This brand’s opening playbook was comprehensive but built for traditional hotels and the larger enterprise. It didn’t reflect the complexity or intentionality required for lifestyle properties. Openings lacked brand nuance, creative flexibility, and tools to activate culture from day one.

My Role

I led a cross-functional initiative to reimagine the hotel opening process. I:

• Interviewed stakeholders globally to identify needs across Operations, Design, F&B, Brand, and Marketing

• Designed a new lifecycle of opening touchpoints tailored to lifestyle properties

• Created new training content around intentional space design (music, scent, lighting, programming)

• Produced more than 100 tools and documents spanning brand, operations, and culture

Outcome

This project reshaped how the Brand approaches lifestyle hotel openings. It gave our category sharper focus, more relevant tools, and a stronger support system while also pushing the enterprise to innovate. We moved openings into a strategy and not a process.