Sloan became CEO at the age of 38. In this interview, he talks about factors contributing to his success and his advice to his younger self. Sloan also discusses leading with empathy and his personal brand statement. He ends with some advice to aspiring women and minorities.
Sloan became CEO at the age of 38. In this interview, he talks about factors contributing to his success and his advice to his younger self. Sloan also discusses leading with empathy and his personal brand statement. He ends with some advice to aspiring women and minorities.
Greetings. I'm David Kong, the founder and principal of DEI Advisors. I'm delighted to welcome Sloan Dean, the president, c e o of Remington Hotels to be with us today. Sloan, I know how busy you are and appreciate you taking the time
Sloan Dean:to join us. It's my pleasure. I'm delighted to be on today and share some of my experience with you.
David Kong:Thanks so much, Sloan. Now Sloan I'm not sure our audience know enough about you and you've got a very interesting background and I think they'd be delighted to hear about your education and how you got to where you are today.
Sloan Dean:Yeah I have probably one of the least traditional routes to be a c e o of a large hotel management company. But I grew up in rural Georgia. So I grew up in farming country about an hour and a half, two hours northeast of Atlanta. I, growing up as a child act math was my strongest subject, so I ended up going to Georgia Tech for industrial and Systems Engineering, and. I ended up getting a minor in finance that quite frankly, I probably use a lot more than my in engineering degree. But when I was in college, I interned with at and t GE realized I did not wanna do telecom and manufacturing in my life. And so when I interviewed coming outta college, I was very intentional about the employer that I went to work for, cuz I wasn't sure what industry I wanted to work in. So I chose consulting management. and I went to work for Oliver Wyman, and when I was there, one of the biggest clients was American Airlines and then also Starwood Hotels. So I got a lot of exposure to the travel business being on the consulting side, and I really, I was in Chicago at the time. I'd moved to Chicago after college and wanted to get back to Georgia. To be closer to family and IHGs America's headquarters is based in Atlanta, and so I really loved the projects that I worked on for American Airlines. And so I wanted to, I was like, okay, the travel business is where I want to be, and I went to be a senior analyst for worldwide distribution marketing at I h. And then from there I went into revenue management and got promoted a couple times. And then I left i h g to go run revenue management for Noble Investment Group and work for Mihaw. Back when noble Investment Group owned or operated their own hotels, they eventually sold the Opco to interstate, but I actually ran revenue management for MIT and Bob Morris. And then left there to go to Alliance Hospitality, which was a third party hotel management company that sold to Interstate. And so then I went to Interstate, worked in sales, revenue management, and then ultimately went to work for Leslie Eing in business development. And that was during the Theater Jang partnership. And we were really focused on growing the portfolio. And I was involved in a lot of m and a transactions. And then about nine years ago I was at interstate thinking I was gonna be a deal person the rest of my life. And a headhunter called me and said, Hey, would you be interested in going and working for the Astra group of companies? And I very hesitantly put a toe in the water and one thing led to the next. And for a period of time I was in asset management. And then in 2018, I came over from the REIT affiliate REIT side to where I was overseeing asset management for Astrid Hospitality Trust to run the Opco Remington. And then over the last five years, we have really morphed into, we're now the fifth largest third party hotel management company. We just bought Chesapeake Hospitality. And we manage for 28 different capital groups, 122 hotels, mostly full service. And I love my job because I am a people person through and through. So I think, the travel business gets in your blood. I can't even fathom working in a different industry. And it's really rewarding. It's obviously been a really tough two, two and a half years, but I think that makes us better. It's had us come together. We've had to survive this crisis that none of us saw, and I'm very grateful. We actually have eight, a little over 8,700 employees, and I think that's what I'm most proud of is being able to lead a large organization and see it really empower people to improve their lives and improve their family's lives.
David Kong:Well said.. And listening to you talk about your background, I'm so envious because you have gotten exposure to a lot of areas from when y ou were in revenue management and you were in operations. You were in deal making. You ran big companies, you were involved in merger acquisition. That consulting background early on must have helped you too, right? A few
Sloan Dean:things. It was, until I got to my early thirties, the, I had really diver, I was really lucky that I sought out companies that were very performance driven or were willing to allow you to move into different areas. And I always, the way I looked at it was I was always wanted to be a C e O or run my own. And I looked at the background of various CEOs, they typically don't follow a siloed approach. They'll go work in m and a or operations, or come up through finance. And so I really wanted to broaden myself and I was very intentional about not getting promoted too high within one discipline to where if I wanted to switch over outta operations into m and a and needed to take a pay cut. that I would have the ability to do that. And so I made several lateral moves with across my career that really didn't. Make me any more money. But it made me more marketable as I got older because I had a, I had worked in so many different areas that I, it's, it, just being the ceo you have to know a little about a lot, not necessarily a lot about a little. Yeah, no, that was what I was really focused on early in my career, was getting good breadth of experience.
