Kempinski Hotels’ recently appointed chief brand officer, Barbara Biffi, shared with LODGING some of the details of her progression from working on the periphery of the hospitality industry as a data analyst for an advertising agency to working as a branding executive, most notably with luxury cruise lines. At the time of the interview, Biffi was just three months into her current position, where she is charged with leading the transformation of this 150-year-old hotel group’s global brand strategy and marketing operations, starting with the strategic overhaul of its brand and marketing ecosystem.
Biffi, who is multilingual and has lived in or spent significant time in Geneva, Monaco, London, and Miami, said it is likely that her birthplace of Milan primarily inspired her love for luxury travel. “Milan is an international hub for fashion, design, business, and creative industries, so growing up there surrounded by these elements, luxury was just embedded in me,” she said.
As for what she called “the transformative power of travel on people,” she said, “Travel opens our minds, enriches our soul, broadens our tastes, and raises our self-awareness.” She said she considers a trip to Mongolia in particular to be her own most transformative travel experience. That trip sparked her appreciation for what she described as respectful, responsible travel that “leaves no sign of your passage behind except recognition and respect.”
Yet Biffi didn’t actively seek a position in the travel industry upon graduating from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. Armed with a degree in statistics and economics, Biffi was first introduced to the hospitality industry in 1999, when she took a position with the advertising agency Ogilvy. Starting her career there, in the internet era, strongly influenced her path. “That added exposure deepened my creativity, my love for new media,” she said. Biffi remained at Ogilvy for eight years, working her way up as a strategic planner, database marketing consultant, and data analyst for high-profile international accounts, including an Italian hotel group and American Express.
Stints With Silversea
The year 2007 was a pivotal one that included a short period during which she was a brand marketing and digital consultant—i.e., a “profession libérale”—where her projects included leading global market research projects to gain insights on competition, product development, and brand positioning, while serving as a lecturer on social commerce, online brand reputation, and brand management in luxury and tourism industries at Università della Svizzera Italiana.
In that year, she also moved abroad and ventured into the cruise line segment of hospitality in the first of her two stints with Silversea Cruises, which she described as the “anchor” upon which she built her career in luxury travel branding. “As vice president of strategic marketing at Silversea, I gained valuable experience as a contributor to organizational strategy, budgeting, business planning, and new product development. I also drove brand strategy, planning, and execution of marketing for global markets, including North and South America, Australia, Europe, and the U.K.”
Biffi, who also completed an executive certification in digital strategy for business at Columbia Business School, said that her road to Kempinski was shaped by opportunities and people, many of whom recognized and appreciated her “entrepreneurial spirit” and “amplified my ability to take risks, be nimble, agile, and accelerate.” These teachers and mentors, she said, opened many doors for her. In the years before her first and second periods with Silversea, those doors included positions with the growing cruise company MCS Cruises, where she was responsible for digital, social, and CRM global strategy with implementation in 45 countries, and the Yonderbound travel booking platform startup. As chief product officer for Yonderbound, she gained invaluable entrepreneurial experience while in charge of product strategy and design, technology platform development, marketing, and growth.
By the time Biffi returned to Silversea in 2017 as vice president, brand, the breadth of her experience had prepared her well to take on the challenge of elevating its global brand strategy and go-to-market roadmap. “My startup experience, in particular, was instrumental in accelerating innovation, promoting process agility, and deploying data-driven decisions and technology solutions to scale global operations.” In that position for seven years, she oversaw global digital operations and held IT responsibility across reservation, CRM systems, and eCommerce operations.
Ultimately, Biffi was promoted to SVP global sales at Silversea, tasked with developing and implementing comprehensive global sales strategies, identifying new market opportunities, and creating plans to capitalize on them.
Shifting to the Hotel Industry
At the time the opportunity with Kempinski presented itself, Biffi had never actually worked for a hotel company. However, she reasoned, “The luxury cruise industry has a great deal in common with hospitality, especially from a brand experience, marketing, and digital perspective. I knew that not only could I transfer my experience and expertise, but I could truly make a difference for a pure-play luxury hospitality brand such as Kempinski. Luckily, our CEO and board agreed.”
Now, as chief brand officer of Europe’s 150-year-old luxury hotel group, Biffi is poised to drive the brand strategy evolution, global marketing, and digital operations, as well as to elevate the brand’s expression across the entire guest journey. This position, she said, also involves supporting commercial growth through technology innovation and digital leadership.
Biffi has a strong sense of what her job requires in the current business environment. “Today, the job of a chief of brand is no longer about being a creative left brain or an analytical right brain—we need a ‘whole’ brain. It is imperative to both be data-savvy and understand what makes people click, activates and motivates them. One side is psychology, and the other is economics.”
Describing her vision related to her current position, Biffi said, “As we transform into an experience- and locality-led hospitality company, I hope to deliver on the strategic overhaul of the Kempinski brand and marketing ecosystem, elevating the brand’s expression across every consumer touchpoint, through strategic innovation and digital leadership.” To achieve the aim of “projecting individuality and exclusivity while remaining true to Kempinski’s promise of delivering an exceptional stay experience,” she said, “each hotel will be designed to be one-of-a-kind, offering a unique experience that blends gracefully into its specific surroundings and embraces
local cultural traditions.”
Biffi said she considers the present moment to be “the most fascinating time to be in this industry.” Key among the many reasons for this is being in what she termed “an era of tech innovation and disruption. It is a point of inflection for the high-touch industries like hospitality because none of the existing rulebooks will remain valid and intact going forward.” In her view, this is “a greenfield situation, where each brand and company in this space needs to find its own balance between high tech and high touch.” This, she reminded, is especially the case in luxury hospitality, “where an impeccable guest experience will always be delivered through the warmth and intuition of personal human connection.”
