IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG), announced the appointment of Leanne Harwood as senior vice president, global sales. Based in Atlanta, she will lead IHG’s Global Sales organization, driving strategy, performance and customer engagement across the company’s global sales segments and regions. Harwood brings more than 30 years of hospitality experience to the role, including more than 20 years with IHG. Since March 2024, she has served as senior vice president and managing director, Luxury, Lifestyle & Managed Hotels, Americas, overseeing the operations and performance of IHG’s luxury & lifestyle hotel portfolio across the region. Harwood has also held IHG leadership roles across sales, commercial and operations functions throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Japan and Australasia.
Hilton announced that Jeff Moore will join the company as executive vice president and chief technology officer. He joins from Uber, where he served as vice president of software engineering and led a global organization of 2,500 engineers supporting Uber Eats, Uber for Business, and the company’s growth and marketing technology. Moore will start on Oct. 26, reporting to Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton. Moore brings more than 20 years of experience leading technology, engineering, product and operations organizations at global scale. Before Uber, Moore held a series of leadership roles at Amazon.com. Earlier in his career, he worked at Anheuser-Busch in software engineering and operations leadership roles. He holds three issued U.S. patents and serves on the board of Edmund Optics.
Hyatt has appointed Amar Lalvani as its first chief creative officer, in addition to his existing role as president and creative director of the Lifestyle Group. Lalvani joined Hyatt in 2024 following the acquisition of Standard International and will now work across Hyatt’s global portfolio “to sharpen brand identity and guest experience.”
Groupize, a meetings management platform, named David Ballard as senior vice president of sales. He has held several management roles at SAP Concur during a tenure of more than 12 years. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and global head of customer success.
Accor has named Kara Randall as chief development officer for Accor luxury brands, North America. The company’s luxury brand portfolio includes Raffles, Fairmont, Sofitel Legend, Sofitel, Emblems Collection and MGallery Collection. With more than 20 years of experience in hospitality, real estate and mixed-use development, said an announcement, she most recently served as a vice president of Hilton’s luxury, residential and corporate development group for North America, supporting multiple brands, including Waldorf Astoria, Conrad and LXR.
Oetker Hotels announced a series of promotions including promoting Duarte Bon de Sousa to COO; Virginie Saint-Laurent to chief people and culture officer; and Simon Neggers to chief commercial officer. De Sousa joined the company in 2013 and previously spent many years as general manager of two French Oetker properties. Saint-Laurent has spent 15 years with Oetker, most recently as senior vice president of people and culture. Neggers had been senior vice president sales, marketing and communications. He joined the company in 2020. The brand recently made its US debut with the opening of The Vineta Hotel in Palm Beach.