David Kong:That's very smart of you to take lateral moves to gain the exposure and to broaden your knowledge base and skill base. That's very smart. But I've read that you've taken a lot of risk along the way too. You actually took a big risk when you were working on undergrad degree. Tell us about that and tell us how risk taking has shaped your career.
Sloan Dean:Yeah, I, it's interesting in that. I think it, part of it is personality driven that even when I was in high school as a big tennis player, or played tennis all the way through college. Is that it? I was. you could see that without risk, there's no reward, right? That the American dream, you have to be. And I always wanted to be an entrepreneur or an executive. And I think probably the biggest risk I took early on was I had a co-op and the co-op. To get the co-op certificate at Georgia Tech, you have to complete four work rotations with the exact same employer. I had completed three rotations with at and t. And getting the co-op certificate was a big deal and I decided to opt out of the co-op to then go do a one-off internship with ge. And I frankly, if I hadn't done that I think I wouldn't have realized how much I disliked manufacturing. And I probably would've taken, because some of the highest paying jobs for industrial engineers is in the manufacturing area, and I would've fought, gone and worked for a GE or some company like that, and my career would've been very different. But I, I took that risk and because I wanted to see a different industry before I graduated and then happenstance, that second industry I saw, I was like I don't like this very much. And that's what drove me to go into. Consulting because I just didn't know what industry I wanted to work in. And so I think that willingness to say, you know what, I'm not gonna get the co-op certificate, so be it, but I'm gonna get work experience in a second industry before I graduate. And that, I think that was one of the first where I I took a risk that's probably not traditional and it, helped catapult me along the way. And I could probably name three or four others. Throughout my career where I made up, people were shell shocked at maybe a decision I made, but it paid dividends down the line.
David Kong:No doubt. I think the techn and lateral moves are risks in themselves, but it did help you round up your experience and broadened your whole way of thinking about things. That's great. Let's talk about the challenges and setbacks you faced along the way. No doubt you faced them and. maybe give us some examples of the kinds of challenges you face and how you overcome them. But more importantly, what is the approach that you take when you face difficulties?
Sloan Dean:I'll use two probably really good examples. I was in my late twenties and I was I had risen pretty quickly and was SVP of commercial services for Alliance Hospitality. revenue management, digital marketing and sales for the company reported into me. And I remember the the f the owner and CEO came to me and said, Hey, I'm selling the company to interstate. I want to see a new management company and you stay and will grow it. And I made the decision to go with the company to interstate But as part of that, I actually got demoted. And I remember in my late twenties, I'd had a lot of success. It was a bit of an ego swallow. And, but that ended up being such a catalyst for great things. And because of that I got exposure to Leslie Yang and Tom Barnett, a few other great executives who advocated for me to go work in m and a. And quite frankly, I don't think without that m and a exposure, I would've been a c e O of Remington. So it's interesting, as I look back and I think initially it, it was disappointment when I had to take a demotion and had less authority at a bigger company. But then being at a bigger company, I got to see a lot exposed to a lot more than I was at a smaller management company. And I think, so much of being successful in life or being a, the way you manage your career is expectations, and I think at that time, It was just managing myself and moving from disappointment to, okay, this is a new challenge, and what can I learn? And, at the time, interstate was the largest management company. And this was before Enbridge had caught fire. And, I said, this is a great opportunity to work for the largest. And I pivoted. The second time I really maybe faced a challenge. Was probably, has been the biggest of my career is when Covid happened. I call it taking the elevator down. I remember we had a call on March 4th which was a Friday. I remember the c our COO and me and I'd only been the c e o slot for four months and I turned Tostan Kennedy, our COO at the time. And we at the time had about 7,000 employees. And I said, listen, we're gonna have to figure out how to operate these hotels with. The fewest people possible because we're gonna be in cash preservation mode for some time. And I don't think any of us knew what we were facing. It was, but by April 1st, we were operating 90 hotels with around 500 associates. Wow. And and actually we did not at Remington. We worked with our