NEW YORK—Marriott International recently held its inaugural Women’s Ownership Works Summit here at the Residence Inn Manhattan Central Park.
The event, which was designed to bring together a small group of current women hotel owners with women exploring hotel development as part of their investment approach, included a tour of the dual-branded Courtyard/ Residence Inn Manhattan Central Park and an ownership discussion that included various Marriott executives and several brand partners.
At the Summit, Liam Brown, president, select service & extended stay lodging and owner & franchise Services, Marriott International, noted, “We do want each and every one of you to succeed. It’s important to us and the system is dependent upon everybody doing well. We’d love to help you figure out how we can grow this forum and this opportunity to get greater diverse ownership within our system. We have diverse ownership, but we do need more.” He added that Marriott has some 660 diverse- and women-owned hotels. Another 433 are in the development pipeline and 130 of those are scheduled to open by year-end 2015. According to the company, some 25% of the existing global hotel portfolio will be owned by diverse owners by 2020.
Speakers at the summit included Julius Robinson, VP for the Autograph Collection & Diversity Ownership Champion; Eileen MacElroy, SVP operations and owner services, Marriott International; Eric Jacobs, Marriott International’s chief development officer for select service and extended stay hotels; Corry Oakes, CEO and founder, OTO Development; Evette Gradney, principal, BDK Associates; Mark Laport, co-founder, president & CEO, Concord Hospitality Enterprises Company; Roz Winegrad, Marriott International’s VP of owner and franchise services; and Krissy Gathright, EVP and COO, Apple REIT.
Robinson noted that Marriott wanted to create something “a little more targeted and intimate” with the inaugural summit. Jacobs said, “We hope today spurs the initial cerebral thought process. This, to me, is the beginning conversation of what might be multiple conversations. There are a lot of different moving parts and you can’t pick it up in an afternoon, but as you have those questions, we’re all available to continue to have that conversation.”
Added Robinson, “We don’t want to let this energy go to waste.”