Senior Director, Hotel Leadership and Career Development

JOB SUMMARY 

The Associate Development function at Marriott International serves the learning and development needs of associates worldwide, enabling every associate’s journey to peak performance while accelerating results to Grow Forward, faster. The Senior Director, Hotel Leadership and Career Development is the enterprise leader accountable for how leaders in Marriott’s hotels are developed — from entry and early career through Executive Committee, General Manager, and the field leadership community that supports them. 

This role owns the end-to-end hotel leadership development portfolio: core programs serving all on-property associates; career-based and early career programs that build the pipeline into hospitality careers, including Voyage, Marriott’s global hotel early careers program, and the HQ Fellows internship program; qualification frameworks that define and certify readiness for key hotel roles; leadership development and pathway potential programs for hotel Executive Committee members; and a holistic General Manager development ecosystem spanning onboarding, acceleration and continuous professional development, all while considering readiness and succession needs. It also equips the Regional Vice President community to develop, coach, and grow the General Managers they lead. 

Operating as a strategic thought partner to senior HR, Associate Development, and operational stakeholders, the Senior Director ensures hotel leadership development directly supports Marriott’s business strategy, operational excellence, and leadership bench strength. This leader sets global direction, establishes standards and governance, drives enterprise alignment, and ensures measurable impact on leader capability, while considering local and regional nuances and needs. 

For General Manager development specifically, this role places the General Manager at the center of learning and development, and is accountable for creating the vehicle that anchors the full General Manager learning experience into one coherent, navigable whole. It owns leadership development for General Managers directly; for every other aspect of the General Manager experience it works through the Performance Advisory function, which serves as the strategic thought partner to Operations, Commercial, and Brand and holds the discipline relationships on which that learning depends. This is a true collaboration — sustained partnership, shared governance, and disciplined contracting with Performance Advisory are essential to ensuring General Manager learning needs are surfaced, understood, prioritized, and met. 

The Senior Director leads a team of five, with two Directors as direct reports — one accountable for the hotel leadership stream and one accountable for early careers — and leads through influence in a highly matrixed environment, orchestrating continent learning teams, senior operational leaders, subject matter experts, and external partners to deliver scalable, high-impact solutions that reflect Marriott’s culture, leadership principles, and operational realities. 

CANDIDATE PROFILE 

Education and Experience 

Required: 

• 4-year degree from an accredited university in Organizational Behavior/Development, Business Administration, Hospitality Management, or related major 

• 10 years of experience in human capital consulting, organizational development, leadership development, learning and development, and/or hospitality operations, demonstrating progressive career growth and a pattern of exceptional performance 

OR 

• MBA or graduate degree from an accredited university in Business Management, Adult Education, Organizational Behavior/Development, or similar 

• 6 years of experience in human capital consulting, organizational development, leadership development, or related professional area 

Preferred: 

• Deep understanding of the hotel operating environment and the General Manager and Executive Committee roles across brands, service levels, and geographies 

• Senior hotel operations leadership experience, or demonstrated credibility with operations leaders earned through sustained partnership 

• Advanced expertise in leadership development architecture, including onboarding, assessment, acceleration, readiness, qualification, and succession 

• Experience designing or governing qualification, certification, or role-readiness frameworks at enterprise scale 

• Experience with early career, apprenticeship, or campus-to-career program design and external education or industry partnerships 

• Demonstrated success leading enterprise-scale projects and multi-year plans in complex, global, matrixed organizations 

• Proven ability to shape strategy, set vision, and drive execution across multiple stakeholders without direct authority 

• Expertise in leveraging data, assessment, and analytics to measure leadership impact and inform decision-making 

• Exceptional executive communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills; credible and influential with senior leaders and external partners 

• Experience leading and developing a team of senior individual contributors or people leaders 

• Demonstrated success operating in shared-accountability structures, establishing contracting and governance with peer functions in the absence of formal reporting relationships 

• Experience with modern learning technologies, global vendors, and external thought partners 

CORE WORK ACTIVITIES 

Hotel Development Strategy & Governance 

• Define and lead the global strategy, vision, and governance model for hotel leadership and career development across Marriott International. 

• Establish a clear, enterprise-wide hotel leadership development ecosystem that integrates early career entry, core development, qualification, Executive Committee readiness, General Manager development, and succession into a coherent progression. 

• Ensure priorities align with Marriott’s business strategy, brand growth, operational transformation, and leadership philosophy. 

• Set global standards, frameworks, and success measures while enabling flexibility for continent, brand, and service-model needs. 

• Define strategies, project plans, and business cases for investment where capability gaps are unsolved or existing solutions require evolution or retirement. 

Core Programs & Qualification Frameworks 

• Own the portfolio of core development programs serving on-property associates and leaders, ensuring clarity of purpose, role-based pathways, and consistent quality of experience at scale. 

• Define and govern qualification frameworks that establish what readiness means for key hotel roles, including standards of evidence, assessment approach, certification, and the relationship between qualification and appointment decisions. 

• Ensure qualification frameworks are defensible, operationally realistic, and consistently applied across continents while accommodating brand and market variation. 

