In September, the historic Tropicana Atlantic City in New Jersey got a new general manager with a background in engineering, hospitality and Wall Street.
Jacqueline Grace’s introduction to hospitality came after she had already set out on a career in engineering. Having discovered a knack for computers in grade school, she studied electrical and computer engineering at Stony Brook University in New York, taking leadership roles with the campus chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. “I enjoyed organizing things and people, setting a vision and executing and leading a team through things,” she said of her school days.
After graduation, she had two job offers: she could work for a traditional engineering company or work on Wall Street. Since she enjoyed leadership positions while at university, she decided that joining a financial firm would let her combine her technical skills—“which ultimately is problem solving”—with her desire to oversee large projects. She joined Merrill Lynch as a project manager and spent the next nine years rising up through the ranks to VP and diversity & inclusion program manager. She learned about effective communication, leading large-scale initiatives and managing cross-functional teams—skills she now sees as important for leadership. “You have to help improve, you have to influence outcomes and the work of people who don't necessarily report to you,” she said.
After nearly a decade, Grace was ready for the next step and went to pursue her MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. During her first year at the university, she took a position with Caesars Entertainment, and once she earned her degree, she narrowed her next step down to two choices: Become an entrepreneur or stay in hospitality.
Switching Gears
She chose the latter, and through Caesars’ President's Associates Program—which the company developed to build a leadership pipeline—started at Bally’s in Atlantic City as the president’s associate to the hotel’s general manager. A year later, she became director of marketing before pivoting to human resources, becoming regional HR director first for employee labor relations and then a general HR leader for the region.
Grace calls her time in human resources “invaluable,” because not only did it teach her about the breadth of the business, she learned about the nuances of labor relations as well. “In Atlantic City, 50 percent of our workforce is covered by a collective bargaining agreement, so labor relations [are] pretty big here,” she said. Working in HR gave her an opportunity to start learning about how the company operates in terms of managing teams and building its policies and procedures.
After four years in Atlantic City, Grace was ready to try a different neighborhood and moved to Baltimore in 2014 to become VP of human resources at the Horseshoe Baltimore Casino right after the property opened. But even as she rose through the ranks to lead HR teams, she had her sights set on a different position: “When I joined the company, I knew that my goal was to become a general manager,” she said. “It gives you the opportunity to be involved with all aspects of the business. So, knowing that was my goal, I was pretty agnostic to how I got there.”
After Baltimore, she became an assistant general manager at Harrah’s Philadelphia before returning to the Baltimore property to be VP and assistant general manager. “While I was excited to be promoted to AGM, I felt like my work was incomplete in Baltimore because the property was new and there was just so much to be done,” she recalled. “When I got the call and the opportunity to go back, I jumped at it.”
After almost four years in Baltimore, she finally achieved her goal when she took over the Tropicana Atlantic City in September 2020, just two months after the property reopened from COVID-19 closure. The experience was both exciting and intense, she said, as the hotel’s teams adjusted to new protocols and practices. “We were all kind of in uncharted territory, figuring out how [to] operate these properties,” she said. While those first days at the Tropicana were challenging, Grace also takes pride in her work and in her team, who “stepped up to the plate” to make sure the property was operating smoothly under difficult circumstances.
“If you look at all of my career transitions—starting from my undergraduate degree to the firm that I worked for and even all my roles and the changes that I made within—all of my moves moved me successively closer to people being at the root of my work,” Grace said. Her transition from Wall Street to hospitality was driven by a simple goal: At the end of the day, she wanted to feel like the work she did mattered—and hospitality, she said, is all about making sure people feel valued and engaged, whether they are guests or team members at the property.
Jacqueline Grace’s…
Challenge: Rising up through the ranks, Grace sometimes found herself securing a role that another coworker had wanted, threatening the working relationships.
Success: “I established credibility, built trust, deepened connections and turned those relationships into productive and mutually beneficial ones.”
Advice for GMs: “You have to have a certain level of humility. You need to be able to effectively communicate to the CEO and also have a good rapport with [your] housekeepers ... You need to be able to be strategic and think about how you're going to grow the business.”
Secrets to Success:
Do the Work: “Roll up your sleeves and be willing to do the work—all the work, because it's not all sexy, particularly as you are learning the business. Be willing to do everything.”
Build Relationships: “[Have] mentors—people who have done what you want to do, have accomplished what you want to accomplish and can guide you along the way.”
Keep an Open Mind: “The more open you are to opportunities, the greater chance you have to not only learn but demonstrate your ability to contribute, which I think will set you up to be a leader in the future.”
Tropicana Atlantic City
Owner: Gaming and Leisure Properties | Manager: Caesars Entertainment | Rooms: 2,364 | Opening Year: 1981