In this episode, we discuss how Kevin’s intellectual curiosity and efforts to develop skills that made him valuable to his companies helped advance his career. He shares the stories of why he left Host, just as Chris Nassetta was becoming an important mentor to him, and how they reconnected when Chris joined Hilton. Kevin describes how he approaches and embraces challenges. He explains how seeking a mentor requires making an effort, the importance of finding a mentor that “clicks” with you, and the need to be a good mentee.
In this episode, we discuss how Kevin’s intellectual curiosity and efforts to develop skills that made him valuable to his companies helped advance his career. He shares the stories of why he left Host, just as Chris Nassetta was becoming an important mentor to him, and how they reconnected when Chris joined Hilton. Kevin describes how he approaches and embraces challenges. He explains how seeking a mentor requires making an effort, the importance of finding a mentor that “clicks” with you, and the need to be a good mentee.
Hello and welcome to D E I Advisors. My name is Lan Elliot on behalf of D E I advisors, and today we have Kevin Jacobs as our guest advisor from Hilton Hotels. He is their Chief financial officer and also president of Global Development. And Kevin's had a very interesting and successful career journey, so I'm looking forward to him sharing it with you today. Welcome, Kevin.
Kevin Jacobs:Thanks, Lynn. Thanks for having me. It's great to be with you. And I think it's I think what you all are doing at d e i is really important and I'm very honored that you've chosen to have me as one of your participants
Lan Elliott:really thrilled to, to have you, especially since I had the opportunity to work with you in the past. So I'm really thrilled to, to be able to interview you
Kevin Jacobs:today. We've known each other a long. I know. Don't say how
Lan Elliott:long,
Kevin Jacobs:Okay. I won't.
Lan Elliott:So Kevin, can you share how you've built your successful career, looking back, maybe some of the inflection points and factors that contributed to your success?
Kevin Jacobs:Yeah, it's hard. I do get asked this from time to time and it probably sounds like a disingenuous answer, but it's not. When I say I have no idea. How I, I just don't know. I think if you had, you knew me when I was younger and generally on a better path, but if you had known me, when I came out of Cornell or when I was a younger professional, I don't think you would've predicted that I would be sitting in this chair today, so that, but there's a, there was, there's a story there too in, in the sense that I really don't know, in the sense, cuz I never had a master plan and people call me, we both went to Cornell, right? So people, students from the Cornell Hotel School call the time and say, various points along the way in my career. How do I become X? Like I want to be, I want to have your job someday. How do you do it? And I just I really don't, I can't advise you on that. I think you ha I think everybody should fi of find their own path, but inflection points, I can point to a few if I think about it. I I started out in operations. I was a country club manager. I thought when I got outta college that I wanted to be a country club manager and. Succeeded in becoming a country club manager and then very quickly realized I was wrong about wanting to be a country club manager. Not nothing wrong with being a country club manager, but it wasn't for me. And I was able to, activate our Cornell network, I in New York City, and, I knew I'd studied engineering for the first part of my time at Cornell, and then I transferred to hospitality. So I am reasonably quantitative, thus ending up as a, I think as a cfo, O you need to be reasonably quantitative. And so I wanted to match up I was very interested in the hospitality industry. It studied. As an undergrad. So I had some background in it and I wanted to, the bit about operations was, it wasn't quite quantitative enough for me and I wanted to combine that and I got some advice to go into hospitality consulting. So a guy named Dan Lesser, who at the time was at Cushman and Wakefield. Took a chance on a, a young kid who knew literally nothing about what he did and, took a chance of me. So that's obviously an inflection point if you talk about people getting your first big break is an inflection point. Yeah. And then multiple years in consulting, both with Dan at Cushman and then with pwc. And host where you and I worked together was a client of mine. And so I got the opportunity to meet a bunch of the executives and host through, doing client work for them, and they asked me to come in house. And so that inflection point of going from an agent, and being in consulting and look, again another amazing career and lots of people listening to this may be in consulting or maybe trying to build a career in consulting. There's nothing wrong with the career in consulting, but what I felt was missing for me was you'd get brought into that to do solve a part of a problem. What I loved about it was the variety, working for multiple clients and that intellectual stimulation that came from having a new thing on every assignment. What I missed was, you weren't in the, you weren't in the room when the idea was thought of, and you weren't in the room for the execution, and you weren't part of the execution. So I think transitioning from an agent to a principal and going to host was obviously a huge inflection point. And then I think another one was when Chris nata, who you and I both worked for said to me host like, Hey, I think you should do a rotation and I think your next rotation should be, you should work in investor relations. Because you've been in the corporate finance group, you've been I describe it as like a heads down, modeler, right? Like I had my head, every day, all day, every day. I had my head in an Excel model, right? You remember you remember model what I was doing and he said, I think that you should investor relations because it'll help you pick your head up, look around force, force you to think externally as well as in internally. Understand. of Understand how it all fits together. Meet the people who own the company. And so that was huge for me. That was probably the, if I pointed to one thing that set me of on a different path. And helped me immensely and continues to help me every day in my job today. That would be one thing. And then joining Hilton. And I, and I, we'll I know we wanna talk about this some more. I left host and went to Fair Fairmont Raffles briefly, which was a sort of a jumping off point. But then joining Hilton, had just been taken private, bought by Blackstone. You're doing a whole different thing in terms of. It's not steady state public company like you, it was a big, crazy, messy leverage buyout. That was obviously a big inflection point for me. I, 14 or almost 15 years later, I think that was a pretty good move. So I definitely, I never had a master plan. I'm not really sure. I could explain to you the how, the what, the, why me. But I know that, but there have been some definite inflection points along the way that have you know I like to say I, I have I've been fortunate to continue to fall forward over the course of my career. I've fallen into things and I somehow have managed to make those falls, forward falls. So I've been very fortunate along the way. Yeah.
