A Voyage of Opulence and Service with Dee Momi of Seven Access

Embark on an enthralling odyssey with Dee Momi, the visionary behind Seven Access, as she recounts her astonishing transformation from a London personal shopper to a superyacht chef on the high seas, and eventually a lifestyle concierge for the crème de la crème. Discover how a serendipitous email and the turbulence of a global recession launched her into the opulent realm of yachting, equipping her with the finesse of tailored service and the might of intimate connections. As Momi unfolds her narrative, you're invited to grasp the essence that fuels Seven Access, meticulously fulfilling the fancies of not only ultra-affluent private clients, but also the clients of yacht brokers, ultimately purveying supreme travel experiences.

Momi imparts a sea of wisdom, gleaned from a dozen years navigating the waters of luxury service, where being second-best is never an option. Through her eyes, we learn how the anticipation of a client's desires and the flawless execution of even their most trivial whims can forge an indelible impact. Revel in the tales of how a scrupulous eye for detail and adept problem-solving can elevate any encounter from mundane to magnificent. Tune in and let Momi's unique trajectory, navigated with grace,  inspire you to work with her and her team.

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Chapters

• 0:00 From Chef to Lifestyle Concierge
• 7:07 Yacht Crew Experience for Business Success

Transcript

Diane M. Byrne: 0:49

Welcome everybody. Plenty of luxury lifestyle concierges pledge to help the ultra high net worth access some of the most in demand events around the world or enjoy an otherwise tailored experience, but they don't necessarily elevate those experiences. Similarly, plenty of supra crew eventually make the transition to shore in a variety of roles in the yachting and overall luxury sectors, but few leverage the insightful lessons that they learned about what truly makes the difference for owners and guests. Dee Momi is different, as the founder of Seven Access. Dee puts to work every day the knowledge that she gleaned from 12 years as a chef aboard some of the most high profile superyachts around, including Limitless, Talitha, and the sailing yachts Panthalassa and Ranger. In fact, she works not only with private clients but also superyacht brokers and luxury travel specialists, providing opportunities that they don't know were even possible. The way that she puts everything together is much like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, but one that not everyone else can solve, as you are about to learn.

Diane M. Byrne: 2:06

So Dee, welcome to Megayacht News Radio. Thank you, diane, for the wonderful introduction. Oh, you're very welcome, it's all true. So why don't we go into your background a little bit first? How did your career aboard yachts start? A few weeks ago, when you and I were speaking, you made a comment to the fact that a random paragraph from a girl I didn't know ended up changing your life. So tell us that story.

Dee Momi: 2:35

So the whole yachting career for me really came about completely by accident. So we obviously had the global recession that came about in 2008, 2009. And I was quite happy with my life in London working as a personal shopper, private shopper to luxury clients, both on the personal perspective and also with companies. So I was quite happy doing that. It's something that I had been building up for about seven years at that point and then the recession hit. So obviously you know lots of people were affected by that.

Dee Momi: 3:12

Being a freelancer, my career started to change quite rapidly within six months. Of course, freelancers you know you are, you are the first to to fill the effects of that, along with people who are directly influenced in that, influenced by what happened and it. It was a chance conversation that happened with a friend where lots of other things in my personal life were changing as well, and she quite flippantly at the time said to me Well, why don't you try working on yachts? I had been going to the south of France on holiday for probably a few years before that, but it was something I had never considered. Obviously, I'd seen the yachts around, being around them, but it wasn't something I considered a career at all. And she said Well, I'll introduce my friend to you and we'll go from there.

Dee Momi: 4:07

So to this day I've never met this friend of a friend, but on charter, and at the time I didn't know what that meant. But in the middle of charter she sent me one paragraph that mentioned E and G ones, stcws. She even mentioned blue water for the training. And once I googled all of that, suddenly everything, everything came to life and I just unearthed this whole new opportunity that I had no idea that existed before. That so fast forward about. It must have been about a month and I was out in on team, I was signed up to the STCW, I was signed up to the ENG one and started just day working. Obviously, yachting is very much making connections with other people and that's certainly what I had the opportunity to do to do at that point. So started making connections, started day working and then, within a matter of about another month, I was out on my first, first boat doing my first crossing over to the states.

