Mr. Hnel Appleton

HR Manager Coconut Grove Elmina

Mr. Hnel Appleton, a Liberian-turned Ghanaian, has lived almost all his life in Ghana because of the civil unrest in his country which begun some decades ago.According to the hard working young man, he sees Ghana as his second country and promises to use his expertise which Ghana helped in nurturing to develop the nation.
Born on November 4,1977 in Liberia, Appleton left his country to Ghana with his nephew when he was only 10 years and has lived in Ghana for the past 24 years.
He gained admission to St Augustine’s College in Cape Coast in 1989 through to 1996, and then went on to pursue higher education at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in 2001 where he undertook his Bachelor of Science course majoring in Social Science.
From there he headed to Shama in the Western Region where he had his national service as a pupil teacher.
He enrolled in the Coconut Groove Management Training Programme and had the opportunity to do courses with the British Council in Accra in Human Resource in 2007.
After the training, Mr. Appleton had the opportunity to work with all the branches of Coconut Grove Hotels as an Administrator.
He also managed the Bridge House at Elmina in June 2010 and worked as the Human Resource Manager at the hotel at the same time.
He joined Coconut Grove Hotel in 2006 as a Management Trainer and was later confirmed as the Human Resource Manager in 2008.
Appleton, who speaks fluent Fante and prefers to be called Kwabena, indicated his desire to marry a Ghanaian lady and have kids in Ghana.
According to him, since he joined Coconut Grove he has helped create a bio-data system to collate data on staff of the hotel which initially used to be manual.
H e added that he has also instituted very detailed and successful in-house training and still training staff in partnership with other stakeholders.
He further stated that he has also had the opportunity to work under projects handed over to him such as the construction of the African Village and Golf Club House as well as constructed additional bedroom facilities for the hotel.
Touching on the future plans he has for the hotel, he said he intends to develop a comprehensive succession plan where ring leaders and supervisors will be able to take over top positions such as managers.
This, according to him, will help the junior ranks in the hotel to take up the task of those who leave.
He noted that his first two years at the hotel was a learning process and intends to contribute immensely to the success story of the hotel.