The Marriott Lexington Griffin Gate Golf Resort & Spa in Kentucky includes a Rees Jones-designed golf course .
OPERATIONS
IN COMMAND
AIMBRIDGE ’ S NEW CEO IS BUSY FIXING THE COMPANY . HE ’ S DOING IT WITH A ROLLING PIN .
By DAVID EISEN
Imagine a layer cake . Multiple sheets of stacked cake bound by frosting . All the layers are connected , but when the tines of a fork dig in , it can be a deep dive from the top section to the bottom one .
Aimbridge Hospitality is that multi-layered cake . Or was . Craig Smith , who took over as president and CEO of the company in March , has a plan to turn that steep cake into a sheet cake — changing the sprawling organization that manages more than 1,200 hotels worldwide into a flatter and nimbler company with less organizational complexity .
It shouldn ’ t , if you listen to Smith , the former group president and managing directorinternational at Marriott International , take navigating through a gauntlet of bureaucracy to get from the property level to the executive level . “ The closer to me ,” he said . “ My goal is to remove layers .”
What does this excavation project look like ? Well , for one , there is no longer a global president . That position , which was occupied by Mark Tamis , is gone ; so , too , is Allison Reid , who was chief global growth officer . Eric Jacobs , another longtime Marriott executive and Smith confidante , joined Aimbridge in June as chief global growth officer .
Larger companies tend to have reticulated hierarchies , which can — but not always — act as a stranglehold on progress . In the case of Aimbridge , Smith said there were too many levels between him and the hotels . “ One of the things I found is what I call reverse delegation ,” he said , basically when managers take back assignments they had previously delegated . “ It was almost like we ’ re asking the hotel team to do more . We should be taking things off of their
60 hotelsmag . com July / August 2024