owners. We only ended up closing temporarily 12 hotel. And 11 of those 12 were all mandated by the municipality. Like in Napa, we were required to close in Key West. The island effectively closed down. But we were very intentional about trying to stay open so that we could, when the recovery came, our hotels would be open. And but I think that period of 2020 it was either you stepped up or you stepped out. And I remember in reflection. I learned the most I ever have in my career about leadership and communication and the value. Individuals than I ever have. And we started doing biweekly webinars and we did it every week for the, and it was exhausting. Sometimes we'd be on there with six, 700 associates and they'd be asking questions for an hour. But I think that transparency, even when sometimes I would say, I don't know, I would get the question of how much longer am I gonna be furloughed? Cuz we invited our furloughed associate. I think that transparency really, A lot of goodwill and trust and between, not only between the leadership team ourselves, but everyone in the organization that now that we are rebounding we've, our turnover is down from what it was pre pandemic. And I think a lot of that is the way we treated people and communicated people through the pandemic. But I think that those are probably two where, one was a disappointment around my career and the other one was, the greatest crisis that the industry's ever faced. And I, I think you ultimately learned that you have to trust other people and you lean on one another, you develop them and you're as transparent as you can. And also one of the things I've done is, be willing to show vulnerability. As the business leader, we always want to have the answers, but let's face it, in March of 2020, none of us had. the answers, and I think just standing up there and saying, Hey. We are going to figure this out. We're gonna try and stay open. We're gonna try and keep as many people on furlough and not lay them off because they can get medical benefits. We're gonna try and get people back to work as fast as we can, but we don't know how long this is gonna go. And I think just simply talking to people made a big difference. But yeah, those would be too, that I would
David Kong:call out. Yeah, those are two significant incidents. And what I'm hearing you say, there are actually three lessons here. The first disappointment that you referred to when you had to take a couple steps down and go work for a bigger company. All of us faced disappointment at times and you talked about instead of being disappointed and aggravated and upset you took a proactive and constructive route You. Steer your way to, Hey, I'm working for a bigger company and there's a lot that I can learn. I a lot, I can benefit from it. That was a very good lesson. the pandemic. I think your approach being honest and vulnerable and transparent and engaging in holding all those webinars that really won your lot of goodwill. I read what you said which I totally agree with, which is people can handle bad news. They don't want surprises. That was outstanding. And sounds like your approach to challenges is you've built a good team and you learn to have trust in them.
Sloan Dean:Yeah, the reason bosses become micromanagers is because they actually did the job that of the people underneath them better than they did. That's why they got promoted. And one of the hardest things to let go of as you get promoted to move higher, an organization is letting go of your own ego. That, Hey, I was a better GM than them, or I was a better VP of officer, I was a better coo o than them. And think about it, how can I elevate them to be even better than me? And it starts with hiring the right person. So having good recruiting skills and, I pride myself on recognizing talent. I think that's one of if you're say, Hey, what makes a great ceo? Being able to identify, recruit, and retain talent is top of the list, but getting out of their way. And I think that's just come over with time. Quite frankly, I had bosses that were micromanagers and I remember thinking to myself, when I'm at a point of power, I'm not gonna do that reciprocation. And I've really tried to be very intentional now it. It's been through executive coaching and a lot of inflection, reflection myself. I'm not saying I get it right every day, but I think it really, great organizations recruit the best, promote the best, but they allow the best to, it's the old saying, you you hire smart people let them tell you what to do. it's not like I go around telling them, I hired a smart chief commercial officer, a smart. Chief operating officer, it'd be foolish to me to say, okay, guys, I want you to do A, B, C, D, E. Go do it right now and then come back and gimme my checklist. No, you tell me what we need to do and how can I support you.
David Kong:Yeah that's really well said. But it's easy said and done because I know a lot of people who. Find it difficult to let go, especially when they come up that discipline. For you, you came up with revenue management and being a commercial officer, that's hard to let go too.
