Sandy Safi is the President and co-founder of Dîner en Blanc International, the Montréal, Quebec–based company behind one of the world’s most iconic dining experiences. She leads a global network spanning 60 cities and a community of more than 2 million members, bringing together gastronomy, culture, travel and a distinctive art de vivre, along with the occasional logistical miracle involving thousands of people dressed entirely in white.

Entrepreneurial, ambitious and endlessly curious, Sandy is now focused on taking Dîner en Blanc beyond a single evening and evolving it into a global lifestyle and experience platform and creating memorable experiences, inspired collaborations and new ways for a worldwide community of food and event lovers to connect.

At heart, she believes in the power of bringing people together, around beautiful tables, great food, new experiences and ideas worth sharing. She believes the best ideas usually start around a table  (preferably with Champagne!).

What first interested you in your area of the hospitality industry?

I actually grew up in entertainment. I started in ballet when I was young, then danced professionally. From there, I moved into assisting in stage lighting and working in stage management, and eventually onto the business side of events through sponsorship, organization and promotion.

So I’ve been onstage, backstage and behind the desk. In many ways, the event world has always felt like my second home.

Through those experiences, I also had the chance to travel the world and see firsthand the joy that events can bring to people. When the opportunity came to bring together so many things I loved, food, travel, gatherings and experiential events, it felt completely natural.

I think life is funny that way. You can spend years doing things that seem completely unrelated, and then one day the pieces of the puzzle come together and form a whole. Dîner en Blanc was that for me.

I also have a slightly unhealthy love of logistical challenges. Give me thousands of people, a secret location, 45 minutes to make it all come together and a few unexpected problems along the way, and strangely, I’m very happy.

Who are a few of the people who have encouraged your career?

When I was young, it was my mother. She was the one who put me in the arts and dance, got me to classes, made costumes and gave me the opportunity to discover that world.

Later in life, I was very fortunate to have supportive partners who guided me in different ways, whether it was understanding the entertainment world or learning more about business and finance. They also tolerated the late nights, travel schedules, endless phone calls and the fact that my brain doesn’t ever respect business hours.

I always say that if there is one area in life where I’ve been incredibly lucky, it’s people. I’m very well surrounded, and deeply grateful for it. There have been very few moments when I’ve needed someone, picked up the phone and they haven’t shown up. I’ve had a lucky star when it comes to be surrounded by great people to guide and support me.

And it absolutely takes a village to build something like Dîner en Blanc. My team has been rock solid, and many of them have been part of this journey for years. I genuinely love the people I work with. I’ve also learned enormously from our producers, clients and partners around the world. I’m a connector by nature, and so much of my career has been shaped by conversations, relationships and finding ways to create something together.

What challenges do you think people face in your industry?

Technology and AI are changing our industry incredibly quickly, from how people discover and book experiences to how we understand their preferences, communicate with them and personalize what we offer. There is enormous potential in having better data and smarter tools, but the challenge is using them without losing the human connection that is at the heart of hospitality. Technology should make us better at understanding and serving people, not make the experience feel less personal.

For me, the biggest opportunity is what happens beyond the initial transaction. Getting someone to buy a ticket, book a table or attend an event once is one thing; building a relationship that makes them want to come back is much more valuable. If we use technology intelligently, we can better understand what people are looking for, introduce them to experiences that are genuinely relevant to them, and stay connected long after that first interaction. Ultimately, the goal is not simply to build a larger customer database, but to build a real community that continues to engage, participate and experience new things with you.

Can you cite a few accomplishments that have given you great pride and elevated your work?

What makes me proudest is really the relationships we’ve built along the way. There is an entire chain of people behind every event: our team in Montréal working year-round, producers around the world, incredibly dedicated volunteer leaders, trusted partners, passionate collaborators and ultimately the guests themselves. Without all of them, the magic simply doesn’t exist. Over the years, we’ve built relationships and friendships, but we’ve also seen people build careers, businesses and new opportunities through something we created, and that is incredibly rewarding to me.

