WHAT A DIFFERENCE A

MILLENNIUM MAKES……

Before the Nineties…

When hotels were run by
hoteliers

2010…
When hotels are run by
finance and marketing
generalists
 Who Am I?
 Upon graduating from Cornell in
1975, I embarked on an 11-year
Hospitality career in hotel
operations. For the past 23 years, I
have been in Executive Search,
exclusively in Hospitality. In 1992 I
launched The Boutique Search
Firm.
Firm
 Take Me To Your Leader

 The purpose of this presentation is to

illustrate that, as our industry has
changed over the past 20 years, the type
of leadership it has been calling upon
has greatly changed as well.
 While hotel companies used to be
managed by hoteliers, they are now
managed by generalists, regardless of
their field of expertise.
 Before the 90’s

Lifetime Company Men and Women

Hotel Degrees-Cornell or Lausanne
Hotel Companies would do on-campus
recruitment
Management Training Programs

Generational Hoteliers
Nepotism and Mentoring
 90’s and Beyond

 No longer “General Manager”

 But “CEO” or “COO”
 NOT a hotel specialist
 NOT a hotel school graduate
The Changemakers

The revolution that took

place can be illustrated
with these emblematic
individuals:
*Barry Sternlicht

The Sternlicht/Nanula Effect

*Stephen Bollenbach

How Bollenbach
Bollenbach turned
Hilton
Hilton on its head
 What This Means

 No longer a “Field of Dreams” industry

“Build it and They will Come”

*Tremendous strategic and leadership skills

required
*Only the sharpest minds will catch the
attention of the Board of Directors’
Search Committees
 Ties to Power
 Little or no representation for the
hotel industry in Washington, D.C.
 The reason:
limited credibility
limited connections to the highest levels of
power
 Coming
Coming Soon
Soon
to a White House near you

Our Own:
 Hank Paulson
 Dick Cheney