Radisson Hotel Group President Ken Greene says many underestimate the role of a company’s culture in its success. “Just like with any scoring game sports team, I think great companies, like ours, build a culture where people are working together as a team. We may not all agree on all things, but we’re similar in our hearts. We aspire for the greater vision of the company.”
He describes how members of the team he put together—all veterans he worked with earlier in his career—work in a way that enhances the efforts of all based on a shared vision and mutual respect. “Everyone has a voice at the table. We’ve got to make quick decisions, and need everyone to fall in line and execute their parts with speed and accuracy, and, most important, with integrity.”
While some on this team never worked together previously, he says they have in common that they have all worked with him. “I worked with our CDO for the Americas, Terry Sanders, and our SVP of operations, Aly El-Bassuni, at Wyndham, and I worked with Charles McKee, SVP & CCO, Americas, at Delta Hotels. They get along fabulously well because they have a similar mindset.”
That mindset, he says, is somewhat like a family—they don’t agree on everything but they share common goals. “We know that at the end of the day, if we do the right thing for our franchise and our managed owners, if we build real value and do the right things for the brand, we can take pride in saying we took a company with a great portfolio of brands but no significant growth in recent years, and we drove one of the great growth stories in the industry. We all want that.”