Lan Elliott:Yep. And I think we'll talk about it. Some of those forward falls might not have been planned by you, but might have been envisioned by others, and maybe they had, might have had a plan. No question. Yeah, there's no question. I wanna talk about that in a bit. But how about even if you didn't have a master plan, how did you look at what skills you might need to develop to advance? Were there certain skills that you said, oh, this is really something that I'm going to need to step up and get better at to continue to progress in my career? Yeah,
Kevin Jacobs:I think I, I can't say specifically again what I tried to do and even going back all the way. Really even to the beginning in operations, but particularly when I got into consulting is I just tried to find the way to make myself the most useful. And I think that when, the reason why host ended up being a big client of mine is because, you probably remember this, lodging REITs have been around real estate investment trust have been around since the sixties. But they didn't figure out how to do them in lodging until the early nineties. And like 1993, I think was. The first hotel, real estate investment trust. And so I got to PWC in 1996, and a lot of those REITs were our clients and tons. This was when, Starwood and Patriot American had the paired chair structure and they had a distinct cost of capital advantage to their competitors. And so they were doing deals like crazy. And so that's just where the business activity was, right? So it was almost like, look, it's a game, right? You're trying to make yourself valuable. You're trying to make yourself useful. And I looked around and said, Hey, look, the B the majority of the billable hours are in this REIT space. I don't even know what a REIT is, but I'm gonna try to figure it out and I'm gonna try to make it so that I'm the REIT person around here, because that's gonna be the way to get the most billable hours and make myself the most useful around here. And so that was, and. So I just always tried to be intellectually curious and learn the most I could about whatever was in front of me. So again, I never, I know it's gonna, it's gonna sound crazy. People are gonna watch this and say okay, maybe the way to success in business is just be, be an knucklehead and just sort of go with the flow. But, I just tried to learn whatever it was I needed to be the most useful I could be.
Lan Elliott:It sounded to me that you saw an opportunity to become an expert in an area. And Fair enough. And your natural curiosity just grew from that. And it's interesting because, we've been talking about the word curiosity and curious coming up a lot in these interviews and a lot of leaders have said that has led them to their next thing. So I think it's interesting that you for sure you said that as well. Yep. I think yeah,
Kevin Jacobs:I think you also need to know, look, I. I think self-awareness is a super powerful tool. I'm not sure. And I don't think it comes naturally to most of us. But I also think part of self-awareness is understanding, how you learn. And I wasn't, frankly, I wasn't that great at school. Like I was a decent student. I wasn't a grade student. I'm not really a classroom learner. So when, a lot of people learn better that way and they. They better themselves through getting an MBA or executive education or professional certificates, and that's all awesome if you're that kind of learner. I'm an applied, I'm an applied learner, so the way I learned how to, when I became a hotel appraiser, the way I learned Do a hotel appraisal. Wasn't by reading a book about it, although I did read a book about it, just cuz I thought I could, but it was by going into the model and just reading the code. how does this puzzle work? And so knowing how, if you wanna make yourself better, you should understand, how you learn the best and put yourself in those environments more. Than others.
Lan Elliott:That's great advice for sure. Absolutely. So you've had a very successful career, obviously, as we've talked about, but like everyone, it's not without its setbacks. Can you share how you approach a problem? How do you process it? What tools do you look for? What do you do first?
