Vice President, Global Design Strategy

Core Work Activities

• Define and evolve Marriott’s global physical design strategy, creating enterprise-level frameworks that guide how brands are expressed through architecture, interiors, and the built environment
• Translate consumer insights, market trends, and brand positioning into scalable design direction, concepts, and standards that can be consistently applied across markets
• Establish and embed core brand design principles and systems that ensure clarity, differentiation, and consistency while enabling flexibility for local execution
• Ensure all design strategies are built for scalability, owner feasibility, and speed-to-market, balancing creativity with operational practicality
• Contribute to the development and evolution of global brand business blueprints as enterprise platforms, integrating physical design (guestroom, public spaces, F&B), service design, and operational standards into cohesive actionable systems
• Create streamlined, modular design standards and toolkits that enable continents to efficiently localize and execute while maintaining brand integrity
• Ensure design intent is clearly articulated and easily transferable, reducing complexity and increasing consistency across global properties
• Partner with development, owners, and external design partners to ensure design frameworks are practical, implementable, and deliver value at scale
• Reimagine and lead how design is delivered by building simplified, scalable processes, tools, and governance models that accelerate speed and reduce friction across the development lifecycle
• Identify and eliminate inefficiencies in design and approval processes, enabling faster decision-making and more efficient global execution
• Develop and embed repeatable design workflows, playbooks, and digital tools that improve quality, consistency, and time-to-market
• Balance speed with design integrity, ensuring streamlined processes do not compromise brand expression or guest experience
• Partner across disciplines to align design processes with development, operations, and digital workflows creating a more integrated and agile system
• Design global standards and systems that are inherently flexible and adaptable, enabling continents to respond to local market, cultural, and regulatory requirements
• Provide clear guardrails that empower regions to localize effectively while maintaining brand consistency
• Enable continents through well-defined frameworks and toolkits, reducing rework and increasing speed and quality of execution globally
• Balance global consistency with local relevance to optimize guest experience, owner outcomes, and market performance
• Build, lead, and develop a high-performance Center-based design strategy and design operations team focused on enterprise impact
• Foster a culture of innovation, simplification, and continuous improvement, with a strong emphasis on scalability and speed
• Strengthen enterprise capabilities by developing talent, tools, and ways of working that elevate how Marriott designs and delivers physical environments globally
• Partner closely with continent teams to ensure strong adoption of global frameworks and continuous feedback loops to improve them over time

Candidate Profile

• Education and Experience
• Required:
• 4-year degree from an accredited university in architecture, design, or related discipline
• 12 years of progressive leadership experience in global design strategy, physical environment design or brand-led product development
• Demonstrated success defining and delivering scalable design systems, standards, and frameworks that enable consistent execution across diverse markets
• Ability to lead large, cross-functional initiatives, translating brand vision into practical, implementable design solutions at scale
• Experience building or transforming design processes, tools, or operating models to simplify complexity, accelerate speed-to-market, and improve execution quality
• Strong leadership capability, with experience developing high-performing teams and influencing senior executives and enterprise stakeholders
• PREFERRED:
• Experience operating in a global role, building enterprise capabilities that are adopted and executed across regions or business units
• Deep expertise in hospitality or mixed-use design, including guestroom, public spaces, and F&B environments, with a strong understanding of owner economics and development considerations
• Track record of designing or implementing modular, adaptable design standards that balance global consistency with local flexibility
• Experience leveraging customer insights, performance data, and market intelligence to inform design decisions and continuously refine global frameworks
• Familiarity with digital tools, platforms, or systems that enable design standardization, collaboration, and faster development cycles
• Master’s degree in architecture, design, business, or related field