AED 1,200. That was Ruth Samantha Jaro Lita’s first salary in the UAE — and she sent most of it home. She had arrived in 2015 with 1,000 Philippine pesos in her pocket, no hospitality experience, and no guarantee that any of this would work out.
She came with little more than determination — and a quiet resolve to prove that where she started would not be where she stayed.
“Those early years were challenging, but they taught me resilience, discipline, and humility,” she shares with TGFM. “I pushed myself to learn everything from scratch and gave 100% in every opportunity I was given.”
Today, at 32, Ruth is the Learning and Development Manager at Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental Abu Dhabi — one of the most prestigious addresses in the Arab world. The distance between those two points in her life is not measured in years alone.
Starting at zero
Before the UAE, Ruth worked as a customer service representative in the Philippines. She was not trained in hospitality. She did not have the height that some establishments required of their frontline staff back home — a standard she would later describe as one of the most defining obstacles of her early career.
“Coming from a background where I experienced discrimination in the Philippines due to height requirements in hospitality, I learned an important lesson: limitations imposed by others do not define your potential.”
She moved abroad seeking something she could not easily find at home: room to grow. What she found instead was a proving ground. Her first role in the UAE was as a waitress at Palazzo Versace Dubai, where she was part of a pre-opening luxury hotel team. She was learning table service, yes — but she was also learning the culture of excellence that defines the top tier of the industry.
From there, her path moved steadily upward. Order taker. Team leader. Supervisor. Assistant Food and Beverage Manager. Each role carried new weight, new expectations, and new lessons she absorbed with the kind of attention that distinguishes people who are serious about their craft.
The shift from frontline to the classroom
The turn toward learning and development was not abrupt. It grew from something Ruth had always done informally — mentoring colleagues, supporting her team, contributing to workplace culture in ways that went beyond her job description.
When she stepped into an L&D role at Mandarin Oriental Abu Dhabi, and later joined the pre-opening team at Wynn Al Marjan Island before returning to lead L&D at Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, it became clear that this was where her experience and her instincts converged.
“What I love most about my current role is being able to inspire and develop people,” she says. “Coming from the frontlines of hospitality, I understand the challenges of the job, and I now use that experience to help others grow.”
She describes her career highlight not as a promotion or a title, but as a realization: “I have come full circle — from being trained, to now training others.”
It is a line that sounds simple until you trace the decade behind it.
What she is building toward
Ruth’s ambitions extend well beyond her current role. She speaks of a future in which she returns to the Philippines not as someone who made it abroad, but as someone who comes back to build something lasting.
“After my overseas journey, I aspire to become an educator and mentor in the hospitality industry,” she says. “One of my dreams is to build a learning space or school that focuses on both skills and character development — because hospitality is not only about serving guests, but about creating meaningful human connections.”
It is an aspiration rooted in her own experience of arriving with nothing and being taught — by circumstances as much as by mentors — what the work actually demands.
Her advice to fellow Filipinos working abroad carries that same grounded clarity: “You are the driver of your own career. Others may guide you, but only you can decide where your journey goes.”
For Ruth, the journey began with a tray and a first-day uniform. It has since taken her to the rooms where people are shaped into professionals. And she is not done yet.