Sloan Dean:What I've actually found, and I don't know if this is the curiosity one one of those traits, I'm a very curious person. My nature, I can remember I was one of those kids that was like, why mom? Why mom, why? And my oldest son, who's 10 now, is a carbon copy. He is all the time. Dad explained this to me, dad, I was a very curious, and I bring curiosity to the workplace. Not in a condescending way, it is, helped explain this to me and. as I got promoted, I went from chief commercial officer to COO to C E O is the path that I actually found myself as. I became COO and then c e o of spending a lot more time with legal development, hr and I very intentionally said, Hey, I wanna go get a chief commercial officer. That is tremendous, and let them have more economy than just about everybody else. I think we all so often you ha you become a c e O and maybe you came up through finance or you came up through operations and you just heavily focused on what you're good at. And what I've, I think intentionally done is focus on what maybe some of my weaknesses are. Try and round those out. And not just focus on what I grew up through and, where maybe some of my greatest strengths are. And I think that's helped round me out as the c E O. And I think also you need to hire diversity, right? And hire that. A lot of people make the mistake of hiring in their own likeness because it's part vanity or arrogance, oh, I've been very successful, I wanna hire a carbon copy of me. Actually the best teams are the ones with the most diversity. And that's another thing that in our hiring practices, I really try, everyone that reports me, I try to hire them with a very different background.
David Kong:Good. We're gonna touch on that a little bit. Let's go back to you. You talked about you've always wanted to be entrepreneur. You always wanted to be a c e o. You became CEO at the age of 38 which is truly remarkable for the size of company that you run. What are contributing factors to your success?
Sloan Dean:First and foremost the people that have mentored me, supported me. From my family, from my father, my older brother who's had a lot of success too. I've had some tremendous bosses that advocated for me. Jeremy Walter, who is leaving, is president of our parent company, Astron Inc. Who's been my biggest advocate these last nine years. And I would've never been c e of Remington if it weren't for. I would've never been SVP of asset management if it weren't for Larry Doyle, who's now retired. So I think that's first that I always, I wouldn't call it necessarily luck. I've been very intentional. The reason I went to go work for Interstate, for example, is cuz of Tom Barnett. I, Tom's a tremendous leader. He is, been COO at ESA and now runs asset management for r l. and I've, I almo almost always choose the job for the person, who do I get to work with and learn from? And I think that has accelerated my career along with the lateral news that I've made. The other thing is that I started in, when I was, I think I was 32. Or 33, I started to recognize that I was very successful, but I had some sharp elbows and edges particularly when I was at the asset manage running asset management, that I had friction that was probably not productive. And so I saw that I actually requested that I get an executive coach and I still mark Youngblood and I still talk monthly. I call it going to confession, That's cause it is progress, not perfection. I say that to my team all the time. It's progress, not perfection. And it's the same with me. And I think that really elevated my game in a big way because, I've always been very analytical, very math oriented, very numbers, high work ethic. But what allowed me to accelerate from age 32, 33 to CEO at 38. was the executive coaching, the focus on communication. It's almost going and getting a master's degree in leadership and communication. It's, it is one of the odd things that in high school and in college, they don't teach you anything about personal finance, but if you wanna retire wealthy, it's one of the most important things to know. If you wanna be CEO or an entrepreneur, one of the biggest things is how do you motivate lead large teams and how do you communicate public speaking? And I think that me seeking out proactively executive coaching in my early thirties, was what catapulted me. And I look back and that definitely paid itself in spades. And I, and frankly, I think be between the ad, the mentors and the advocates I had, and then that executive coaching to elevate my communication style. I, I wouldn't be here today without that.
David Kong:All right, so it's, Finding mentors and advocates, and perhaps even considering executive coach to help you with communication skills and other skills to to make your more well-rounded leader.
Sloan Dean:Yeah, that's great. And I think, I get the question of what personality traits, any person can be a very successful c e o, even if you're a natural introvert. There's plenty of, actually, a lot of great CEO. I think it is, you just have to be proactive in seeking out people that you can learn from and organizations you can learn from. And self-awareness, I think is one of the biggest attributes. I think of somebody like Arne who passed away at Marriott, and I admired him greatly. He had this tremendous self-awareness about him. When you're around him and the only person you can change in a company in conflict is you. So I think that is having height and self-awareness as a leader is really important.
David Kong:That's well said. The whole mission of our organization is about empowering personal success. Lots of companies are doing wonderful things to help with the DEI area, but the individuals themselves need to take charge. And being self-aware is the first step to achieving one's career aspirations. You talk about mentoring and advocates. How important is networking?
