Welcome everyone. I'm Glenda McNeal, president of Enterprise Strategic Partnerships at American Express. I'm happy to be continuing conversations with our strategic partners about their approach to modern leadership as part of our In Partnership With series. I'm honored to be here with Tony Capuano, president and CEO of Marriott International. Tony, thank you so much for being with me today.
Thanks for having me, Glenda.
Absolutely. You ready to get started?
All right, we're going to do some rapid-fire questions.
Excellent. If you could have a conversation with your future self, what advice would you ask for?
I think I'd ask for some help on prioritization. Our calendars are so demanding, and how to better use my time.
When you get that advice, be sure to share it with me.
All right. You're on the road a lot. You mentioned Paris, Greece, Italy. What's the one thing you do to stay mentally and physically fit when you're on the road?
Sleep is so important, and to me the key to sleep I never change my watch. Our company's in 138 countries, and I try to stay grounded to home. Two, I try to exercise every day. I like to get on the elliptical, or at least go take a walk when I arrive in a new city. I try to read every day.
That's great. That's outstanding.
What do you prefer, night in or night out?
Well, if it includes live music and theater, I'm night out.
Okay, what kind of music?
I love jazz, I love R&B, I love country. I am a big listener of very diverse genres.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
You know, you were just talking about calendars and we all have a lot of reading to do, so that's speed reading where I can get lots in. I'm curious and I like to read and so I'd like to get more of it.
This one won't surprise you. Favorite hotel amenity?
Won't surprise you either, spa.
So, let's get talking a little bit about you and how you grew up and how that has influenced your leadership and your career to date. You grew up in Baltimore.
Italian-American family where you first learned about hospitality from your mother and grandmother. Your family would have these large and small events. They cooked huge meals that were meant to really bring people together. How did growing up with so many traditions that are grounded in hospitality impact how you approach your work in the industry?
So, one of my dearest memories is every Sunday, really until I went to college, we went to my grandparents' house for Sunday dinner. There'd be anywhere from 10 to 40 people there. My grandmother was the fixture. She'd be in the kitchen from before we woke up till late in the night cooking all day, always with a smile on her face. I remember the kids would be running around her feet to get us to go away. She'd grab a crust of bread, smash a meatball on it, sprinkle a little Parmesan and send us out into the yard.
But she was so hospitable. And you know, I always worried, she never ate. She was always the last one to eat and in fact I read a book not long ago called Leaders Eat Last and it was written by a general. And that was his military philosophy, but he may have learned it from my grandmother. She was the clear leader of the family and she just was focused on taking care of everyone. And you know, maybe subconsciously that's what led me to the hospitality industry because at its core hospitality is about taking care of people. And Mr. Marriott talks about the spirit to serve, and I think she had that before it was well articulated.
Oh, it sounds like in that you've got a lot of wonderful memories.
That's wonderful. All right. We can't really talk about family and not talk about your father, right? Who instilled your strong work ethic. When you were born, he was getting his college degree by day and he was working at UPS at night. But he never missed a beat in showing up for you. So, how have the values you grew up with impacted the way you approach your career today?
Well, he's one of my closest friends. We're only 20 years apart.
And so you're right, he was a junior at Johns Hopkins when I was born. We were living with my grandparents, and he would come home from a full day of school, spend a little time with my mom and I, and then head to UPS to load trucks. And so from my earliest memories, I always admired his work ethic. And then when he graduated, he went to work for AT&T, and he always instilled in me the importance of working hard. All those years trying to balance a family, balance an early career, not once did I ever hear him complain.
And I think those early lessons about working hard, being diligent, having that strong work ethic, not necessarily feeling sorry for yourself about your circumstances, but just about applying yourself. Those were early lessons that I've carried with me throughout my career.
Well, you know, we share that. My father was a farmer. So, I have real strong recollection of him getting up very early, coming in late, and working, doing what it took to get the job done. And I was one of, you know, many kids. We were eight, and so he took a lot of pride in, you know, being able to do for us. So, I completely understand kind of how that kind of carries through your life.
And I was the opposite. I was an only child.
