Since 1936, Rockefeller Center has been synonymous with Christmas.

And in 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, a small team of committed workaholics busted their asses to keep that 84-year-old tradition alive.

This is our story.

Bum bum. 🎵

P.S. — I’d like to dedicate today’s issue to the two greatest legends in the history of the Holidays: Ben McLoskey & Tim Minter.

God I was grateful

Five years ago, I gave up my successful real estate advisory practice when one of my clients offered me my dream job.

The client was Tishman Speyer, a major real estate corporation who owns and operates one of the most iconic pieces of real estate in the world—

Rockefeller Center. 🎄

The timing was nuts.

A few months after accepting the role in December of 2019, the world halted as the global pandemic unleashed chaos everywhere.

If I had declined that role, my income would have shrunk substantially, as most of my former clients (understandably) put their projects on hold.

I watched as colleagues were struggling to keep their businesses afloat — all while my livelihood remained largely untouched by the horrifying impacts of the pandemic.

So my mindset at that point was pure gratefulness. 

And while on the surface, gratefulness would seem like a healthy mindset, in practice, it primed me to get royally screwed.

So what was my job… exactly?

Tishman Speyer, like many other commercial real estate companies at the time, didn’t want to simply be a landlord anymore.

They wanted to own and operate businesses on their properties.

If done well, not only could this strategy result in higher margins, it would give them dramatically more control over the visitor and tenant experience.

Which, for a place like Rockefeller Center, was a huge advantage.

Tishman Speyer already owned and operated two of the most famous businesses on the property:

• Top of the Rock observation deck 📸 

• Rainbow Room restaurant and event space 🌈

But perhaps the most iconic business at Rockefeller Center was not owned by Tishman Speyer—

The ice rink. ⛸️

The ice rink and adjacent restaurants had long been owned and operated by a tenant — Patina Restaurant Group.

But Patina’s lease was ending in January 2020, and Tishman Speyer had no intention of renewing.

Early in 2019, they hired me as a consultant to work with a world-class team of architects and engineers who had been brought in for a top-secret project—

The redevelopment of Rockefeller Center’s concourse, plaza, and beloved ice rink. 

The guest experience in those areas, especially during the holiday season, was embarrassingly horrendous.

I was honored to be on the team that was redesigning the Rockefeller Center experience to be worthy of the bucket-list status it held for people around the world. ❤️

My role within that team was to:

• Perform feasibility studies on critical mechanical aspects of the construction plan.

• Stress-test dozens of architectural schematics to optimize the design.

• And develop a business plan for Tishman Speyer to orchestrate as the soon-to-be-owner of the most famous ice rink in the world.

However, when I accepted a full-time position, my scope shifted from simply being an advisor, to being the person who actually had to execute everything.

Covid Schmovid

When most people imagine Rockefeller Center, they envision the famous plazas, Saturday Night Live, a giant Christmas tree, and Tina Fey.

But the economics of Rockefeller Center is underpinned by its six million square feet of leasable office space.

And guess what office tenants stopped doing during the pandemic? 🤷

Paying rent. 🤦

This left Tishman Speyer in a precarious position. Some quiet layoffs soon led to a rigid hiring freeze.

That really sucked for me.

I was responsible for launching a completely new business which included the upcoming wintertime ice rink, followed by the summertime activation of the sunken plaza.

We needed solid operational talent to pull this off, and the leanest, zero-contingency version of my holiday launch plan included hiring three superstar venue managers.

…Not a huge ask for a business that would require nearly 150 hours of management coverage every damn week. 🙄

And after months of begging, I finally got permission to hire—

One. F*cking. Person.

A single venue manager.

All other staffing would be strictly seasonal, facilitated through a temp agency.

And since I didn’t feel like I had any leverage in this strange new pandemic world, I just put my head down, and decided to personally fill in the management gaps.

To pile on, we were under construction at this point, and the redevelopment budget was moving under our feet. Designs were being redrafted on a weekly basis, and nobody could predict where things would land.

But pandemic or no pandemic, team or no team, we needed to be ready to open our doors to thousands of skaters, and millions of holiday visitors, in a few months time.

Through wars, depressions, terrorist attacks, and devastating blizzards, Rockefeller Center had been the beacon of Christmas every year since 1936— 

And I was NOT going to be the one to drop that 84-year-old ball. 🎄

The weight of responsibility was heavier than a dozen Santa Clauses sitting on my shoulders.

Let’s hear it for the boys

When the task in front of you seems impossible, the best move is to enlist help from people you’d trust with your life.

And for me, those people were two former colleagues, Ben McLoskey and Tim Minter.

I ignored the formal recruitment process for the one internal management hire I was granted (f*ck HR), and handed that job to Ben.

In Tim’s case, I was able to slyly circumvent the hiring freeze because he’s an incredible friend who was willing to go through the temp agency with a promise that I would move mountains to get him officially hired once the freeze ended (a promise I was eventually able to keep).

And let’s just take one last moment to appreciate the absurdity of being instructed to launch an ultra high-volume hospitality business without f*cking hiring anyone.

But I still felt lucky, because here’s the thing about Ben and Tim—

They don’t have an unreliable bone in their bodies.

And that was exactly what was needed to pull off the impossible.

Both of these guys have earned permanent “legend” status. I love them like brothers.

Three months without a day off. Seriously.

Our circumstances were ruthlessly chaotic. We were sprinting toward zig-zagging goalposts like a trio of drunk crocodiles.