Kevin Jacobs:Yeah. The first thing I do, look and again, unfortunately, knock on wood, I haven't had too many situations where it's a personal crisis. But I think B, we all have our stuff, but I think in business situations, look the most recent being covid, and that's probably the easiest one to talk about, but I've had plenty of times, you know what do you do when you. A couple years into a leverage buyout and the world blows up and you're, pushing 20 times levered or, what do you do when you become c f o six months before taking a Fortune 500 company public? And you have no idea how to do that, right? So I've had a, I've, or how do you break the company up into three pieces? And do two sp tax-free spinoffs at once. Those things can be very overwhelming, and particularly in the chair, the last three times of those when, we did our I P O when we did our spin transactions, or when covid hit, when you're in the chair that I'm fortunate to be in, the sports example would be you're the quarterback, right? So you assemble these big teams of people to help solve problems and people are looking to you to be the leader. The first thing I try to do is remain calm. I think I'm a reasonably calm, I you've known me a long time. I think I'm a reasonably calm person by nature, and I think fortunate for, fortunately for me, I actually, I think I tend to project more calmness than is what, than what's actually going on inside of me, which is good because I think people respond well to calmness and then I try to like always not get too far ahead of ourselves. All of those, in all of those situations, whether they. corporate transactions or getting through a crisis, we've gathered together, thought about what we were up against, tried to put together a plan, and then you just have the plan and work the plan. And so I think the first thing I do, and I think if I had a major, fortunately, I think if I had a major crisis in my own career or my personal I'd like to think I would do the same thing, right? Which is just not, don't. Don't panic you can't sit in your hands and do nothing. You can't freeze, it requires action. But I try to remain calm. I try to be planful. I do a good crisis and a good, seemingly impossible project. I have this, this weird, Chris and I talk about this often, like in a strange way, we both feel like we thrived during covid. Not that you would ever. That upon the world or upon the business again. But, we do some we did do some of our best work during Covid, so I think I do in a weird way, enjoy a good crisis and a good challenge. But I do I like to approach it methodically enough to be able to do a good job, but not so methodically that you start to get analysis paralysis and that you can't, keep moving forward. So
Lan Elliott:Absolutely, yeah. Requires a balance. Cuz you can just go down that rabbit hole. A very precise analysis paralysis. And then how do you motivate your team, because they might not be as calm or as outwardly calm as you are. What do you tell them to help them get through something like that?
Kevin Jacobs:Keep them focused on, keep them focused on, why it's important that you get through it, what success looks like and what it, that it's gonna, that it's gonna be good in the end. And then again, tell them that every, yeah, it of sounds cliche, like everything's gonna be okay, but, you again, project that everything's okay. I can, I've had actually my peers, after some of those things were over, say to me like, I. I never understood how you could be so calm, but it was super helpful to me. because I knew that you knew the most about what we were up against. And I figured if you were calm, then I, it was okay for me to be calm, so I think you just, it's not the cliche, oh, don't worry, everything's gonna be okay. But it's just, we'll get through this. We I have a plan. I know it seems overwhelming. Don't think about the 12 things you have to do to be done with the project. Think about the next two things you have to do, to today and tomorrow. it's great
Lan Elliott:advice to stay focused and work at one, one step at a time. Yeah, I like that. So you, we touched on it a little bit earlier, you don't get to where you are without taking a few calculated risks and you mentioned that in 2007 when you and Chris were both at Host and Chris was starting to become your mentor at that point in time, and then you decided to leave and go to Fairmont. Was a bit of a risk for a really important relationship that you were developing. How did you approach that decision? Why did you choose to leave? What did you gain out of that move?
Kevin Jacobs:Yeah, it's a good. Question. Yeah. The trepidation of it was I I loved working at Host. I know you did as well. We had, we really did have an amazing team. It's it's proved positive. Nothing lasts forever. But we did have an amazing team. They still have a good team there now, but it's a different team. And yeah, I was working really closely with Chris and he was becoming someone that was a mentor to me. And so I, and I think, look, the reason I left is be I left for the right reasons. I wanted a new challenge I had between my five years in consulting and my seven years at Host, where I, I'd done the better part of a decade, really focused on real estate, like really focused on the ownership side of the business. and I was presented an opportunity to go to the other side, the management and branding side. And it wasn't like I felt that I knew everything there was to know about real estate, but I was itching to un, to, I figured if I spent a bun another chunk of time on the other side of the industry that I would be a really well-rounded hospitality executive. And so the, and the, and then there were things as well that are, I could chalk up to. Youthfulness and inexperience and frankly just not thinking about things the right way. But I looked up and I saw a team that was really stable and, where am I gonna fit in? I want to get ahead and where am I gonna fit in? And it was a, it was an opportunity to move up to that next rung, to the executive committee level and, and be given a bunch of responsibility. frankly, at that point in my career, I didn't think I was going to get elsewhere. And the reason I say that was sort, that was shortsighted is that look, literally six months later, Chris left host, and the whole thing reshuffled. And there would've been plenty of opportunities there. So that's the part, that's the part that maybe I was a little bit impatient, but the part of, the aspect of getting to the other side of the business was a good decision. And I did wanna do that. And in fact, then when Chris got the opportunity to come to Hilton he was like, okay I'm going to that side of the business. But that just with a much larger platform, much more global. with, the best private equity sponsor on the planet. It wasn't, it was nothing against Fairmont, but it was a, it was a no-brainer, of an opportunity. But I would say that in a sense, what I learned was, I think I was right about wanting to diversify. Again, you can build a wonderful career in real estate and do it for your whole career and have a great career and contribute a lot to the industry and all that. But I think for me, the complexity I found on this side of the business, the intellectual curiosity again, and also remember, people probably don't know this, but Fairmont Raffles was a year into a leverage buyout. So the idea, like I of was, I did, was entering the same kind of situation that I ended up at Hilton, which is, you've, you, the company's been taken private by a financial sponsor and like, how do you get in there? optimize it, fix it, make it worth more, all that stuff. And again, I just, I got it at Hilton on steroids, but what I don't know. It was a risk. And what I learned, I think was, I learned to see, both sides of the industry. Both real, the real estate and management and branding and, and then, yeah, it was a jumping off point. And it and even though maybe I was, I didn't fully leave host for the right reasons, it ended up working out because I ended up. Back with Chris at Hilton.