Diane M. Byrne: 5:16

And that was the moment kind of opportunity. That's great. Yeah, it definitely was Wonderful. So what inspired you to start Seven Access and when did you make that decision?

Dee Momi: 5:28

So just over two years ago I left yachting, rescued a dog from Antigua, brought him home with me, left yachting and I came across another opportunity to work for quite a well-known concierge life start management company in London. It was a great company. I learned a lot from them, but ultimately I wanted to create something that offered a more bespoke service. So I wanted to focus on something that Really focused on, I guess, relationship building at its core, forming relationships with really really good partners and doing something on a much more personalized, smaller scale.

Dee Momi: 6:10

So, I guess, with the level of service that I was used to working with on yachts and, prior to that career, working with private shopping clients a tailored offering with something that was really important to me. So, I guess, because I've always been quite entrepreneurial, starting my own business came quite naturally and encompassing all the areas that I was passionate about specific to this industry, and combining them with, I guess, most of the types of requests that are sought after by many clients was quite important to me. So the fun parts, I guess, of life start management so access to premium events, really lovely experiences and, of course, all the travel elements that play into that too I started thinking about doing that myself, and that's ultimately why I then made the move to start my own business.

Diane M. Byrne: 7:08

You know it's interesting because right now you kind of hinted at some of the things that I wanted you to go into in a little bit more depth, so the timing is perfect. What are--what would you say are two or three of the unique insights that you gained while working on yachts that you leverage in your business? I know you said you're very entrepreneurial, so that's great, but from the the crew standpoint, it was interesting. You were saying that you wanted to offer a more personalized and smaller scale. You know relationship with clients and that's really very much what the whole crew to guest and crew to owner experience is like. It's very much that personal attention and highly Personalized, deeply, deeply detailed relationship. So what would you say were some of the other Really good lessons that you leverage, because I'm not sure that everybody realizes that crew learn phenomenal business lessons.

Dee Momi: 8:10

For sure, and I think, even even whilst you're crew you don't necessarily maybe realize because you're so busy with the dday-to-day, but collaboration even now is really really important to me, and even though I worked in the galley, sometimes on my own, sometimes with another chef, this is a role that really requires a lot of often independence, you know, definitely proactivity and often a lot of autonomy as well. I but part of that was I loved being part of a crew working together. Obviously, we're responsible for what we bring to the table, but my company now, I would say, is very much run in a very similar way. So, in terms of the partners we work with, forming trusted connections with advisors to high net worths, we do work with a lot of personal assistants, estate managers, private advisors, of course you mentioned charter brokers and also travel agents as well. So all of that requires a lot of collaboration, obviously effective communication with those people. So I guess they're an extension of how you would work with other yacht crew. You all bring your own skills and you fulfill a certain role In that equation, and so that's really how I wanted to grow my business from the beginning as well, to to relay that to what I'm doing now.

Dee Momi: 9:42

The other thing I would say is definitely, as you touched on, is the level of service, and there's something quite unique. When you work on a boat or in, you know, a five star hotel is anticipating somebody's needs, always going above and beyond. Those sorts of qualities just become instilled, especially in crew, over many years and your work inevitably reflects that. So the benchmark at which you continue to operate just grows at a whole new level, and that that is your new, new, new benchmark as to how you operate your business or conduct yourself with people. So it just becomes your new way of being, I guess.

Diane M. Byrne: 10:28

Yeah, that benchmark really becomes instinct. I would imagine in many ways you don't even have to think it, you just automatically know that that's the way to go. For sure, right, right. So when you are working to elevate a yacht charter clients experience, for example, or one of your private clients experience, how does your personal level access deliver that wow moment for them?

