Strengthening Commercial Leadership Across a Luxury Hotel Portfolio
Client Challenge
Our client was seeking an experienced Group Commercial Director to lead the commercial strategy across a growing portfolio of luxury hotels, resorts and spas in Italy.
The brief required a senior commercial leader capable of bringing together sales, marketing, revenue, PR and digital activity across multiple properties, while ensuring consistency of strategy and execution across the wider portfolio.
The role presented a particularly interesting challenge: the successful candidate needed to combine strong strategic and analytical capabilities with extensive luxury hospitality experience, international market knowledge and the ability to lead a large, diverse team across multiple locations. The position also required a high level of stakeholder management, working closely with the Managing Director, General Managers and property sales teams.
Our Approach
We undertook a targeted executive search focused on senior commercial leaders with proven experience across luxury hotels, resorts and multi-property portfolios.
Given the international nature of the business, we looked beyond traditional hotel sales and marketing profiles, identifying individuals with a broader commercial perspective and a strong understanding of revenue generation, key account management, international leisure and MICE markets, luxury consortia and strategic partnerships.
We assessed candidates against both the technical requirements of the role and their ability to operate at board level, influence multiple stakeholders and drive commercial performance across geographically diverse teams.
Particular attention was given to candidates with experience leading change and integrating commercial strategies across multiple locations, as well as those capable of translating complex commercial data and market intelligence into clear, actionable strategies.
The Result
The search identified a strong shortlist of senior commercial professionals with the combination of luxury hospitality, international market knowledge and multi-property leadership experience required for the role.
Through a detailed assessment process, we were able to identify a candidate whose experience closely aligned with the organisation's commercial objectives and the leadership requirements of a complex, multi-property portfolio.
The successful appointment provided the business with a senior commercial leader capable of overseeing sales, marketing, PR, digital and revenue strategy while working closely with property leadership teams and the wider executive team.
Impact
The appointment strengthened the organisation's senior commercial leadership at an important stage of portfolio development.
The successful candidate was positioned to bring greater alignment across property and group-level commercial activity, strengthen key account and partner relationships, and provide a more structured approach to commercial planning, performance monitoring and revenue generation.
With responsibility for a sizeable commercial team and multiple properties, the role also created a stronger platform for sharing best practice, improving collaboration between locations and ensuring commercial initiatives were consistently aligned with wider business objectives.