“I could have designed Facebook,” Deeba Haq says, jokingly. It was during her session with her high school career counselor that changed Haq’s path from pursuing a career in computer science, which she considered a fairly solitary job, to what she does today—she’s the director of spa operations for Spa Mandalay at Mandalay Bay and the Bathhouse Spa at Delano. “The counselor told me ‘your personality is meant to be around people, you need to pursue a different career.’ And that’s when I thought about hospitality,” says the Las Vegas native. “I felt like that was one of the top-five moments, because it changed my outlook of who I was going to be.”
Hospitality was a field both her parents knew well, both having worked at MGM Grand for many years, so Haq decided to follow in their footsteps. She eventually landed her first spa job as a receptionist at the spa at Bellagio. From there she moved up the ladder to management, overseeing spas and pools for other MGM properties, including New York-New York and Luxor. She’s been in her current position since 2016. “Every opportunity and move that I’ve made in (MGM) is because I worked, I proved myself, somebody believed in me and gave me a chance,” Haq says. “I’ve grown in this company.”
Kopari
At both spas she helms the ship of more than 100 employees and ensures the guest experience is a relaxing one. Haq also loves that she gets to be in the spa industry specifically. “I love that my industry is about caring about people’s well-being,” she says.
As she reflects on her dozen-plus years in the industry, she says she “always goes back to that counselor who said I’m meant to be around people—that moment changed my life. ... I’m where I’m meant to be.”