So, it was I think particularly important for him to be there for sporting events and be there for school events because I didn't have siblings that would be there. And I'm sure as I reflect back that was a big challenge for him as he tried to work his way through his career, but it was an important commitment for him.
Well, it sounds like a wonderful relationship.
Good. Excellent. So, let's talk about leadership, right? You've been grounded in great work ethics and family values, rooted in this notion of hospitality. And you've worked at Marriott since 1995.
You've held a number of positions throughout the company from planning to development to operations and then CEO in 2021. The company now has 31 brands, 8,500 properties in 138 countries and territories. Marriott is a large, global company with a massive footprint. What were the primary experiences and challenges that prepared you for the CEO role?
Well, so I started my career in consulting coming out of the hospitality school at Cornell and maybe the first challenge the career office at Cornell does a terrific job. And if you apply yourself, you get lots of interviews. Hopefully, if you do a good job, you get a fair number of job offers. I was lucky enough to interview with seven companies and got six job offers.
And I carried that one rejection letter with me for a long time because it was from Marriott.
You know, I've reflected on that often and I don't begrudge that. In fact, I think they did me a tremendous favor. On the long list of attributes that I treasure about our company is its humility. And my guess looking back is I was a brash young graduate from this terrific hospitality school and I think they probably looked at me and said, 'He hasn't developed humility that would make him culturally compatible yet.' And so I went and started my career in consulting, and I guess eight years later was lucky enough to join the company and had developed that humility. But I've been lucky in my career. I've worked with some incredible leaders. In Los Angeles, I worked for a gentleman named Kenneth Leventhal, who was the founder of Kenneth Leventhal and Company before they were acquired by Ernst & Young. Obviously, I have and had the privilege to work with Mr. Marriott. And of course, my friend and mentor, Arne Sorenson. And the privilege of working with those leaders and watching their style and watching their leadership attributes, not to copy them. And in fact, some of the best advice I ever got was advice Mr. Marriott gave Arne. Arne and I were traveling right after the Starwood transaction. And in a quiet moment, I said to Arne once, 'Gosh, I can't imagine what it was like to try and follow this iconic leader in the industry, Bill Marriott.' And he shared with me that right after he was appointed CEO, Mr. Marriott had said to him, 'Arne, you were chosen for a reason. I have every confidence and the board has every confidence in your ability to lead this company. And I really only see one way you might fail. And the way you could fail is to try and be me.'
You know, you weren't chosen to try and be a replica of Bill Marriott. You were chosen because we think Arne Sorenson is the right guy to lead this company. And obviously, at the time I didn't know there would be this tragedy that would result in me having this role, but those words stuck with me.
And when I've been asked about taking on this role after Arne's tragic passing in the midst of this existential threat that was the COVID-19 pandemic, I think about those words often. And to the extent I have any measure of success in this role, it has to be leading in my own way, not trying to be Arne, but certainly reflecting on his best attributes and what an extraordinary leader he was.
Yeah, well, you know, we are all inspired by the leaders that we have, the great leaders in particular. And it's an interesting story that you were with the one rejection letter, right? It's come full circle. Came from Marriott and now you sit as the CEO of the great company.
I told Mr. Marriott that story the night I was appointed CEO. And he said, 'Who wrote that letter?' I said, 'I'm not going to tell you.' But yeah, it was good motivation for me.
And it's interesting, you and I had the opportunity to initially meet in Abu Dhabi earlier this year. And when I came back here and mentioned to my senior leadership team that I'd met you, two words that I used to describe you was that you had great humility and that you were authentic and approachable. So you had come full circle on that as well.
Let's see. From the time Marriott was founded in 1927 until 2012, and you've talked a little bit about this, when your predecessor Arne Sorenson took on the role, there had only been two CEOs.
And both were members of the Marriott family. That's pretty incredible. They had a lot of trust in Arne and clearly a lot of trust in you. How does that history and the family legacy play a role in the responsibility you feel today to lead the brand?
