Tony Capuano is stepping into the role of CEO of Marriott International during the worst global crisis the hotel industry has faced.

In a communication he sent out to Marriott associates the morning his promotion was announced, he laid out the challenges the company faces from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The company has overcome the lows experienced early in the pandemic, with occupancy now showing steady improvement, but continuing new cases of the virus remain a factor in markets around the world, he said.

Capuano said in an interview that he takes comfort in knowing that while he is now Marriott’s CEO, this is not a crisis he is left to navigate alone. The nearly 94-year-old company has an extraordinary group of long-tenured leaders who are battle-tested from their experiences in more conventional recessions, the tragic events of 9/11 and the financial crisis a decade ago, he said.

The team that has been working its way through the pandemic is now grieving the loss of their friend and leader, Arne Sorenson, he said. Sorenson, who served as president and CEO since 2012, died Feb. 15 from pancreatic cancer.

“It's a team that understands the levers that we have to pull and the actions we need to take to navigate crisis situations, and it's of great comfort to me to have a leadership team here at the company that is so collaborative and so well-tenured,” he said. “It's that team — not me individually — and our associates around the world that give me great confidence that we can navigate these challenges.”

As he settles into his new role, Capuano said he doesn’t expect any radical differences in the company’s business model, overarching strategy or broad philosophy for how it conducts business.

The company — on behalf of its associates, customers, owners and franchisees — has to put immediate focus on successfully navigating the pandemic, he said.

“As we move toward the recovery phase, I think you’ll continue to see us try to drive market-leading revenue and margin improvements through the early stages of recovery,” he said.

At the same time that Capuano was named CEO, Stephanie Linnartz was named Marriott's president. Linnartz had previously served as group president of consumer operations, technology and emerging businesses.

The reasoning for splitting the roles of CEO and president is simple and straightforward, Capuano said.

The board of directors entrusted Capuano and Linnartz to oversee Marriott’s day-to-day operations while Sorenson stepped back to focus on his health. Following Sorenson’s death, board members saw that Capuano and Linnartz have about 50 years of experience and institutional knowledge between them and concluded the two complemented each other well, Capuano said.

“Given the challenges the company and the industry face as we continue to work our way through this awful pandemic, I think they concluded that the two of us working in tandem the way we did on an interim basis gave the company the best opportunity to realize its potential,” he said.

He said he and Linnartz have been close friends for decades and have already been through their trial by fire when asked to step up on an interim basis, he said. They are energized and enthusiastic to continue working together.

Capuano said the model for how they will work together will be similar to when Bill Shaw, who is now vice chairman of Marriott International, served as president while J.W. Marriott Jr. was CEO — before Sorenson took on both roles.

“I think we will lean on each other heavily for our respective strengths, but I think this construct also gives both of us an opportunity to strengthen the areas where we've not had as much respective focus previously,” he said.

From the company's perspective, this decision is consistent with its decadeslong practice of attracting, developing and retaining a long-tenured, strong talent bench, he said.

Referring to what he shared during the company’s recent earnings call, Capuano said Marriott signed 63,000 rooms last year, bringing the company’s pipeline to 498,000. Organic demand for the company’s brands remains strong.

While the pandemic has certainly affected every company’s pipeline, the number of rooms under construction in Marriott’s global pipeline has stayed consistently high — around 220,000 rooms — for the last several quarters, he said.

“That’s quite encouraging,” he said.

Marriott will continue to accelerate the growth of its global footprint, he said. That means the company will also continue to explore and evaluate adjacent businesses that have the potential to create new revenue streams, similar to what the company has done with Marriott Homes & Villas as well as its foray into all-inclusive resorts.

The company also will look at ways to fill gaps in its brand architecture and accelerate growth in markets where it is has struggled to grow organically, he said. The financial distress that some smaller brands or companies are experiencing could lead to some transaction activity, but he said he doesn't expect mergers and acquisitions to be "particularly frothy." There’s too much of a gap between sellers who don’t want to sell in a trough and buyers who are hoping to make a deal for pennies on the dollar. The current condition of the debt markets would make financing a large deal today challenging as well.

Capuano said he will maintain the same philosophy he has had in leading Marriott’s development efforts since 2009. His previous role was group president of global development, design and operations services.

“That is, simply, a consistent reminder across our enterprise that ours is a business model that is built on the shoulders of our partners, our owners and our franchisees,” he said.

That requires considering the economic conditions and perspectives of partners, owners and franchisees, as well as discussions and debates on elements of the operating model, he said.

Capuano said he would have liked to be able to spend his first day as CEO out in the world, meeting Marriott’s partners, touring its hotels and meeting associates in person to make sure they have everything they need to serve guests.

While the pandemic makes that difficult, it’s far from impossible, he said, noting Marriott’s team is resourceful.

For International Housekeepers Week last September, he visited one of Marriott’s full-service properties in Bethesda, Maryland, to bring lunch to the housekeeping staff. He sat through the staff’s morning meeting and spent time with them to understand better how the new cleaning and operating protocols have been working, learning what’s been helpful and what’s been making things more difficult, and finding out how guests have reacted.

“There continue to be opportunities to engage both in person and virtually with our associates,” he said. “One of the great gifts of this role is that I can dedicate meaningfully more of my time than I could in my prior role to really engage with our folks around the world.”

Active engagement within Marriott’s communities is embedded in the company’s cultural DNA, Capuano said, noting he will continue on with a lot of the efforts Sorenson led during his tenure.

Gender and racial equity continue to be critical issues for the hotel industry, he said. Sorenson was a powerful voice on Capitol Hill for regulatory issues that affect the travel and tourism industry, and Capuano said he will continue to focus on those issues.

Marriott has done some remarkable work in the effort to eradicate human trafficking — putting hundreds of thousands of associates through online training modules to help them identify potential instances of human trafficking and how to react, he said.

“That's an area where we'll continue to be quite active,” he said.

One issue Capuano called a personal passion is education. In the hospitality industry, a high percentage of general managers have started out as hourly associates. From a job creation and career development perspective, it’s a wonderful industry, he said.

“It's an area that I think you'll continue to see the company ramp up its efforts,” he said.