Michael Sofia on What Comes Next for the Racquet Club of Philadelphia

Michael Sofia’s path to the Racquet Club of Philadelphia started long before he became its General Manager.

A Philadelphia native and history major, Sofia began his career in hospitality, including positions with Loews Philadelphia Hotel and Loews Annapolis Hotel. He later moved into golf and club management, eventually serving as General Manager/COO of Radley Run Country Club in West Chester, Pa., where he helped lead an $8 million capital project.

When an executive search firm contacted him about the Racquet Club opportunity, Sofia saw a rare combination of his interests and experience. The historic club, founded in 1889, offered the hospitality elements of a hotel and restaurant, the club environment he had grown to love and a racquet sports culture that appealed to Sofia, who plays tennis.

Now a little more than two months into the role, Sofia is spending his first 120 days learning the club and its members while considering how an institution with more than a century of history continues to evolve.

Club + Resort Business (C+RB): You grew up in Philadelphia and started your career in hotels. How did you eventually find your way into the club industry?

Michael Sofia (MS): I was born and raised in Philly. I majored in history and loved all things history, but I also really loved hospitality and worked in it all the way through college.

I worked for Loews Hotels, where I was able to hone my skills and help open properties and write the food-and-beverage playbook. When we had our daughter, it was time to move home.

I eventually worked with golf courses throughout the Philadelphia tri-state area and one in Western Pennsylvania, which helped me hone my golf course and club management experience. Once I got involved in CMAA, I realized club life was for me. I’ve been here ever since.

For hospitality professionals, you’re taught to anticipate your guests’ needs. The club world lets you do that at a much higher level because you get to know members’ names and lives, and you build authentic connections with people. I fell in love with it.

C+RB: What interested you about the opportunity at the Racquet Club of Philadelphia?

MS: I was at Radley Run for four years and had the opportunity to lead an $8 million capital project to expand into a newer clubhouse and open a restaurant. Then I was contacted by a search firm about this opportunity.

I play tennis, not golf, and the idea of being at a club in Philly with hotel rooms and a restaurant in a historic setting and tying all of that together was almost too good to be true.

I knew the space well. It’s beautiful. It’s the Gilded Age with marble and stone and gold and copper and brass. It’s a very different environment.

C+RB: What makes the Racquet Club different from other clubs you’ve worked at?

MS: We have about 800 members and we’re always looking to grow. Most of our membership comes through referrals. Our members want to spend time with people they want to spend time with, and the club gives them that place.

Athletically, what we have is very special. Court tennis is probably the most unique. There are only a few remaining court tennis facilities in the country, and our court is magnificent. It feels niche because it is, but people try it and get hooked.

We also have a premier squash facility. Doubles squash was invented here, and we have racquets as well.

We don’t have the traditional versions of these sports. We have the sports that spawned those sports.

We’re an athletic club. We have a fitness center that is second to none, particularly when you consider the size of the space they were able to build inside a historic building.

We also have an indoor, above-ground pool. It was an incredible architectural feat when it was built, and it’s still there and still operating today.

C+RB: You’ve talked about “evolution” as you begin this job. What does that mean at a club with this much history?

MS: I have a weird “ism” that I use: What got you here won’t get you there.

But first you have to learn everything and determine what actually got you here. I don’t want to come in and just change things.

At the same time, the most important word is evolution. You have to continually evolve. You have to look at how you can embrace technology and preferences while consistently putting the member experience first and foremost.

Everything that doesn’t impact or touch our members’ lives can go on the back burner. Member satisfaction and member engagement are the business we’re in.

C+RB: What are you focusing on during your first few months?

MS: I’m spending the first 120 days developing a large, detailed member-experience map. How do members touch the club? How do they interact with it? How do we elevate those interactions?

If something doesn’t fit our mission, we need to reconsider whether there is another way to approach it.

The club already had a robust long-range plan when I arrived. It lays out where we want to be in 10 years, the physical touchpoints we want to improve and a mechanism to get there. Those improvements exceed $10 million.

The other side is the softer touchpoints. Consistently hiring, training and retaining a staff through employee engagement is low-hanging fruit. Those are things we can focus on now.

C+RB: How are you approaching leadership with a team that already has significant tenure at the club?

MS: It’s collaborative. There’s no iron fist and no dictator.

I’ve had some wonderful mentors. Joel Livingood at Interlachen is a good friend and an exceptional mentor. His leadership is the gold standard. He leads with care and compassion, and I aspire to that.

For me, it’s about getting stakeholders involved and getting their buy-in. I want to be present and active. I won’t ask somebody to do something I won’t do myself.

If I’m asking the team to learn new mobile technology, I’ll practice it and learn it too. You have to walk a mile in their shoes and show them you’re willing to do it.

We also have really great tenure here. Our Director of Athletics has been here for 30 years. He chooses to be here. He could do this anywhere. Having people with that kind of history and knowledge of the club is incredibly important.

C+RB: How have you approached getting to know the membership?

MS: You have to pick and choose where you spend your time. I got to know the board as quickly as I could. We have 15 board members and quite a few committees, so one of the active steps in my onboarding process has been attending committee meetings.

I wanted to start doing that from day one. It’s an opportunity to get to know members and build equity with them. They’re your best advocates, and I want to be as open with them as possible. It’s all about meeting people and setting that expectation.

Before I officially started, I came to our summer opening happy hour. There were several hundred members there, and I had the opportunity to meet so many of them.

There were people waiting in line to talk to me, which was overwhelming, but I also felt very fortunate. I kept telling people, “I don’t expect you to remember.”

There are a lot of people to meet, and that’s part of the process.