Speaker: Kimberly Johnson, Senior Manager, MEC Hotel Onboarding + Ramp
Kimberly Johnson: Hi, my name is Kimberly Johnson and I'm a Senior Manager on the Marketing and eCommerce Hotel Onboarding and Ramp team. I've been with the team for about five years now and my core set of responsibilities are to co-lead a team of amazing managers as we work to open all of our hotels across the Americas and this includes the United States, Canada and the full CALA region. Our overarching goal is to build the absolute strongest digital foundation for all of our new hotel openings and conversions.
Can you share a recent project or accomplishment that you're particularly proud of?
Kimberly Johnson: While our goals in new hotels has always been to fully support our hotel openings during their pre-opening and opening time periods, in Q2 of this year, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to launch a new support methodology to take that time that we're working with our hotels and stretch it from just that tiny little period of time during their opening period through their first full year with Hilton. This new ramp support model allows us to really dive in deep with these hotels to make sure that they are fully optimized across all of their digital channels. Their One Hero web website is as amazing as it possibly can be. Photography is submitted and is good quality and is done as quickly as possible post opening. This really gives us the opportunity to make sure these hotels are pulling all the levers possible for a new hotel with our Hilton engine and to make sure that they're ramping up as quickly as possible. We're super excited to be able to have this new support structure and to have that additional time to be really strategic with these hotels and get them operating to their fullest capacity as quickly as possible.
Tell us about your career journey leading up to your current role.
Kimberly Johnson: So I really started on my marketing career trajectory at the company that I worked with before coming to Hilton. I worked for a promotional products company, a local distributor in the Atlanta area. And I started with them as a marketing coordinator, which is really where I got my feet wet with all types of eCommerce and online marketing opportunities. I moved into a merchandizing manager role and really got the opportunity to dive deep into the analytics, what sells on the website, where do you position products to convert to the best of their capabilities. And then about 12 years ago, I had the opportunity to move to Hilton as part of the overarching eCommerce edge launch. I worked with a portfolio of hotels across the mid Atlantic region, supporting hotels in Washington DC, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. And then I was able to kind of take on some additional stretch opportunities and finally moved into my role as a Senior Manager within the new hotel Onboarding team.
How does your current role fit in to your career goals?
Kimberly Johnson: In my current role as a senior on the new hotel team, I not only have the opportunity to do kind of what I'm doing on the daily basis, what my job requirements are working with new hotels, but I'm able to work with so many different partners, teams within the Hilton Enterprise. I'm able to work with Commercial Services, Analytics, the brands, Content Services, all these other groups that feed into the overarching success of our hotels within the Hilton Enterprise. And I think this is an amazing opportunity within Hilton and the way that we're set up in this matrix organization that we have these connections across our groups. So not only can you excel at your job, but at the same time, you could be taking on these other opportunities that help you grow in your skill set that help you prepare for the next role. So not only do you get to build your own personal network across the across the organization, but you get to grow your skill sets as well.
What advice would you give to someone who is interested in pursuing a similar career path?
Kimberly Johnson: The first is make sure that you are using your CDP. It's looked at, it's very important and it helps you build that path of action that you want to take throughout the year. So say you want to pursue some official training, some structured learning series, etc. Make sure you're following that and documenting on your CDP so you can continue to build on the critical skills that you might need for that role that you are targeting in the future. And also I would say raise your hand for those stretch opportunities. If there's a work stream that pops up, that's plugged into that area of the business that you're interested in, you know, take that opportunity, not only are you going to continue to build your skill set and your knowledge of that area of the business, but you'll build your network as well