We’re also building a model that doesn’t really have much precedent in our industry, so we’re constantly learning, innovating and adapting together. Our team creates the platform, our producers bring it to life locally, our volunteers give an incredible amount of themselves, our partners and collaborators add their creativity, and then thousands of guests make the experience their own. In the end, we’re all creating these moments together and when connections are made, friendships begin, memories are created and, for a few hours, we get to create something genuinely special for people to experience and share. That human connection, both behind the scenes and around the table, is what makes me proudest.

What piece of advice can you lend to others who are considering your career?

First, learn to breathe. I’m still working on that one.

In this industry, you can spend so much time being “in it” that you forget to stop, reset and look at the bigger picture. And really, that applies to most entrepreneurs trying to manage 50 things at the same time. I’m learning, sometimes the hard way, that you have to step back in order to move forward. As they say, you need to work on your business, not just in it.

I’ve also learned to love problems. They force you to grow, challenge you to think differently and push you to become better at what you do. Sometimes they also force you to face yourself, which is probably the harder part.

And learn to work with people. If you can’t figure that part out, this industry becomes exponentially harder. Hospitality is ultimately a people business. Your reputation, your relationships and the way you treat people will follow you much further than any single event or project ever will.

Finally, don’t be afraid of taking a strange path. Mine went from ballet to stage lighting to sponsorship to entrepreneurship. At the time, it didn’t necessarily look like a plan. Looking back, every piece mattered.

Everyone who works in hospitality has an incredible story. What’s one you often tell?

I don’t have one story. I have about five a day. I’m still surprised, shocked or completely thrown by something almost every day, whether it’s logistics, operations, customer service, technology, weather or simply people. I could probably write a book or two by now, and I think everyone in this industry has stories that range from hilarious and unexpected to complete catastrophe.

If there’s one constant in mine, it’s resilience and adaptation. I’m constantly adapting to different cultures, people, cities, technology, regulations and whatever else gets thrown at us. There are definitely moments when I think, “Come on, that’s crazy!” But then you fix it, adapt and move on, usually while already dealing with the next challenge before the first one is even over. And somehow, after months of planning and problem-solving, thousands of people arrive at a secret location and create this incredible sea of white in 45 minutes. I’ve seen it happen around the world, and it still feels a little like magic.

What do you hope people understand about those who work in your area of hospitality?

I hope people understand that in experiential hospitality, we’re not simply creating something for guests to consume. We’re creating the conditions for guests to become part of the experience themselves. At Dîner en Blanc, what people wear, what they bring, how they decorate their tables, their creativity, their energy and the way they interact all become part of what everyone else experiences. There’s something quite powerful about thousands of people arriving at an empty space and collectively transforming it into something beautiful. In a way, it’s the physical-world equivalent of user-generated content: the audience isn’t just consuming the experience, they’re helping create it.

I think of it as a Guest-Generated Experience. I’m not even sure that term exists, but it’s the best way I can describe it. Our job is to create the structure that allows spontaneity, creativity and connection to happen, and then know when to get out of the way. Because the magic is very rarely accidental. What feels effortless and spontaneous requires an enormous amount of work behind the scenes, but you also have to be careful not to over-engineer it. When you get that balance right, thousands of individual contributions come together to create something none of us could have created alone. To me, that’s where the real magic happens.

Is there anything else?

What excites me most now is what comes next. We’ve spent years building a global community around food, experiences and human connection, and now I’m interested in how we take that community beyond Dîner en Blanc itself.

I want to build a global community of people who are willing to travel for extraordinary collective experiences centered around food. I’m fascinated by what happens when food, travel, culture and community intersect and  bringing people together in incredible places, around incredible tables, and creating experiences they wouldn’t necessarily have access to on their own. And I want to build this next chapter alongside the incredible partners, producers and volunteers I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over the years. We’ve already created something extraordinary together, and I think there is so much more we can do. That’s probably my next big logistical problem to solve.

For more information, go to the website for Dîner en Blanc.

Photo courtesy of Dîner en Blanc International