Lan Elliott:Absolutely. Yes. And I, I remember when I left Host, it was the same thing as to see the, really the other side of the table and to understand the perspective of the people you'd been negotiating with the whole time you were at Host and now you get to see it from the brand side, yeah, so really I'm grateful. And then
Kevin Jacobs:mentorship. The interesting thing was because Chris had become, a re a really strong mentor of mine. And because we did have a really good re, re relationship, I did the whole thing above board, right? Meaning from the first call that I got and was intrigued by it, I told Chris that I was, I had gotten this call and I was gonna pursue this offer. Now, it was really painful to do it that way, by the way. Because literally you don't even know if you're gonna get the job. You're thinking about taking a new job, you're interviewing, you're negotiating, and then every step of the way, you've got your current. Boss, even though he wasn't my direct boss at the time, like just banging on me about why I should stay. So that it was really hard emotionally to go through that. But it made our relationship even stronger and we both understood each other and he understood when I came to the decision and when I left, we went and had a beer. and, on my last day, and he said, yeah, I have a feeling we'll work together again. I don't think any of us realized it would be like, less than a year later. But and I think if I had done that in a different way, it might not end, it might have gone differently. Yeah.
Lan Elliott:It sounds like even before he left for Hilton, he already had in his mind that he'd want to work with you again. So h so how did he reconnect? One day you're at Fairmont and you get a call from Chris.
Kevin Jacobs:No. No, I was it's a funny story. So I was in Pearson Airport in Toronto and I was flying to New York to, to work on some business for Fairmont. And typically, I, and you probably remember at Host, we put all our press releases out at 6:00 AM That was just the time they all went out. And I normally would not have been on the grid at 6:00 AM I'm a reasonably early person, but not that early. But I was up early cuz I had an early flight. And so I was I was going through security and hosted, put out their press release that Chris was leaving and a friend of mine forwarded to me. And, but in the forward, which was all I could see was he said, so are you moving to Los Angeles? I'm like, why would I, why on earth would I be moving to Los Angeles? And then I scrolled down on my old Blackberry cuz I, because if you work for a Canadian company you had to have a Blackberry. So it was, so I scrolled down and I saw the press release and I almost dropped the phone. And so I e so I emailed Chris and said, Hey, congrats. Really exciting. And he just responded immediately. Just said, call me. And so I'll probably keep the, I'll probably keep the conversation, but and then, and then I call, and then I didn't have anything to do. I was waiting for a flight, so I didn't have anything else to do. So I did call him and I said to Mary, his assistant at the who ended up working with us at Hilton, I said, I know he can't talk to me. I know, you could hear the phone ringing off the hook in the background and people screaming and I said, I know he can't talk to me, but he said the call, so I'm placing, I'm doing the tag. You're in, I'm placing the call. And she goes, no, he wants to talk to you. Can you hold? And so I ended up talking to him like I, I don't know, 20 minutes after the press release went out. And again, I'll keep the, I'll keep the conversation private, but it was a nice conversation and. He said something to the effect of, yeah, you left saying you wanted to do management and branding thing. have that now and we took it from there. So that's how I, that's a
Lan Elliott:great story. Yeah. I love that story. Have you ever asked Chris why he took a special interest in you?
