When Hubert Joly was at the top at Vivendi Universal, he enjoyed assembling global teams to promote products like video games. He anticipates similar satisfaction leading the legacy Minneapolis company Carlson and its Carlson Hotels Worldwide.
“My history as an executive has been to lead global companies,” the Carlson president and chief executive officer said during a wide-ranging interview in January. “The one thing that excites me is to have a global team work together for success.”
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Hubet Joly |
A youthful-looking 50, Joly helped restore Vivendi Universal to solvency in the late ’90s and early 2000s. In the late ’90s, when he was based in Los Angeles as CEO of Vivendi Universal Games, Joly managed the rollout of Diablo 2, a fantasy-themed action video game. “When we launched it, it was a simultaneous global shipment and we sold an equal number of units in the U.S., Asia and Europe,” he said. “We made the front page of the New York Times, comparing that launch to Harry Potter. That took great collaboration, from the games development studio in California to marketing distribution people based in the U.S., Europe and Asia. To orchestrate that—I am a conductor.”
A conductor with an impressive resume, one might add. Not only is Joly the first non-Carlson family member to lead that group of companies, he logged extensive experience in the travel business as head of Carlson Wagonlit Travel and accumulated technology knowhow through leadership of Electronic Data Systems Europe and 12 years in the U.S. with McKinsey& Co. He’s now eager to bring the Radisson brand to the forefront of the U.S. hotel industry by contemporizing it and building Radissons in gateway cities; he also wants to leverage the success of Carlson’s Country Inns & Suites and raise the profile of Park Inn and Park Plaza.
In the U.S., his focus will be Radisson. “In Paris, we have eight Radissons. In New Delhi, we have 10 Radissons; in Shanghai, we have a handful,” he said. “In Chicago, we have zero.”
Looking forward
His most memorable experience in hospitality “was as a receptionist and a roomservice person and night shift person in a four-star hotel in Paris as a student,” he said, noting that he once served breakfast to the movie star Ursula Andress. (When asked whether Andress remembered him, he said, “I cannot disclose.”)
A graduate of HEC Paris with a major in business administration and a public administration graduate of the Institut d’Etude Politiques de Paris, Joly had ambitions beyond a hotel career.
“I understand how corporations make decisions around their hotels,” he said, adding Carlson Wagonlit Travel, which he led from 2004 to 2008, operates in 150 countries, so it gave him appreciation for the global travel marketplace.
“The world has really shrunk,” he said. “As a hotel company, we have to think about the global consumer: the Chinese consumer, the Indian consumer, the Brazilian consumer. In 2020, the (gross domestic product) of the E7 countries will exceed the GDP of the G7 countries, so you have to focus on that.”
In addition, hotel companies must respond to a generational shift. Baby boomers are retiring—and traveling. Meanwhile, millennials (roughly, people in their mid-30s and younger) are more connected, so how they find out about their travel destination is very much related to the Web. They also are eager for experience, making a hotel a destination in itself critical.
“The third aspect, especially in this recession, is that luxury—especially lavish luxury, very visible luxury—is out,” he said.
That gives Radisson an in—and, says Joly, “people can’t be criticized for staying in Country Inns & Suites.”
A global outlook
His work with various facets of Carlson, including the vice chairmanship of the board of the Rezidor Hotel Group, positions him to globalize Carlson, Joly suggested.
“I enjoy building a global team, where you have somebody from Pakistan and somebody from India; somebody from Russia, somebody from Poland; Muslims and Jews and Christians,” he said. “These are people who are not after each other’s throats. They work together to serve global customers. It is hard because you have all these national prejudices; this collaboration is a better alternative.
“It’s hard because of the cultural differences, the misunderstandings, the suspicions, when people correspond across six time zones,” he said. “At first, it’s very difficult and painful, but then you bring these teams together. You succeed. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Does he play an instrument? No. But his iPod totes music spanning Bach’s English Suites, opera, Dr. Dre and Eminem. Is it a coincidence that the last two are Universal artists? Doubtful. Hubert Joly is a global company man.