• Partner with continent learning teams and Operations to drive adoption, completion, and sustained application of core programs in the hotel environment. 

General Manager Development & Field Leader Enablement 

• Own the holistic General Manager development ecosystem — onboarding, acceleration, and continuous professional development — serving General Managers across brands, geographies, and service and operating models. 

• Put the General Manager at the center of learning: design and own the vehicle that anchors the full General Manager learning experience — leadership, commercial, technical, and brand — into a single coherent, sequenced, and navigable experience rather than a set of unconnected demands on a General Manager’s time. 

• Own leadership development for General Managers directly, and work through the Performance Advisory function for every other aspect of the General Manager experience, engaging Operations, Commercial, and Brand through the strategic partnerships Performance Advisory holds rather than in parallel to them. 

• Collaborate with Performance Advisory to surface, interpret, and translate General Manager learning needs originating across Operations, Commercial, and Brand, ensuring those needs are genuinely catered to within the General Manager experience. 

• Establish shared governance and joint prioritization with Performance Advisory across the General Manager learning agenda — covering sequencing, volume, and timing — so the experience remains coherent and realistic against the capacity of General Managers to participate. 

• Guide the design and evolution of flagship General Manager programs and experiences, integrating diagnostics, feedback mechanisms, and experiential learning to drive sustained behavior change and performance impact. 

• Equip the Regional Vice President community to develop, coach, and grow the General Managers they lead, providing the frameworks, tools, diagnostics, and enablement that make field leaders more effective developers of talent. 

• Partner with Operations and HR leadership on General Manager readiness, bench strength, and leadership risk, and represent hotel development in enterprise talent and succession discussions. 

Executive Committee Development & Pathway Programs 

• Own leadership development for hotel Executive Committee members across disciplines, ensuring solutions build both functional leadership capability and enterprise leadership breadth. 

• Design and govern pathway potential programs that identify, assess, and accelerate Executive Committee members with potential to progress toward General Manager and broader leadership roles. 

• Establish nomination and selection governance for pathway programs — eligibility, calibration, cohort composition, and the relationship between participation and readiness and succession decisions. 

• Ensure pathway programs are globally relevant and culturally nuanced, and that participant experience is used as source material rather than content delivered at delegates. 

Early Careers & Career Growth 

• Set the strategy for early career development, ensuring Marriott attracts, develops, and retains talent entering hospitality careers and builds a durable pipeline into hotel leadership. 

• Oversee the portfolio of early career and career growth programs, including entry pathways, Voyage or other graduate-style programs, and the tools that help associates navigate careers across brands and disciplines. 

• Partner with Talent Acquisition, continent teams, and external education and industry partners to connect early career programming to hiring, mobility, and retention outcomes. 

• Ensure early career solutions connect coherently into core programs and qualification frameworks so that progression is visible and navigable for associates. 

Measurement, Insights & Business Impact 

• Establish and lead a measurement and insights strategy linking hotel development investments to leader effectiveness, operational results, and business outcomes. 

• Use data and insights to evaluate program effectiveness, identify trends and gaps, and inform continuous improvement and strategic decisions. 

• Provide enterprise-level reporting and insights to senior leadership on hotel leader capability, readiness, and development impact. 

Team & Business Management 

• Lead, develop, and elevate a team of five, comprising two Directors as direct reports — one accountable for the hotel leadership stream and one accountable for early careers — together with the specialists supporting each stream, ensuring clear ownership, coherent hand-offs, and a single integrated portfolio rather than two parallel ones. 

• Accountable for work planning, team development, and people management, ensuring the team is leveraged across projects and connected into the wider Leadership Development function. 

• Manage budgets related to hotel development programs and drive strong business and financial management practices, including vendor and partner spend. 

• Cultivate a team culture rooted in performance, business acumen, cross-team collaboration, and insights-driven work. 

Innovation & Continuous Evolution 

• Stay at the forefront of global hospitality, leadership, and learning trends to continuously evolve Marriott’s approach to hotel development. 

• Drive innovation through experimentation, external benchmarking, and partnerships with leading institutions and vendors, considering technology and automation to drive efficiency and scale. 

• Champion a culture of continuous learning, growth, and leadership excellence across the hotel community. 

CRITICAL SKILLS 

• Enterprise Strategic Leadership: Anticipates future hotel capability needs and aligns development strategy with long-term business priorities. 

• Operational & Commercial Acumen: Solid understanding of hotel operations, owner dynamics, and performance drivers; credible with operators. 

• Systems Thinking: Designs an integrated development progression from early career to General Manager rather than a collection of standalone programs. 

• Curation & Prioritization: Works with partner functions to judge what earns a place in a leader’s limited learning time, sequencing and editing competing priorities into one coherent experience. 

• Executive Presence & Influence: Builds credibility and alignment with senior leaders; shapes decisions and mobilizes action without direct authority. 

• People Leadership: Sets direction, develops Directors, and holds a coherent portfolio together across two distinct streams. 

• Global Collaboration & Contracting: Establishes clear contracting, roles, and decision rights across interdependent functions; leads effectively across cultures, geographies, brands, and complex matrix environments. 

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Uses insights and analytics to demonstrate impact, guide strategy, and defend investment.