Kevin Jacobs:I don't know if I don't know if I've ever asked him that directly. But I would say that we have, our, my annual reviews are pretty short. Like you. I always say we have a pretty consistent feedback loop, between each other. Partially, he's my boss, so he, and he's really good, I would say. All kidding aside, he's really good at constructive feedback, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, helping you, enhance your strengths, minimize your weaknesses. So all kidding. Society's really good at it, but I do get a fairly. I generally know where I stand and I generally give him, feedback as well. And so I wouldn't say I've ever asked him that directly, but I think I have a pretty good sense of why. And I think it's, I think sometimes people just mesh well, he's really ex, you know him well. He's extroverted. I'm introverted. We, he tends, he's, he's pretty excitable, I tend, I'm, maybe I'm a slightly better listener. And so I think that, I just think we work well together and I think, look, I'll give myself some credit. I've, again, the whole I, I started earlier by saying a lot of what I focus on, trying to make myself useful. I think I've been a good partner of his too. I think I understand. First of all, when I was younger I was doing a lot more of the actual work, than I am now. And I just tried to every single thing never took a day off, right? Every single thing I'd produced for him and for everybody else, we work for it host. I tried to do. A good job. And I think I did a good job. I think I understand his voice. I can, I think one of the things that's really hard particularly a big company as a leader is, the classic game of telephone that, kids play. That's a real thing, right? People, human beings hear things. Differently. And one of the real challenges as a leader, especially in a really big company, is you need leverage, right? You can't have a direct conversation with every single person that you need to motivate. know, You do a lot of messaging and through setting key strategic priorities and purpose and we all try to carry the water on the message. but particularly when it gets tactical, you need people to, you need to say things once to a group of people and then have them understand, what you're saying and go do it. And sometimes if you say things, if Chris says something, gives our whole executive committee instruction, it's not anybody doing anything wrong. We all hear it slightly differently, right? Because we're different. We're water differently as humans. And I think one of the things I say often is, I feel I speak Chris really well. Like I just do, like we have this good and he speaks me really well. Like we, so I think one of the things I've been able to do is, in a selfless and in a way that makes good about the enterprise and not about myself, I'm really good at connecting dots. I'm really good at helping my peers, understand the direction he wants them to tack to. And helping them succeed. And so I think I'm someone who he's been able to over the years count on to help provide him the most leverage that I can and help the enterprise succeed. And it's, and I try to never make things, I'm plenty ambitious and I've got plenty of drive and. I don't think you get to the, this kind of chair in a company like this without being driven in some way, but I usually don't make things about myself. It's about, I'm, my, my mantras win first and ask questions later.
Lan Elliott:Yeah. There's a lot to be
Kevin Jacobs:directly, but. Because it would be awkward in nursing but I do think I have a pretty good idea.
Lan Elliott:It might be interesting but but I definitely a benefit to being the Chris whisperer in the company. So let's talk a little bit in general about mentors and champions, because you definitely sought him out early in your career. How important is it to to look for mentors and champions? Because I would say women and a lot of. Underrepresented groups have trouble figuring out, what to do, how to start. What advice would you have for those people and how important is it that they look for mentorship? Yeah, I
Kevin Jacobs:think it's, look, it's incredibly important. It's obviously incredibly important and I think that you do have to put some effort into it. I I don't, I'm not sure I would say I saw Chris out. I I think everybody. John Carello was my boss, my first boss, right? And then Ed Walter was my boss. And Chris was actually never my boss. They all were mentors to me. And I think you you seek mentorship, I think by, you gotta make an effort at it. And then I think you gotta be a good mentee too, right? There's a, of hold up your end of the bargain by doing good work. And I think it's really important, but I think it's really important also not to force it. I think. you will eventually be open. I think any young person, I say be open-minded about, building relationships with a lot of different people and then I think you'll organically find the people you click with the best. I think it's like any other relationship, right? I I think that yeah, it's fine. Like a man, you know my wife Amanda. Which is, some of those, dating should come right in, in a relationship. And I think that rarely works, right? It's just it's like when we're all younger and you're, you're trying to find a life partner. It just, you don't, you, you don't I would never advise a young person to to go seeking a specific mentor or go into your company and say, look, I want that person to be my mentor, but I would advise people, and I know you advise people to be mindful of it, right? Without making it obvious, try a bunch of us out, like I say to my we have official mentoring programs and I have, I always have two or three official ones at any given time. And then I think I've been fortunate, I've been able to maintain a lot of those relationships. So I feel like I have, 10 or 12 or 15 people that I mentor in our organization, either officially or unofficially. And I say them all the time, try a bunch of us out. Don't just choose me or don't like, I'm happy to mentor you and help you at any time, and my door's always open, but to find that one person that you really click with and it's gonna be really one of your. really close mentors that's you're gonna, I don't know, play the field's probably the wrong way to talk about it, but you want it to be auth you, you gotta be able to be authentic to who you are, and you of click with who you click with, right? Yeah. But it's also, I would say for younger people, particularly younger people from groups that have historically been underrepresented, be reasonably assertive about it. Right.
