Content area
Full Text
Former Marriott exec takes her talents down the road to Hilton
It's a quick, 10-minute shoot south along Interstate 495 to reach Hilton's headquarters in McLean, Va., from Marriott International's Bethesda, Md., office. Of course, Beltway traffic can lay waste to those plans fast.
Shruti Gandhi Buckley's commute remains relatively unchanged. In September, she was formally named the global head of Hilton's Hampton by Hilton, a brand she admittedly was enamored with during her time at Marriott, where she served as VP and global brand manager of the Fairfield Inn & Suites and Protea Hotels brands.
To borrow a sports analogy, Marriott and Hilton are the Yankees and Red Sox: fierce competitors and winners. And while Buckley joining Hilton is not exactly Ruth leaving the Sox for the Yanks, there is the idea that Buckley is joining a brand leader in the select-service space, one that she admits she was always chasing while working with Marriott and the Fairfield brand.
When she joined Hilton, she immediately told Phil Cordell, the global head for focused-service brands who is currently on sabbatical, "I've been chasing you for nine years." She admitted, "IfI can't beat them, I might as well join them."
"Hampton is the first choice in the upper-midscale category. That was clear and owners said, 'If we have a piece of land, our first choice is Hampton.' At Fairfield, I aspired to that."
BIG BRAND, BIG GROWTH
Hampton currently has...