] this will be an integrated resort that’s going to be around for many years and is going to touch many lives.”

For Wolstenholme, who arrived in August 2015, every day has opened his eyes to the numerous opportunities that he sees in the hospitality industry, both in Greater Manila and in the Philippines as a whole.

Manila is, however, a long way from where his story began. Born and raised in England, Wolstenholme was educated in England and Canada and earned his MBA from the University of Western Ontario, Ivey Business School in Toronto.

“It was during the MBA programme that I first came to Asia,” he recalls. “I went to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong to understand what the Asian business dynamic was all about.”