When Ashli Johnson gathered a room full of Black and Brown hospitality professionals in New York in November 2019, she called it an Honor Hour—a riff on the happy-hour concept, but with a more deliberate purpose. The idea was simple: foster a sense of community among leaders who are underrepresented in the industry’s executive tier.

Little did she know what lay ahead. “After that initial event in November 2019, the second honor hour was in Houston in February 2020,” she recalled. “Of course, two-and-a-half weeks later, all things sort of fell apart.”

The pandemic shelved her plans for an in-person summit, but it didn’t shelve the organization. Hospitality Hued—the word “hued” meaning “of color”—survived and grew, and today stands as one of the hospitality industry’s most distinctive platforms for advancing Black and Brown talent across every vertical of the business, from lodging and food and beverage to real estate and interior design.

The centerpiece of Hospitality Hued’s programming is its annual summit, held every August in New Orleans. Johnson described it as a “culturally competent, safe, fun space” for development and what the organization calls “ascension.” But what distinguishes it from the industry conference circuit isn’t just the audience; it’s the atmosphere.

“One of the best compliments I’ve gotten is, ‘This is the first hospitality industry conference I don’t need recovery time from,’” Johnson said, recalling feedback from an early attendee. Unlike the typical conference sprint—three days of hard networking, rushed conversations and speakers who leave for the airport the moment they step off stage—the HUED Summit is deliberately designed for depth.

“I’m very intentional about having conversations with our featured speakers in advance to tell them I’m not just asking them to come speak,” Johnson explained. “I’m asking them to truly come invest in this community and spend time.” The result is a three-day gathering in which speakers stay on the floor, meals are curated from Black- and Brown-owned companies and attendees leave with more energy than when they arrived.

That supplier diversity element is not incidental. Johnson’s signature “snack swag bag,” filled exclusively with products from Black-, Brown- and women-owned food and beverage brands, has quietly become a business development engine. More than once, a hotel GM has walked away from the summit and reached out to a snack brand about getting their product into the property’s distribution system. “Those are really powerful stories of inclusion when it comes to supplier diversity,” Johnson said.

A success story from the summit that Johnson shared begin with a handshake. She remembered meeting a Holiday Inn GM who was thriving at the property level but couldn’t see a path above it. Johnson introduced him to other IHG leaders in the room. Within a year, his trajectory had changed completely. Today, he is a franchise performance manager overseeing a portfolio of 55 hotels.

The story underscores a central argument Johnson makes about the hospitality industry: The barriers facing Black and Brown leaders are not primarily about talent; they’re about access to rooms, relationships and decision-makers. “People say representation matters,” she said. “I think relationships matter. I think proximity to decision-makers matters.”

She described repeatedly encountering professionals at the same company who had never met, siloed by department or geography despite sharing ambitions and potential mentors. “I’m like, ‘How can I get to this person faster than you can, and you all work in the same building?’” she said. The problem, she argued, is not always intentional. It’s structural, and Hospitality Hued is designed to cut through it.

This past January, Hospitality Hued published its first-ever HUED100 list—a directory of Black and Brown hospitality leaders to know. The response exceeded Johnson’s expectations. Within months, names on the list were being tapped as conference speakers, and professionals were reaching out to peers doing the same job at rival companies.

“In too many instances, their names are never called,” Johnson said. “They’ll never be recognized or acknowledged. It’s truly been a bit of a utility list.”

This year’s annual summit will feature a new dual-track format. The first track is for GMs—a continuation of the Black General Manager Summit launched last year, which Johnson described as a “breath of fresh air.” The second is a broader leadership track for everyone else.

“Did GMs ever really get together in a think tank sort of way to offer support to one another and brainstorm through commonly experienced issues?” Johnson asked rhetorically. The answer, it turns out, was largely no.

Earlier this year, Johnson also launched HUED Honors, an inaugural awards ceremony held in Atlanta in March. Nearly 300 people gathered to recognize three tiers of achievement. Lifetime-level honorees included Erica Calls Beatty, a 30-year Marriott International veteran; Lynette Montoya, CEO of the Latino Hotel Association; Alex Dixon, the first African-American CEO on the Las Vegas Strip; and Kia Weatherspoon, principal designer of Determined by Design. Award categories included Emerging Leader of the Year and the Junior Bridgeman Entrepreneur of the Year. The HUED 100 honorees were also recognized in person.

“People are already asking about the dates for next year,” Johnson said with a laugh. “It really was incredible to have nearly 300 people in a room to celebrate one another.”

The DEI climate

Johnson is clear-eyed about the stakes. Research published by Penn State late last year found that representation of Black leadership in hospitality is actively declining. “The work that we’re doing has to drive results,” she said. “The talent is there, but the representation disappears the higher you go.”

She is also navigating a more turbulent DEI environment, one shaped by political headwinds and public rollbacks at some companies. Her read on the hotel industry specifically is measured but cautiously optimistic.

“Most companies that understand what DEI is understand that practices of inclusion are necessary for productivity and profitability,” Johnson said. “All of the hotel brands I know are in the business of making money.”

Looking ahead, Johnson wants Hospitality Hued to have driven measurable gains in executive- and owner-level representation. But she also has a structural ask of the industry itself: greater transparency in terms of pathways into executive-level positions.

“It literally breaks my heart when I hear frustrated, talented hospitality leaders say, ‘I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I just can’t break through the ceiling,’” she said. “And what really cracks my heart in two is when they say, ‘I’m taking my talent to another industry.’ I think we have to do something about that.”