Lan Elliott:That's great advice. And sometimes, I think people sometimes limit who their mentors are to people that look like themselves, right? Yeah. So if you're a woman, you might be looking for a woman as a mentor. But it doesn't have to be, it could be, someone that doesn't look like you. And I know we've talked about that you also mentor people who don't look like you, women and people from underrepresented groups as well.
Kevin Jacobs:Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think that one, again, I think that the, like any other relationship, it works the best when both parties get something out of it. And for me, frankly, like I don't discriminate against, I try not to discriminate against people who look like me cuz you know, I say all tie white males or people too. But. But I would rather men mentor people who don't in, reasonably official capacity. People who don't look like me because I, I don't have their shared, I don't share a lot of their life experiences, and so I wanna learn. And I think that's the thing too, is I think, look, it's not perfect. The work's not done. And I'm not sure the. Broadly on diversity and inclusion will be done in over the course of my career. But I do think we're in a much better place than we've ever been. And I think what people should remember, I think all young people should remember, but I think pe women and people of color should remember the senior people In most organizations, most executives that I talk to, we all recognize the importance of diversity and we want you to succeed. right? I That's a, there's a thing, and I'm not saying there's no longer unconscious bias and there's no longer when, if I don't, if I don't share your life experiences or the way you were brought up or the things you faced as being a different gender than me or having a different color skin than me. I'm not saying that I perfectly understand you or that there's no biases there. But I think. I think it's p palpably, people want you to succeed, and this is talking broadly to the broader you. And so be mindful of that. Like I think, there, there's there's a lot of people rooting for. People of all backgrounds and all genders and all ethnic backgrounds to succeed. And so I think it's easier to foster those relationships now more than ever because I frankly want to hear about your experiences. I want to understand And I think that should apply to You and I have talked about this a little bit too, I think. There's more diversity in the workforce, I think, than people realize. Like I'm the first person in my immediate family to go to college, right? I grew up in a, in, I grew up differently than some other people around here who maybe don't understand what it's like, what it's like to grow up like that. And so I think that we all can learn from each other and we all can learn from. And the best thing we can do is just listen and understand people's experiences. And so that's a long-winded way of saying generally people like me want to interact with younger people who have had different experiences along the way because we, cuz frankly I can be a, I'll be a much better leader and Hilton will be a much better company. The more I understand as many different ex of those experiences as I can.
Lan Elliott:Absolutely agreed. And let's talk about that a little bit cuz I know you and I have talked about diversity being more than race and gender, right? It can be diversity of thought. Diversity of culture. You lead global teams or backgrounds like you mentioned, being a first generation the first person in your family to go to college. Managing diverse teams of people with very different thought. Yes, there are benefits to it, but it can also be challenging, right? It's much easier if Kevin Jacobs walks into the room and says, this is what I want, or This is what Chris said, this is what he means. This is what we need to do. Everyone go and start working on. that's much faster and cleaner. But yeah, obviously there are benefits to getting lots of different perspectives, like we just talk, talked about how do you manage that? How do you make sure that diverse people feel heard? And then on the other hand, how do you make sure that the other people in the room who want to move quickly and don't really wanna slow down for lots of different inputs and approaches, how do you manage that?
Kevin Jacobs:Yeah, I think you'd just be very deliberate about it, right? I You again my, on my personal team or people who report to me, it's not perfect. It's not exactly where I want it to be from a diversity perspective, but it's, but it's getting there. So be very deliberate about having diverse people on your team. And all of our teams more broadly, so that you just by definition, end up with more diverse people in the room and then listen to them. And again, be deliberate about that too. Don't. don't make a snap decision. And I think one, look, I think Chris has been a champion of this since the day he walked in the door and he's taught us to be this way too. Look, our, we just make better decisions if we listen to, and we're getting different perspectives. And think about it like we're a really big company, right? We we serve. Over 200 million customers a year or something like that. And we and that guess what that customer base looks like. It doesn't look, they're not, it's not ho, it's not a homogeneous customer base. And so we're selling a product to a very diverse. Customer base, we better be thinking in a diverse way or we are going to create products and ser and services, service experiences that don't resonate with our customers. And so it's pretty it starts out fundamentally, it's pretty, it turns out it's pretty good business to behave that way. And you get better outcomes. happens to be the right thing to do, but in the end it makes it a, it makes you a be a much better business. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the job.