Well, I'll start by saying that the family's influence and their ongoing involvement in the company is an absolute gift. The fact that I get to talk to Mr. Marriott a couple times a week. I was just at his home with him two weeks ago. His deep institutional knowledge, his wisdom, his passion for the business, his genuine care for our associates around the world. You couldn't ask for a better mentor as you take on a role like this. Also as I travel around the world and I spend time with our associates, even with our size and scale. We're now as you point out a million and a half rooms, 8,500 hotels, but when you talk with our associates, they feel like they work for a small family company. And that's really because of the influence of the Marriott family. I think furthermore, the core values of the family, which really have guided the company for nearly a century, still ring as true as they did in 1927. And that really revealed itself when the pandemic unfolded. As Mr. Marriott points out during his decades leading our company, he led the company through recessions and wars and the impact of 9/11, but this was the most significant challenge we've ever faced as a company and an industry. And those core values really were the true north that guided some really difficult decision-making. And it's the power of those core values that really revealed the value of the family's influence.
That's pretty incredible. 1927 and today there've only been four CEOs and you've been in place for two years, right? So it's pretty incredible.
I'm going to bring the average down a bit, I think, but.
So it's Bill Marriott's father who actually was the founder, right?
Well, his father and mother.
And I'm always quick to point that out. I mean, in every sense of the word, they were partners.
She was our first female board member. She was the first treasurer of the company. In our archives, we have some of the early ledgers from that original root beer stand. And every night she would wash the nickels from that root beer stand and go and deposit them in the bank. And when that first winter hit in Washington, and they realized there wasn't as strong a market for cold root beer, she had actually studied Spanish in college. And she went to the Mexican Embassy, charmed the chef at the Embassy to share some recipes, and she would cook food at night in their apartment and serve that hot food in the restaurant. And that's when the A&W root beer stand became the Hot Shoppe, which was our beginnings in the food and beverage industry.
Great story. Thank you for sharing that. So, you were in a unique situation when you became CEO, right? Largest hospitality company in the world. You mentioned the untimely and unexpected passing of Arne Sorenson, who had been CEO for almost a decade. And you took over literally a week after his passing. He was a beloved leader. He was an icon in the industry, and you've already said you're not trying to be Arne. But take us back to the time when all of this happened. What was that transition like? And did you feel you were ready at that moment? Had you been preparing? Did you know?
Not sure anybody's ready, even in normal circumstances to take on a role like this. In a lot of ways it felt like a battlefield promotion, right? The only thing I can tell you is, when Mr. Marriott called to tell me that the board had appointed me CEO, he said something to me that I'll always remember. He said, 'You know, I thought of Arne as a son.' He said, 'And if there was anybody that wished they could hit the pause button and get the world to stop revolving for a few weeks to grieve properly, it's me.' He said, 'But we can't.' He said, 'And you're going to have to figure out a way to compartmentalize those emotions.' He said, 'Because the reality is this, this was on a Sunday night.' He said, 'Tomorrow morning 850,000 people are going to wake up and they're going to put on a Marriott name badge.'
And somebody's got to lead them. And for better or worse, we chose you. And so, you know, you've got to compartmentalize those emotions. Don't forget those emotions, because that's impossible, but you've got to figure out a way to compartmentalize them because you got to wake up tomorrow and lead this company.
And you know, nothing prepares you for that. The thing I will tell you, and I've said this in a number of forums, often times when companies of our size and scale have a change in the CEO role, it's because either the board or the investors have lost confidence in the direction of the company. This was obviously a change born out of tragedy.
But our business model was firing on all cylinders, the investment community had great confidence in the company, and we had a group of leaders that were battle-tested. They were long-tenured, they were battle-tested. And so, a lot of folks in my early time in the role would say, 'My gosh, how do you take this on? You're following this beloved, respected leader. It's in the midst of this existential threat to the travel industry.'
'Aren't you terrified?' Essentially was their question. And I said, 'You know, if I had to take on those challenges alone, I might be. But I'm going to be working with friends and colleagues that have been with this company for decades, and they have deep institutional knowledge and passion for the business. And in the 24 hours after I got the job, I got over 20,000 emails from associates around the world.'
