Director, Global Guest Experience - Holiday Inn

About the position

The Director, Guest Experience – Holiday Inn will be a best-in-class brand management leader with responsibility for developing, deploying and measuring effective guest experience programs to drive guest love and overall perception for the brand. Acting as a general management–oriented brand leader, this role owns the development and execution of insight‑led, multi‑year guest experience strategies, including pilots, programs, and brand standards that enhance how guests experience the brand at every touchpoint—from arrival through departure. The Director partners closely with regional brand, operations, food & beverage, technology, and development teams to ensure guest experience initiatives are both desirable for guests and viable for hotel owners Success in this role is measured through guest and business outcomes, including guest satisfaction and loyalty metrics, revenue performance (such as ADR and RevPAR index), and owner return on investment. As a highly owner‑facing leader, the Director builds strong relationships with franchise owners and the IHG Owners Association, balancing brand ambition with operational practicality. This role requires a collaborative, influential leadership style to align diverse stakeholders behind shared priorities and deliver differentiated, scalable guest experiences at system scale.

Responsibilities

  • Provide critical thought leadership to localize the brand’s globally defined core value proposition and strategic pillars, including its guiding principles and the ambition for what the brand must represent in the mind and hearts of its target guest in the Americas through the creation of powerful guest experiences
  • Collaborate with key stakeholders, including Global Brand team, Operations (Hotel Performance) and Development (Growth Strategy) to define and manage the 3-to-5 year brand roadmaps that will exceed guest and owner needs, effectively developing wining business models and strong go-to-market strategies
  • Lead discovery process to uncover and identify consumer and owner trends and opportunities. The leader in this role will create a robust innovation plan that yields incremental growth for both owners and IHG.
  • Develop a system of continuous improvement to ensure competitiveness, consistency and quality of the guest experience, utilizing consumer insight, competitive analysis and system appetite to drive decisions
  • Deliver enterprise-leading expertise as they lead the research, development, guide implementation, and measurement of brand standards to effectively improve the performance of each brand
  • Work with operational stakeholders to provide assistance and guidance where required and monitor operational compliance with these standards in guest experience initiatives
  • Provide leadership, guidance and support to both Brand Managers and Associate Brand Managers towards the development of guest experience programs throughout the region.  Coach and develop team members; hire, fire, assess, discipline, document performance, recommend salary and classification changes.  Act as an advisor to subordinate managers or staff to help meet established schedules and/or resolve technical or operational problems.
  • Provide overall leadership and oversight to all phases of program (Discovery through Embedding), including budgetary responsibility to support multi-year strategies.
  • Lead the scoping, costing, acquisition, and implementation of current and future enhancements to the brand offering to improve performance and provide strong differentiation of each brand
  • Manage the development and delivery of any operational training modules or internal communications programs required to support significant changes to the guest experience
  • Lead research, in partnership with consumer insights team, to ascertain necessary consumer insight to drive changes or enhancements to the brand experience

Requirements

  • Thorough and in-depth knowledge and experience of hotel operations
  • Solid understanding of the key metrics within the hotel industry
  • Extensive and credible appreciation of brand management and brand marketing
  • Experience of working internationally and cross-culturally
  • Experience in dealing with key stakeholders from board level to line colleagues
  • Experience in managing logistically complex programs
  • Passionate advocate of branding the guest experience
  • Strong communication skills, both written and verbal; articulate, persuasive & influential; systematic and timely

Benefits

  • paid time off
  • medical/dental/vision insurance
  • 401K
Back to blog

Common Interview Questions And Answers

1. HOW DO YOU PLAN YOUR DAY?

This is what this question poses: When do you focus and start working seriously? What are the hours you work optimally? Are you a night owl? A morning bird? Remote teams can be made up of people working on different shifts and around the world, so you won't necessarily be stuck in the 9-5 schedule if it's not for you...

2. HOW DO YOU USE THE DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS?

When you're working on a remote team, there's no way to chat in the hallway between meetings or catch up on the latest project during an office carpool. Therefore, virtual communication will be absolutely essential to get your work done...

3. WHAT IS "WORKING REMOTE" REALLY FOR YOU?

Many people want to work remotely because of the flexibility it allows. You can work anywhere and at any time of the day...

4. WHAT DO YOU NEED IN YOUR PHYSICAL WORKSPACE TO SUCCEED IN YOUR WORK?

With this question, companies are looking to see what equipment they may need to provide you with and to verify how aware you are of what remote working could mean for you physically and logistically...

5. HOW DO YOU PROCESS INFORMATION?

Several years ago, I was working in a team to plan a big event. My supervisor made us all work as a team before the big day. One of our activities has been to find out how each of us processes information...

6. HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE CALENDAR AND THE PROGRAM? WHICH APPLICATIONS / SYSTEM DO YOU USE?

Or you may receive even more specific questions, such as: What's on your calendar? Do you plan blocks of time to do certain types of work? Do you have an open calendar that everyone can see?...

7. HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE FILES, LINKS, AND TABS ON YOUR COMPUTER?

Just like your schedule, how you track files and other information is very important. After all, everything is digital!...

8. HOW TO PRIORITIZE WORK?

The day I watched Marie Forleo's film separating the important from the urgent, my life changed. Not all remote jobs start fast, but most of them are...

9. HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A MEETING AND PREPARE A MEETING? WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENING DURING THE MEETING?

Just as communication is essential when working remotely, so is organization. Because you won't have those opportunities in the elevator or a casual conversation in the lunchroom, you should take advantage of the little time you have in a video or phone conference...

10. HOW DO YOU USE TECHNOLOGY ON A DAILY BASIS, IN YOUR WORK AND FOR YOUR PLEASURE?

This is a great question because it shows your comfort level with technology, which is very important for a remote worker because you will be working with technology over time...