Lan Elliott:Yep. Yep. So one of our favorite questions on d e i advisors is what advice would you have for your younger self? I think this speaks a bit to self-reflection. And I think when we've talked about it, we find that our answers differ over the years. We have different advice for ourselves. So right now, Kevin Jacobs, what would, what advice would you want to give your younger
Kevin Jacobs:self? It's such a good question and it's so hard to answer. So I think there's sort of obvious things, right? Cuz hindsight's 2015 and I did think about this in advance. I look, I would take, I would've taken, I should have taken better oppor advantage of opportunities I had to learn. Mean I went, I was fortunate enough to go to Cornell and there's all these amazing things there. That I didn't explore. Now it'd be impossible to see everything and experience everything cuz it's a huge place. But I could have done a better job. I stayed in, I thought I stayed in my lane a little too much. But I'm getting, unfortunately, I'm getting a second chance. I'm a, I'm, I just joined the board of trustees and so now I'm gonna get to go back on campus and because I'm a trustee, I can do whatever I. Generally, as long as it's, as long as it's, I'm not breaking any rules. So I plan to revisit some of that and I think this sort of the standard issue, be more, more intellectually curious along the way, learn more. But I'd say in the end, and this is gonna sound, this answer could, if taken in a certain way, could sound conceited. And I don't mean it to be, I don't think I'd change much of anything actually, because I think that. Part of the whole, being a little bit less mature and a little bit lost in terms of when I got outta college. Like not really knowing what I wanted to do and not being super driven and not being the model student and getting all the good jobs or slash I got none of them for the record. But I think that's part of what made me who I am and part of who I am. And I think it's, I think it's created some resiliency. In me, meaning like I didn't have this like perfectly laid out plan for me and I didn't have all the opportunities, so I had to scrap my way to them. I wasn't, know, I had to learn as I go on the job and some of the things I talked about earlier. I think that part of being a little bit of a floater when I was younger and not having, and continuing frankly, to not have a master plan for my career. I tell this to people all the time and they don't believe me, like literally. Not literally the day before I became CFO F cuz I got a couple days advanced notice. But one week before I became CFO F of Hilton, if you had said to me like, okay, if you're gonna make it to the next level, you're gonna become an EVP and you're gonna be on the executive committee what chair do you think you'll be sitting in? I would not have said c f O up until seven days before I became the cfo. F. So I've never had a plan and I still really don't. And I think that's part of what made me who I am. So I think as much as I wouldn't necessarily advise young people to behave that way, like if you wanna be, like, if you wanna get the best job coming outta college or you want to get the, the most promotions early on in your career, I'm not sure I would behave the way I behaved. But I don't think I would change it cuz I think it's part of who I am. And again it's created. Resiliency. I'm able to deal with ambiguity. When I signed up, I'll never forget. It's a little interesting, an anecdote. When I met, I went to Blackstone. I had interviewed Ed Hilton, and then I went to Blackstone to interview with the Blackstone folks who were responsible for the Hilton investment. And one of my interviews was with Ken Kaplan, who now was the co-head of real estate there, and he said, Hey, listen, this is great. You seem like you have a good background. Chris likes you. It's really his call. I'm on the board. It's not up to me to say whether you're good for this job, but you're coming in to be the reorg guy, right? And I'm like, yeah. And he goes we don't really want that project to go on very long. We really, this is supposed to be like a six months, maybe nine months, maybe max, like a year long project. What are you gonna do after that? And I said, I don't know Ken. I think that what my experience with Chris is that if if you do a good job and you add value, he'll find, he's really good at utilizing talent. Is it? We're gonna do this big reorg. I, there's, they'll, I'm sure there'll be a chair for me. And that was, when we think about it, I was uprooting my life. I moved to Canada with my family. I was coming back to the United States. I was going into this leverage bio, which is, which I meant ended up being amazing. But it's not without risk, right? It's a whole different compensation structure. You're, there's a fair amount of risk involved and I. It'll work out. And I, and again, I think that some of my, the experiences that shaped me when I was younger and the fact that I was able to have some success, through that approach has given me the con, the confidence at times to deal with ambiguity and, and to take some risks. And it also helps when. You're faced with a big sort of meaty, hairy project or a crisis like Covid and you don't know what the other side looks like. You don't know what it looks like to get to the other side, but you have the confidence that, that you can't. Yeah. And so again, long-winded way of saying, and I don't mean it to sound arrogant, I really don't is, I don't think I'd change any of it cuz it's made me who I am.
Lan Elliott:I, I would also add, you were doing all of this reorg of Hilton in the backdrop of the recession happening as well, which maybe wasn't part of the original plan of what you were going to try and accomplish. But I do think aligning yourself with the right people, people that you trust and your respect, like Chris, you guys have been a great team. And I think that also you. Speaks volumes for what you've been able to achieve.