Ever-conflicting mandates were being passed down that impacted every aspect of our operation. 👇

• Capacity restrictions

• Design requirements

• Social distancing requirements

• Liquor / F&B licensing restrictions

• Covid testing / vaccinations requirements

• Temperature checks

• Sanitization practices

• Guest traffic flow approvals

• Employee contact restrictions

• Face coverings

We were working directly with the Mayor’s office to figure out how the hell we could make Christmas happen at Rockefeller Center, safely, in the middle of a dangerous a global pandemic.

👉 For the first time in the rink’s 84-year history, we implemented virtual timed ticketing.

👉 We commissioned the design and manufacture of the world’s first “mini” lithium-ion powered ice resurfacer.

👉 And we blew the shit out of the operating space, more than doubling its size with a meticulously functional design.

Plans changed every day, and there was no time to go through the proper procurement and billing process for a lot of vital expenses. 

Tishman Speyer, a $65 billion dollar company, denied me a corporate credit card, so I ended up maxing out my personal credit cards to get us across the finish line.

And sometime during the first couple of weeks of October, I unknowingly took my last day off.

Being on-site every single day for three months wasn’t part of the plan. 

I knew I would be working most days, including every weekend and holiday, because it was hugely important to me that Ben and Tim got some days off.

(I needed them to be healthy, energized, and not despise me.)

But every time it was looking like I might be able to take a day off, some crazy curveball came hurdling toward the strike zone.

Most days I arrived before sunrise, and worked for 10-12 hours. But there were also plenty of 18-hour days sprinkled in.

It sucked, but it was up to us to make Christmas happen at Rockefeller Center. 

There was literally no one else to do it. 🤷

We pulled it off

As chaotic and miserable as all this was, we f*cking nailed it.

• We exceeded our revenue target by $200k.

• We exceeded our profit target by $300k.

• We earned an 82% NPS (the highest score ever at Rock Center).

• And we did it all safely, without a single case of Covid.

Beyond the metrics, we were showered with gratitude from thousands of thrilled visitors who, after the worst year of their lives, were able to forget their troubles and celebrate the holidays with us.

We had hoards of “regulars”, who had been ice skating at Rockefeller Center for 50+ years in some cases, who were overjoyed by the beautiful renovation and thoughtful operational improvements. 

One of them even made me a custom face mask featuring an image of the rink. 🥰

And we also, albeit temporarily, got to employ a heroic team of truly special people who each lended their hearts to craft the unique experience we delivered to guests — day in and day out.

At the end of the season, one of our dedicated staff members tearfully told me that this was the best job she had ever had, and she didn’t want it to end. 🥹

That was my first —and last— Christmas at Rockefeller Center

And if you think you know why I quit based on what you’ve read so far, then you’re in for a surprise.

This wasn’t the first business I had launched.

Nor was it the first time I had worked for multiple months straight.

It comes with the territory. 

• You work your ass off. 

• You learn. 

• You make vital improvements to the operation. 

• And everything settles into a sustainable rhythm. 

I compiled all of our learnings into a detailed action plan. For everything that went wrong, I had developed thoughtful recommendations for how to improve, complete with budgets and impact analyses.

This culminated in a restructuring proposal that would not only dramatically improve the ice rink business, but collectively elevate all of the other Rockefeller Center operating businesses.

.

.

.

It was wholly ignored.

But perhaps the most perplexing moment came during my annual performance review. 

Like many companies, Tishman Speyer has a 5-level ranking system that looks something like this:

1. Unsatisfactory

2. Needs Improvement

3. Meets Expectations

4. Exceeds Expectations

5. Exceptional Superstar

Keep in mind that I had:

👉 Over-performed on every available metric.

👉 Worked every day for three months straight during a pandemic because the company refused to hire the management team that was needed to launch their new business.

👉 Gone into personal debt to ensure Christmas happened at Rockefeller Center because the company was unwilling to make the prompt vendor payments that were required to move vital aspects of the project forward. (I was eventually reimbursed for those expenses, but it’s still outrageous).

And while my boss claimed he wanted to give me a “5” on my review, and my full bonus (which was all but promised during my contract negotiation), company protocol disallowed any first-year employees from receiving a perfect score.

So I got a “4”, and only received a partial bonus, which I was told I should be grateful for because I received a higher percentage than most people.

There is no better way to alienate high-performing employees than to say:

“I know you’ve absolutely bled for this company, and achieved impossibly high results, but you’re new to us, so we gotta knock you down a peg”.

Oh wait. Come back.

Six months after I had quit, I received a top-secret email from (see if you can follow this) my former boss’s boss’s boss — one of the most senior executives in the company.

And he wanted to meet with me. 

But not at the office. 🤫

So we stealthily met at a cafe.

He explained that things were not going well with Rockefeller Center’s operating businesses, and asked if I’d be willing to come back and fix them — with a big promotion.

Some of the fixes he was suggesting were directly from the restructuring proposal I had crafted a year earlier. 

He claimed he didn’t even know that proposal existed.

And over a few weeks of intense discussion, with both this executive and the head of HR, I realized that they wanted me to come in to treat the symptoms of a massive structural and culture issue— 

But they were unwilling to address that issue head-on.

They were handing me a bucket, and asking me to keep the ship from sinking.

But after everything I had already been through, my arms were pretty damn tired.

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin :-)

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