COVER STORY
A guestroom at The Tennessean in Knoxville, operated by Aimbridge.
Smith in the kitchen at Hilton Dallas Lincoln Centre. more than three decades with Marriott International and at his pinnacle presided over its international division. Now with Aimbridge, there is still no shaking his Marriott pedigree. He in turns invokes past and present Marriott luminaries— Bill Marriott, now executive chairman to the company that he grew into a global powerhouse; Arne Sorenson, the former CEO of Marriott International until his untimely death in 2021; and Simon Cooper, who led Ritz-Carlton for many years. All three are legendary hoteliers and shared one intrinsic trait, Smith said, one that he, too, imbues: presence.
“ Bill Marriott’ s happiest times are walking the kitchens. He wants to talk to the cooks, to the dishwashers. I knew I wanted to be that kind of leader,” Smith said. Of Sorenson:“ We’ d go to a hotel; we’ d get in the car; he’ d never pull out his phone.” Smith credited Cooper with helping shape his career in a LinkedIn post shortly after Cooper’ s death in 2024.“ He would push us so hard, but also walked around and teased with everybody,” Smith said.“ It’ s the idea of a leader being present.”
With around 1,000 hotels globally, Smith has done a lot of walking and visiting properties in the time since his appointment as Aimbridge CEO. Like Bill Marriott, he sometimes gets the rock-star treatment.“ A couple of people wanted a picture with me. And I’ m like,‘ I’ m not one of the
Kardashians. I’ m just Craig.’ But I get to meet people, ask questions, find out what’ s really going on in the company.”
TRUTH TOLD According to Smith, Aimbridge suffered from a fractured culture, operational hitches and a capital structure that impinged growth. Smith quickly identified the ills of the company and took immediate remedial measures. One was to change its sprawling structure into a flatter, nimbler company with less inter-organizational complexity. Smith referred to it as removing layers.“ One of the things I found is what I call reverse delegation,” he said, basically when managers take back previously delegated assignments.“ It was almost like we’ re asking the hotel team to do more. We should be taking things off their plate so that they’ re focused on what’ s most important for them— and that’ s focusing on the customer and driving results.”
There was also a churn problem.“ Our turnover of GMs, above-property leaders, corporate staff was big,” Smith said.“ We’ ve cut that way down.”
He’ s filled out his bench with Marriott alumni, such as Eric Jacobs, chief global growth officer, someone who shares Smith’ s vision of quality over quantity and longer-term investments and partnerships. Other former Marriott include Cindy Choi, chief strategy officer, and Chris Tatum, president of Aimbridge’ s full-
16 hotelsmag. com Sept / Oct 2025