Sloan Dean:Yeah, it's incredibly important. Particularly if you want to I think it's like the fuel that accelerates a career. it's building those relationships with people advocate for you and you can learn from them. I'm, I've gone through all types of testing, so I'm a double extrovert on what's called a Double Commander, commander, entertainer. So I actually enjoy it. I'm one of those that go to conference and I seek out, and I love going to, ah, and la board meetings and seeing you and seeing other people and seeking out friends. But I think for those that it's not like the fun part, maybe you're you are in a meeting and you feel tired afterwards. There's plenty of those people and they're very successful. That it's, you need to be intentional about making those relationships and. I am not a quid pro quo person. My father, I come from a very religious family. And my dad always am. I never forget. And I told my team this recently, my dad had a, one of my uncle's funerals. We were, my brother and I were Paul Bears, and he said to my brother, David and I, he said, I love you boys. You've both been very successful. But don't ever forget that when you leave this earth, it doesn't matter how much money you have in your checking account, it matters how many people show up to your funeral. And what he meant by that is how many people you touch and help. And so I think a big part of networking isn't just, hey, having a relationship so I can call on this person and influence them, having the sincerely wanting to help people because gratitude reciprocates. and I think that's where the most powerful networking comes. I had an analyst for me that I advocated for years. He now runs a pretty large debt fund. And he called me a couple weeks ago and I was like, Sloan, I wanna send you some management contract business. I never even asked him. I just, early in his career I believed in him and I thought he was a great person and I wanted him to be successful. And I think. That's the real, of course, you wanna seek out people like you, David, and Arnie, and people that you admire and get to know them, et cetera. But it shouldn't just be I want to network because at some point I'm gonna ask you for a favor. It needs to be, Hey, how do we pay it forward? And I'm a big believer that gratitude reciprocates. So that's but it, quite frankly, for me, it comes from a point of this is just what my, my family is impressed upon us.
David Kong:Yeah those are really wonderful comments. You've gotten a lot of praise for intellect and your drive to succeed, but you've also been widely praised for your emotional intelligence, and what you just said really illustrates that. Thank you for that. Talking about giving advice what advice would you give to your youngest self?
Sloan Dean:I really, so I'm 41 now. Still very young, but in my twenties, in my early thirties, I really struggled with, and even in my teens, I was a very successful tennis player. And I was so driven to the point that it drove anxiety for me. And then I was anxious to be successful so quickly now, it made me a workaholic before, particularly before I had children. But I had complacent, fulfillment issues. So nothing was ever good enough rise to the mountain top and it was like, okay, who cares? Let's go to the next mountain. and I really, by my mid thirties, I was getting burned out on, nothing fill, it was like a empty cup, and I think I would go to myself when I was 14 or 15 and say, you know what? You're gonna be just fine. take a breath along the way. And, really take it all in. It's really been these last seven or eight years, and quite frankly, being a father of three has done, part of that has come from fatherhood that life is for the living being the moment. don't be in such a hurry to just get everywhere. And I think for very ambitious people the rub encounter to that is they really struggle with fulfillment and they really struggle with, it de develop high anxiety. They can lead to health problems and that kind of thing. So I think that would be what I tell myself is relax learn to be a little more patient. Cause I'm not a very patient person. and and take it all in and be proud of yourself. There's nothing wrong with taking a moment and saying, you know what, I did a good job there. There's a balance between humility and pride and, being proud every now and then is not a bad quality in, but I was very, an anxious and really struggled with fulfillment to the point that I actually went through counseling. And I think for anybody who's young and super ambitious and wants to get the place in a hurry, Just take a breath every now and then, and and also be grateful for your family and your health because you just don't know. Time is the ultimate commodity.
