Still less than a year old, the Women in Hospitality Leadership Alliance is already making strides. The alliance—which is essentially a consortium of 23 individual organizations—brings groups together to facilitate discussion and collaboration to advance women in leadership roles.
Founded by industry veteran Rachel Humphrey, the alliance’s mission is to encourage collaboration to maximize each of the organizations’ efforts. And, while the organizations will continue to operate individually, the idea is that through this collaboration, they will be stronger together.
Although a sizeable mission, the alliance comes from humble beginnings. In fact, it began as a way for Humphrey to volunteer.
The alliance met at ALIS for the first time.
“Last year in August, I retired from the hospitality industry as a full-time employee and took a little bit of time off to regroup,” she said. “At the end of that time off, there happened to be some very high-profile CEO announcements coming out in the industry. Despite having incredible talent that is very diverse in the industry, each of those announcements were white men and while I think that each of those individuals will be excellent leaders of their respective companies, it felt like if we weren’t seeing diversity in CEO announcements in 2021, then it might not happen.”
Humphrey then reached out to some organizations, thinking she was going to volunteer her time with them and see if she had anything of value to add. In those early conversations, however, she realized there was an opportunity for those organizations to collaborate.
She then organized a call between six organizations, getting a feel for if the groups could help each other.
“It’s a great issue,” Humphrey said. “No one’s ever going to be on opposite sides of it. You may have areas in common, you may have different lanes that you occupy in some ways, but you want the same thing. They jumped at the chance and very quickly into that first phone call we knew that we were on to something.”
A few groups, along with David Kong, Humphrey’s fellow DEI Advisors principal, met at The Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) earlier this year and, as they say, the rest is history.
“It was really formed out of an awareness that there was a lot of groups already doing great work in this space and seeing how I could help bring them together to facilitate discussion and collaboration,” Humphrey said.
The groups now connect regularly and share goals, efforts, educational resources and event information. Humphrey said that learning what each of the organizations are doing isn’t only efficient, but critical in today’s world.
“We’re at a time where human resources and capital resources are stretched very thin,” she said. “We are all on the same side, and we all want the same goal. Collaboratively, this is not a competition. If we can find ways to be more efficient, we’re always going to be stronger together.”
Humphrey said that through the alliance, she’s seen some organizations pivot based on what areas the others are putting their focus.
“It’s freeing up human and capital resources to focus on other areas,” she said. “We’re also seeing, from a collaborative standpoint, the magnification of each other’s messaging. If you’re able to share what another organization is doing or if you’re able to send things out to your networks or communities, then that other organization’s messaging is just being amplified. There aren’t any negatives to collaborating when your goal is ultimately the same at the end of the day.”
Diversity of thought and experience is essential if you want to attract the best talent in this industry, Humphrey said, and the industry must show that the sky’s the limit for everyone who enters it.
“You hear the saying all the time: If I don’t see it, I don’t know that I can be it,” Humphrey said. “If you don’t see women in the C-suite at companies, and if you don’t see women in hotel ownership, you are not going to think that’s a path for you. By necessity, we are going to be eliminating an incredibly talented group of individuals from an industry that we all love. The whole purpose of what we’re all doing is trying to be much more inclusive and diverse as an industry at all levels.”
Although hospitality is an industry that prides itself on fostering diversity and inclusion, there are still some hurdles to overcome—particularly on the corporate and individual sides.
“Corporate barriers are [there]because the decisionmakers are mostly men on the boards and in the C-suite, and they are going to hire a familiar path, and maybe a female may have a different path,” Humphrey said. “We need to change the mindset of what makes someone qualified. Nothing to take away from those incredibly talented people that already hold those seats, but there can be other qualified paths to leadership.”
And, on the individual side, Humphrey said that women must advocate for themselves and empower themselves to take advantage of opportunities.
“We have to believe that we are deserving or qualified for those opportunities…it’s going to be a collective effort,” she said. “On the corporate side, we have to make sure that we’re changing the mindset of the individuals that are in those hiring roles and then the individuals themselves not just advocating for themselves but that we have champions, allies and mentors that are advocating for others to come up.”
As for the alliance’s future, Humphrey said she’s most excited about coming up with ideas, being willing to take a risk, reaching out with those ideas and then actually seeing them in action and working. Also, it’s encouraging for her to see groups that she’s less familiar with reaching out to the alliance looking to get involved.
“I like seeing how organizations now are working together or may have reevaluated the efforts they’re taking to make sure that they’re not operating in a way that isn’t maximizing the resources that they have,” Humphrey said. “When you leave these meetings, you’re so energized just listening to the unbelievable work that these 23 organizations are doing. It’s mind-blowing.”
Hospitality alliance unites organizations to advance women in leadership roles