Kevin Jacobs:Yeah, and it just, it makes it e you know, it just makes it easier. These jobs are hard. They're not without stress. There's a lot of people, know, we have 400,000 people around the world riding on our decisions every day. And it, and you spend a lot, we all know we spend a lot more time working than we do in any other aspect of our lives. And it just makes it easier when you have people that. Amazing partners like Chris is, and like other members of our team who are my peers that are just, incredibly talented professionals, very diverse, incredibly talented professionals that become friends, right? Because you spend a lot of time with'em and it, it does make it a lot easier. Yeah,
Lan Elliott:absolutely. I could speak with you and ask you questions for ages and keep going on and on, but we are getting close on time. Just keeping in mind that our mission at D E I advisors is empowering personal success. Yeah. Do you have a final bit of advice for our viewers who are looking to advance their careers? What might you advise
Kevin Jacobs:them? Yeah, I thi look, I think there's a lot of things and some of it's. Been in, embedded in what we've covered. I think, be balanced. I think there's a it's hard to find at times, but there's a balance between advocating for yourself, but yet making decisions and behaving in a way that is based on group collective success. I think that people who. Yeah. Maybe it's an overused cliche, but people that are team players, produce better outcomes. Hi, I've the best business outcomes I've ever been a part of is when I was a member of a highly high performing team. It's never one. Yeah. Chris is an amazing leader, but it's never just one person, and so that's hard to balance. Like how do how do you advocate for yourself and look out for? By while still being a team player. And I think, look I'll give myself some credit. I think I've been able to, that it's part of who I am, but I've been able, I've been able to do that. I think that I think that, again, add value. Like again, put the outcomes first. Don't worry about that. What are my next five steps? That's gonna get me from here to here in terms of promotions. And again, there's, that's where the balance comes in. I tell people, be patient, right? Don't be so anxious for the next promotion. Don't. I tell young people all the time, don't quit for the next$10,000 of salary, or I guess with inflation now it's 20 or$30,000 a salary, but don't quit for that next incremental bump in salary and that one little bump in promotion. But at the same time, don't be completely passive and just sit there and, just do your job and never, and be happy with never get getting promoted. So that's a balance between Abdi advocating for yourself. and being patient. And that's a t sometimes a tough balance to find, but I think it's incredibly important to find it. And then I'd say, look in the here and now, this may be a somewhat controversial thing to say and something that's gonna be a public forum. I think this, we're in an, in an unprecedented time for people in the workplace, particularly young people. To get ahead faster than they've been able to in the past. Because I think as people are spending, in my opinion, way too much time thinking about is it hybrid? Is it this? Are we two days in the office or are we whatever? Look, we've always advocated for flexibility at Hilton. I think we didn't need Covid D to create a flexible work environment and we. encourage people to, look, a lot of our people travel all the time anyway, so they're not in the office cuz we're in the travel business. But we've always encouraged people who, if everybody has responsibilities at home. If you gotta, if you gotta get your kid to a doctor's appointment or you go, you're gonna go to one of their games, or your partner has something that, yeah, get outta here and go do that and just get your stuff done. So we didn't need Covid to be a flexible workplace, but I think that a lot of things that happen, In society over time. We're definitely over-steering at the moment and people are trying to find a way to I think there's an opportunity to show up, right? There's an opportunity to be in, and I'm not saying, you gotta be in the office a certain amount of time, but there's a lot going on out there right now where people are sorta, trying to figure out how. Maximize their own situation and have the most flexible life. I just think it's, I know what I would be doing if I were I am doing it right. I Look, I'm in my office. I've been in my office every day since Covid started. But I know what I'd be doing if I was a young person. I would be leaning all the way in. Cuz I think it's an unprecedented opportunity to differentiate yourself. And I also think I'm not gonna go down this rat hole cause we are getting short on time and I'm not a sociologist, but I think there's a lot going on with. The various generations. And I think my generation is partly to blame for it, where there's a little bit more of a one for all, all for one and one for all mentality, which is good in all. It's an it's nice, but there's this expectation that everybody's gonna get treated the same. And promotions are based on time served. If if you will, the the blue ribbon concept where everybody's a winner, no one's a loser. I think. That combined with Covid I see a passiveness in the workplace that I've not experienced in my career, and maybe I'm just becoming that old. I somehow woke up, we were the young people when we worked together at Host. I somehow woke up one day and now I'm the old, crotchety old get off my lawn guy. I don't mean to sound like that. I just think that if you're a young person today, there's a real opportunity to lean in and accelerate your career in a way that may not have been available, at other times.
Lan Elliott:That's amazing advice. Absolutely. Agreed. Agreed. If you go in the office, you might be inspired by some of the leaders you see in there. You might get more time with them too. If you go in today
Kevin Jacobs:and you might find your way, into that next great project. Because just cuz you were there.
Lan Elliott:because you were there. Absolutely. Thank you Kevin, so much. And for our viewers, if you've enjoyed watching this interview, you can see more interviews on our website at d e i advisors.org or on our YouTube channel. So thank you so much, Kevin.
Kevin Jacobs:It's great to have you on. Thanks for having me, Lynn. It real, it really is an honor and you guys are doing amazing work and I really appreciate you including me. Thank you for your
Lan Elliott:time.