Craig Smith doesn’ t deal in antiquities, but to see his bookshelf, one might think he was a latter-day Indiana Jones— whip and fedora not included. There, in his home office, sit relics of the past: 1,000-year-old Inca figurines, an ornate Mexican Tree of Life and other religious tokens, including a prominent Ganesha, the revered Hindu deity, known as the remover of obstacles and the god of beginnings. The elephantine statue over his shoulder is an ideal emblem, a totem of support for Smith, who, as CEO of Aimbridge Hospitality, the largest thirdparty hotel operator in the world, is leading the company into a new dawn. A raft of nettlesome issues hounded Aimbridge prior to Smith’ s appointment as CEO in March 2024. In late 2021, a putative IPO was ostensibly scotched by capital market
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pressures, but the run up to it endorsed perception that Aimbridge was growing for the sake of growth, irksome to existing hotel owners who felt a level of detachment from the
The pool area at the 579-room Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve Puerto Rico, which Aimbridge has operated since 2020.
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company— that it was more focused on the public markets than their markets. There was bloat organizationally, which impacted reporting and owner communication; problems over |
union contracts in California led to worker boycotts; the company also suffered from mounting debt load. A reputational fix was in the mix.
Enter Smith, who spent
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