Dee Momi: 10:56

So this is an interesting one because, of course, we've helped clients with access to really big events such as you know I know this isn't directly related to yachting, but maybe the opening ceremony of the Olympics or, as we're starting to see now, going into the summer season, you have the Cannes Film Festival that's coming up or the Monaco Grand Prix. So we work on a lot of these big, big requests. But the interesting thing is we also have some of these random, seemingly small things that happen. So, for example, we had a request last summer in the Amalfi Coast and it was a client who was staying in a five star hotel in Capri. So we'd organised dayboats for them throughout this day, all these other elements of their trip, and one particular day, an hour before their lunch reservation that they had booked, they wanted to cancel and go to a specific spot instead I won't mention the name, but it's notoriously difficult to get into. They don't have an email address, they don't answer the phone, they're open at quite tricky times and it's virtually impossible to get into that place. But within 15 minutes we managed to secure the family of six at a table at that restaurant and the pressure was really on for that request because the client is someone who has their own major hospitality group in the Middle East, so we knew their level of expectation would be high anyway. But because of the fact that they work in a very similar industry, something like that can seemingly be quite small. But for us, with the time factor, the pressure was definitely that.

Dee Momi: 12:52

I know it's been some really, really random requests.

Dee Momi: 12:56

I guess not necessarily considered large Wow requests, but again last year after the monaco grand prix weekend it was around 10pm on the Sunday night, so after the race obviously everybody's out partying and, you know, enjoying the weekend we had a client who was disembarking their charter.

Dee Momi: 13:18

The next day I'm at 10 o'clock they contacted us and said they wanted to rent a defender vehicle several days. As we know anyone who's dealt with people in France and in monaco there sometimes can be very set ways of operating for them, so they open at a certain time, they close at a certain time. Trying to push the envelope can sometimes be quite difficult but we've managed to Not only get the vehicle but get it delivered to them right by the yacht the following morning. So for someone that may not seem like that's not like a big showy wow kind of request, but given all the logistics, it's not always that easy. So, yeah, so they probably sound like quite insignificant examples, but when you're working with high-level clients and the added time pressure of organizing something quickly and making sure that you have a trusted supplier or trusted partner people that you can rely on those things are really, really tested, right.

Diane M. Byrne: 14:27

It's still the magic, at the end of the day, that you end up delivering for them. For sure, definitely yeah. So for some of your private clients who have not previously really experienced yachting maybe they were a boardy yacht with some friends but really have not chartered, for example how are you opening up this opportunity to them? Are there certain hints that you just pick up on in your conversations with them that clue you in that they might be interested in this? Or are they actually proactively saying to you how can we do a cruise for two weeks in the south of France? Or how can we enjoy New Year's Eve and St Bart's, those types of things?

Dee Momi: 15:14

I think it's definitely become much more accessible now. So you know, we're all very familiar with maybe the top five to seven brokerages that are very wild-renowned. They've been around for a long time. But there are a lot more boutique brokerages who are potentially focused locally and making those charters much more accessible. Often we have access to last-minute offers that some brokers are offering because they're trying to fill maybe empty weeks at the height of the season. So obviously, having been in the industry and working with brokers on some of their itineraries, that's something that we see quite a lot of, because you know, if the yacht is available for charter, it makes sense for the owner to have those weeks filled. The crew are there, everything's ready. So sometimes people can get quite good bargains or quite good deals with those weeks that are just sitting there empty.

Dee Momi: 16:19

The other thing that I would probably consider there's a couple of other things is considering chartering, maybe slightly out of season. So, especially if you're new to yachting or new to chartering, the med season seems to be getting longer and longer. You know, often, starting maybe now in May, and even until the end of September, there's really, really good weather. Restaurants are still open. There's still plenty to do, especially around the med and at the tail ends of the season, the charter rates are often a lot more affordable as well. The other aspect is I kind of hesitate to say the words all-inclusive because they have somewhat of a negative connotation to them, but this is also an option maybe for corporates or teams or others who would love to get out on the water and experience their own charter, but they have maybe a fixed budget that they need to work with. So it's a great entry-level consideration and something that we can help with and, of course, advise on being XSUPY Ought Crew. So we do have partners that we work with for those all-inclusive packages for yacht charters.

Diane M. Byrne: 17:38

Very good. Well, Dee, thank you so much for joining us today on MegatNewsRadio. It's been interesting to learn how you put all the lessons together and really connected the dots between your onboard experience and what you can deliver to private clientele and really elevate their experience. Thank you, Diane. Thanks for having me Everyone. If you would like to learn more about Dee and her company, Seven Access, and what they can do for you, you can visit their website, which is sevenaccesscom. Until next time, I'm Diane Byrne.