Most people in HR will tell you the job is about people. What they rarely mention is how much of it is about paperwork — visas, contracts, compliance audits, payroll runs, offboarding checklists. The unglamorous scaffolding that holds a workforce together. Gladys Manalo not only knows this better than most; she built her understanding of it one department at a time, from the ground floor of a five-star hotel spa to the seat she now occupies as the sole People and Administration Manager for nearly 150 employees at Azumi Saudi Group in Riyadh.
She got there the long way. And that is precisely the point.
In 2013, Gladys arrived in Saudi Arabia as a Tea Bar Attendant during the pre-opening phase of the spa at Rosewood Hotel — a five-star property that, at the time, was one of the Kingdom’s more prestigious addresses. Entry-level is a polite way to describe where she started. But she was watching, absorbing, and positioning herself for whatever door would open next.
It opened faster than most would expect. Hotel management offered her the chance to study through the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute, and she took it without hesitation — attending training classes during breaks and after shifts. Within a year, she had moved into an Administrative Assistant role while simultaneously supporting the Reservations Department as a Sales Agent.
Learning the whole machine
What followed over the next several years was less a career ladder and more a deliberate tour of the entire hospitality operation. Gladys moved through Culinary Operations, Food and Beverage coordination, and then into a quality administration role at Marriott International’s Diplomatic Quarter property — which she joined during its construction phase and helped open. There, she served the dual function of Hotel Quality Administrator and Executive Assistant to both the General Manager and Hotel Manager, building administrative systems from scratch across Front Office, Culinary, Spa, Housekeeping, and HR.
“I have worked in almost every part of hospitality — from spa operations, hotel revenue department, culinary and Food and Beverage operations, administration, and even closely with executives and management teams,” she says. “Because of these experiences, I developed a deeper understanding of how operations and people work together to make a business successful.”
That understanding is not incidental to her current role — it is the foundation of it. When she joined what is now Azumi Saudi Group in 2022, beginning with ROKA Riyadh before leading the pre-opening administration for ROKA Jeddah, she brought with her a working knowledge of every department she would eventually be responsible for managing as a people and admin function. In 2024, she oversaw the launch of Zuma Riyadh while simultaneously managing the closure of ROKA Jeddah and the transition into the ROKA Ithra pop-up — three concurrent operations, each with its own administrative demands.
The reason she stayed
None of this happened in a vacuum. Behind the career arc is a far more personal story — one Gladys does not try to separate from her professional one, because she says they are the same story.
She became a mother young. When she left for Saudi Arabia, her daughter was one year old. The decision to go was not made lightly, and it was not made alone — it was made in a moment of clarity that she still remembers with precision.
“I still remember the moment I looked at my one-year-old daughter and promised myself that I needed to dream bigger — not only for myself, but especially for her,” she says. “Choosing to work abroad was never an easy decision, particularly as a single mother who had to be away from her child, but that sacrifice became my greatest motivation.”
The early years were marked by the particular loneliness of the OFW experience — homesickness, the guilt of missing milestones, the pressure of being the financial backbone of a family back home. She was also, she notes without self-pity, the eldest daughter shouldering responsibility for her mother and brother. The weight was real. She carried it by staying focused on the reason she came.
And she did not stop learning. In 2020, in the middle of her overseas career, she enrolled through the ETEEAP program and completed a bachelor’s degree in International Hospitality Management at the Lyceum of the Philippines University by 2022 — the same year she stepped into her current managerial post. The timing was not coincidental.
More than a job title
The role Gladys holds now is, by any measure, a significant one. Being the sole HR and admin manager for an organization of nearly 150 people means there is no one else to defer to when a problem lands on the desk. She handles it. But she has also made the position something beyond its official description.
Fellow Filipinos working in Saudi Arabia have found their way to her — not always with professional inquiries, but with real needs. Jobseekers. Workers in difficult situations. People who needed someone in a position of influence to take their call.
“Many kabayans have reached out to me,” she says. “Most of those who were really in need, I was able to help by referring them to some of our partner companies, since I am in a position where I have the connections to do so.”
That instinct — to use access as a form of service — shapes how she thinks about what comes next. After thirteen years abroad, Gladys is turning her attention toward home. She plans to return to the Philippines, reconnect with family, and start a small Airbnb with food and beverage services in her province, drawing directly on the hospitality expertise she has spent over a decade building. She also intends to be more open about supporting children’s education — something she has quietly done for years, and which she now considers a genuine advocacy.
What she would tell her younger self
There is a line Gladys returns to when she talks about advice for fellow Filipinos working abroad, and it doubles as the principle she has lived by since 2013: “Don’t stop learning. Continue learning and improving yourself, because your knowledge, skills, and experience are things that no one can ever take away from you.”
It is not a platitude when it comes from someone who studied between shifts at a five-star hotel, earned a degree while managing restaurant openings in two cities, and built a management career out of sheer accumulated competence.
In 2025 — after more than a decade apart — her eldest daughter finally joined her in Saudi Arabia. The promise made to a one-year-old, in a quiet moment before a flight, had kept its shape across all those years.
“I have no doubt,” she says, “that after thirteen years here, my dream of having a complete family and becoming a fulfilled person will come true.”
She already has the evidence to believe it.
