Jennifer McCarthy, Starwood Hotels & Resorts

Vice President, Global Brand Design

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with 1,146 properties in nearly 100 countries and 171,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Their renowned brands include St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Four Points® by Sheraton, Aloft®, and Element®.

Jennifer McCarthy has the daunting challenge of enabling global brand consistency in balance with local market sensitivity for each brand and for the Starwood/SPG portfolio brand, where each individual property has local nuances, and where the entire portfolio must reinforce brand stewardship and complex compliance requirements in many languages, cultures, and contexts.  The pace of brand communications is astonishing, with each property in each location around the world carrying out brand communication initiatives on a weekly basis, if not more frequently.  From happy hour entertainment to menu features to weekend packages and promotions, such communications must be tailored to local contexts, yet while retaining and safeguarding global equities and compliance requirements.

She has led the global implementation of Starworks, which enables hotel properties and partners around the world to design and deliver customized brand-specific experiences and marketing materials including, Ads, venue poster, menus, brochures, and emails, to name a few.  The result is a dramatic reduction in production costs, acceleration in time to market, with an increase in local relevance, effectiveness, and brand stewardship. 

Jennifer McCarthy has an international vision for marketing materials across all brands and properties.   Via Starwooks, she harnesses the freedom for local expression within a framework for global consistency.  She is a pioneer in the area of large-scale international marketing with microscopic focus on local relevance.