 They really do want and expect that the experience they have with us be personalized and customized. For those customers, we have permission. Hello and welcome to Top of Mind. Today we are here at Brand Week and I am here with Kellen Smith-Kennie who is the global CMO of Hilton Worldwide. Kellen, hi and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. For sure, so tell us. Tell us what's new with Hilton and what are you thinking about these days? Some of the things that I'm excited about, we are launching a bunch of new very cool brands that are designed from soup to nuts to really service the needs of emerging customer segments that are currently underserved by some of the hospitality options that are out there. Amazing and we were chatting over there for a little bit and you were talking about the model of Hilton and how that is really challenging you as a marketer because you've got a lot of different business models and moving parts and pieces. Can you share a little bit about that? Definitely, so timely, timely prompt because we are in the midst of 2020 planning and I love, I sort of am one of these people who geeks out over marketing planning. I love to think about how do we make sure that our resources are working as hard as they possibly can for Hilton and it is really important to kind of reinvent the way you've done things from year to year so that you don't just get trapped in the status quo. Well, you were formerly at Uber, now you're at Hilton, you're doing all kinds of cool new things. What innovation is coming down the pipe that you are most excited about? You know, so it's interesting and we've definitely had this conversation before because I love thinking about how the disruption that our industries are experiencing, particularly some of those of us who are working on incumbent brands, how that disruption really inspires us to innovate in service of the customer and so much of what we're trying to do at Hilton is to build an emotional bond with our customers and in order to build an emotional bond, you really need to make use of the tools that are available and so some of the tools that have caught my attention, obviously machine learning, how do we start to apply that to knowing customers better and really personalizing the experiences that they have on property with us. What kind of data do you feel is appropriate to be using? Like how do you make decisions on the type of insights you're going to be using back in your dialogue with consumers? Well, wonderful question. I would say we have to take the lead from our guests. When our guests have told us that they want to engage with us and they want us to remember certain things, then it's incumbent upon us to actually remember them. When other customers choose to fly below the radar and they don't want their settings saved and they indicate that to us when we're communicating, then we of course absolutely 100% must honor that. What we've seen is that particularly amongst our elite members, so people in our Hilton Honors Diamond Program or Gold Program, they really do want and expect that the experience they have with us be personalized and customized. For those customers, we have permission. The other thing that I would say is with some of the emerging technology that we already have in test properties with our connected room, where the guests can control the lights, the locks, the thermostat, the entertainment, the blinds, the temperature, all of that from the power of their phone, those customers like, this is amazing. How can I make sure that the next time I show up at a Hilton or a Waldorf Astoria that that room knows my preference is a 72 degree room and that I want my Netflix all teed up and ready to go? Which is, again, which I think is really cool, but it really all comes down to what is the customer comfortable with and what had they explicitly told us is okay to save and remember so that we can continue to delight them. But it's certainly not for every guest. Best career tip you've either heard or given or could be both. So it is definitely a tip that I received actually back when I was in business school and one that I have definitely repeated. And the phrase goes, attitude is the greatest predictor of your altitude. And what I have seen time and time again from both from my own experiences but also people that I've coached and mentored is that your ability to be coachable, your ability to take feedback, your ability to bring positive positivity and optimism into everything you do and to really lead from behind, inspire people, like help guide and create that energy of change inside organizations. That's about attitude and that predicts your altitude, not what you got on the SATs or what your grades were in college or how quickly you completed your midterm exams. There's a lot of information about can you inspire people and can you motivate them and do you lean into white space and do you run toward ambiguity and really help clarify it for people? So on that special note, Kellan Smith-Geney, thank you so much for joining me here on Top of Mind. It was my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you and thank you all for joining us on Top of Mind.