UTA BIRKMAYER, Director Experiential Design
A graduate of Cornell Hotel School with a B.S., 1991 and master’s in hospitality, 1992, Uta has worked with Zak since 1995. Further shaping Uta’s entrepreneurial endeavors, she has completed an impressive set of additional scholastic achievements: Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Charrette Planning & Revealing the Brand Story 2008; Institute of Integrative Nutrition, Health Coach for Foods, Nutrition, and Wellness Studies, certified 2013; Nutritional Therapy Association, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner certified 2014; Grove Consultants International, Principles of Graphic Facilitation, 2017; and Yale University, The Science of Well-Being 2018,
Since 2016 Uta has coached leaders as part of a San Luis Obispo-based CEO Mastermind group. With Uta’s vision to Inspire Human Transformation, members are stretched, challenged, and supported in achieving their highest potential in work and life. In 2012 she founded Functional Gourmet, working in synergy with functional and integrative medicine practitioners and with her leadership teams and Xsense projects—Uta believes Health and Wellness belong everywhere.
In 2002 she founded Xsense Authentic Places, a ground-breaking consultancy assisting designers and operators to reveal a specific place’s real, authentic personality. In this capacity, Zak brought Uta into a Costa Rica project in 2008.
In 2014 she co-founded NutriAlliance™, a commercial IT & Business solutions company, with a strong focus on the Nutritional Therapy sector, a business she sold to her co-founder in 2018.
As VP North America 2001-2002 ADA Luxury Care, Inc., a global producer and supplier of hotel cosmetics, she launched high-end luxury brands, including Escada and Trussardi, within the North American market and built strategic relationships with key decision-makers.
From 1999 to 2000 as Business Development Manager, International Spa & Hospitality for Kneipp Werke, a pharmaceutical plant company in Germany, restoring its historic brand; developing marketing, sales, and operational strategies; reconnected the visual image to the brand’s core story, launching the Kneipp Spa program with multiple new and traditional products respecting, reconnecting and incorporating the company’s 150-year old Kneipp therapies.
Based in China as Regional Manager of Club Services, Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts in 1998, Uta developed a transformational expatriate club concept to support the needs of international executives and families in foreign business capitals for Asia Pacific’s leading luxury hotel group, supporting both business and family life.
She maximized the expatriates’ enjoyment, enrichment, and productivity in foreign environments by meeting the needs of all family members, including comprehensive business and recreational facilities, an unusual East-meets-West health spa, holistic wellness approach, region-specific cultural programming, children’s and youth facilities, and a “gateway-to-locale” member services center culminating as Director of Marketing and Member Services at the Tokyo American Club 1992–98 where she first worked with Zak.
In Japan, she developed a training program to prepare the Japanese staff for international clientele in the newly opened Hotel Buena Vista in 1992. Uta designed and conducted English and Culture classes and wrote, directed, and produced a comprehensive 6-volume video training program.
With Cunard Lines as Cruise Sales Manager 1989 – 1992, she worked on the M/S Sagafjord, cumulating as a consultant in the on-bard selling of Cunard cruise products. Uta’s Master’s Thesis at Cornell was “Living and Working Cultures on Cruise Ships,” resulting in a set of management and design considerations for cruise ships that increased retention and customer satisfaction. The QE2 implemented just one of these considerations, resulting in the highest customer satisfaction in Cunard’s 150-year history. The complete design considerations were used to design the new Crystal Cruise Line fleet.
Earlier, she was Tour Manager with Club LaChiappa in 1987, designing, marketing, and conducting cultural and adventurous tours and events around Corsica for German, Swiss, French and Italian clientele. She was Room Division Manager for historic Hotel Lochmuehle in the Ahr Valley in Germany in 1987.