It's March, and yes, many of us are starting to think about filling out our March Madness brackets, but more importantly, in my humble opinion, it's Women's History Month. As you're scrolling social media, you're likely seeing posts highlighting and commemorating women in leadership roles across the hotel industry.
Names that come to my mind are RLJ Lodging Trust's Leslie Hale, Marriott International's Stephanie Linnartz and Leeny Oberg, Salamander Hotels and Resorts' Sheila Johnson, Accor's Heather McCrory, and JLL Hotels and Hospitality's Gilda Perez-Alvarado.
The list of kick-butt women surely goes on. But what if I told you women are still lagging behind men in holding hotel company leadership roles?
The 2022 Women in Hospitality Leadership report by the Castell Project, founded by Peggy Berg, notes women hold one leadership spot — CEO, president, founder, etc.— for every 10.3 men. Fortunately, this is up slightly from 1 in 11.2 men in 2019.
While I wish that gap was narrowing even more, I have to tell you I am incredibly optimistic that this will soon happen. But it's a team effort. Hotel brands and companies, this will require participation from all of you.
Let me tell you how this can be done.
This month I've been working on reporting around Women's History Month, which will publish next week on Hotel News Now. Some common themes that stuck with me while interviewing women in a variety of roles at hotel management companies were first, women must create a seat at the table, and second, they must have confidence.
I can tell you firsthand, these two things don't come naturally. It takes support. It takes persistence. It takes practice. It takes going outside of one's comfort zone. It takes courage. It takes humility.
What does make it easier, however, is having a group of women within an organization to be that rock for each other. Don't wait for the president or CEO to start this group, though; anyone within the organization can do this.
Crystal Beasley, chief administrative officer and general counsel at Davidson Hospitality, for example, told me she was one of the founding members of WILD — Women in Leadership at Davidson — when it launched in 2019.
"What happened is, AHLA has a conference called ForWard [for women in hospitality]. I attended that in 2019 and came back and said, 'We've got to start something at Davidson,'" she explained to me. "A lot of what you hear in the world is women have lots of competence but not a lot of confidence. The theme behind WILD was how do we build that confidence in the workplace [and] personal space."
Wyndham Hotels and Resorts has its EMPOWER group, which originally launched with a core group of just five women and has since expanded. Its vision and mission is education, engagement and empowerment.
In 2020, Hilton partnered with the MAKERS platform, which is dedicated to inspiring change and helping women in business advance.
You can see the chain reaction here, where one person becomes inspired by what another group is doing and decides to bring that to their organization. The more we send women out to experience conferences such as ForWard, I think the more it will light a fire under them to make a change.
I can genuinely tell by talking with women for my article that these groups are a necessity; it's not just a fad or checking off a box under diversity, equity and inclusion. It's something that is actually useful. I'm hearing that some women enter these groups with extremely low belief in themselves, then come away with a whole new attitude.
Every single brand, management, ownership company in this day and age — no matter its size — needs a group like this. And if you're reading this thinking, "Well, we don't have enough women within our organization, or any at all, so this doesn't apply to my company," then I strongly urge you to reconsider your hiring strategies.
I'm beyond lucky to be working at a company with several women in leadership roles, including Editorial Director Stephanie Ricca and STR President Amanda Hite, who inspire me daily.
It's truly my belief that diverse thoughts equal better business decisions and outcomes. So I challenge you today to take an audit of your company's team and consider starting a women-focused group, even if it's two or three people who participate at first. It will make a difference.
What better month to start the process than now?
Do your companies have engaging women-focused groups? I'd love to hear more. Send me a note on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.