David Kong:Yeah. So true. Thank you. Last year you author an article, it's titled, lead with Empathy. Then let Curiosity Take Over. I absolutely love that article. Can you share your thoughts
Sloan Dean:with us? Yeah, it actually comes from all of my coaching that I've always been this balance. It's almost sometimes people, and particularly before I became coo o, they'd say, Sloan, you're like a pit bull in the boardroom. Or in business. But then when we go to dinner and drinks are so personable and sometimes it feels like whiplash. I remember a couple of people telling me that, saying, you're just, we're in this p and l review and you're tenacious and almost coming after people, but then we go to dinner and you're asking about everybody's family, and they're like which is it? You're confusing me. And I, having a high sense of empathy and being performance driven are not mutually exclusive. And it took me a long time to realize that it took me a long time that you can be a kind and generous and caring person, but you can still be performance driven. I, there's people in my organization that get fired for performance every week. But I think it's the difference of when I go into, I'll give you a real life example. I had one of my officers were, was struggling the last couple quarters from a performance perspective, and I walked into their office instead of saying, you've got this problem, you've got this problem. These are the goals I'm setting. You're gonna be on a performance plan. We need to increase performance, and they feel completely beaten down. What I did was I went in and said love you to death. You have done such tremendous work here over the years and years you've been here, but what's going on? Are you okay? Just open-ended and then the floodgates open, comes out that they are having issues at home and, not sleeping well. And then, all these other causations that are not, that bubble over into work and you sit there and talk to them, and then, instead of me coming up with some plan of resolution, they start because they're an intuitive person themselves and start saying what about this? And can I get help with this? And it's a far more productive conversation. And so it's the same outcome, they end up being on a performance plan and there's issues and we have to work through it. But, they left knowing that and they teared up. That, that it's a very different outcome or, it's a very different feeling, but it's the same outcome. And I think just the way we communicate, leading with, Hey, you don't know what's going on with the other person. I think that, and then asking, this was actually where consulting really worked for me as an executive. Cuz when I was at, consulting is all about exo comprehensive, exhaustive, mutually exclusive. So you wanna look at every problem. You, that's the McKenzie term. Everybody, who hate consultants. And so anytime I look at a problem, I become very curious and think. what is the root cause? Don't confuse correlation with causation. And so I think it's that blend of, you lead with that example, like I talked about with an, you go in very empathetically, open-ended questions and then you don't just resolve to, okay, the answer is always the most apparent thing. And that's where curiosity, think being a curious person is actually a tremendous business trait because you come up with new ideas. you ask a lot of questions and learn. And also, part, a key part of that lead with empathy, be curious, is also leaders speak last. So every single staff, I have staff every Monday with all my executive committee and I'm the last one to talk. Now the interesting thing about that is that 75% of what I wanted to talk about get. Handled as we go around the room and people give me updates. And I end up so many people forget that if you come in authoritatively and you make I love seeing, and I used to do this all the time. You come into a meeting and you say this is my thought, a b. Now what do you guys think? If you're the c e o, everyone in that room starts, you just bias the entire room, right? And they start, maybe somebody's gonna say something completely different, ingenious, but then they move to the c e O. Yeah. And I think that's a big part of it too, that leaders speak last. And part of that is being patient. Listening to understand not just to reply, right? The leaders that just interrupt and wanna get their point across. So all that kind of cumulatively I frame is, lead with empathy and curiosity. And I think the outcomes are so much better.
David Kong:Love it. Love it. Lead with empathy. You put everyone at ease. You're on the same side. You have their back, they feel at ease to speak up. Then you let curiosity run its course so you can find out exactly what the root causes are. And I've read that you actually use that approach to redefine what the problem is and quite often with great success. Yeah. So often we just think of a problem a certain way, but when you're curious, you ask a lot of questions, you got other people thinking and all of a sudden you realize that the problem you defined wasn't the real problem. That's really good. We talked earlier about the lack of women and minority representation in executive management positions. Obviously we all want to improve the situation. If you were to offer some advice to women and minorities, what would that be?
Sloan Dean:Work for an organization that believes in diversity and has programs that helps lift up minority and women. So I'll give you some examples. What we do now, I don't believe in quotas but I do believe as a white male that and I'm a realist, that if I wasn't white male, I wouldn't have been c e o at 38. There is and this may be controversial, but I believe it at my core. Is, and some people won't like this, but there is inherent bias in almost all large corporations in our society. It's why you have the vast majority of boardrooms and board members or are white male. And part of that is particularly the male dominant factor, is casual mentoring that people, Maybe see a younger version of themselves in another man, and they invest in that person and they promote that person. And so some of it is this, not necessarily racism or sexism, but it's this inherent bias in relationship building that nobody addresses. I'm a white male and I'm not super intuitive and have a super high EQ to recognize my own bias, that because Jim is. 25 year old white male and likes tennis like me, that all of a sudden I wanna take cuz I, it reminds me of myself. And it's this bias of seeing yourself in others that causes some of that bias. But I think what you have to do is go work for companies that are committed to having. diversity and having programs that drive that for example we partner with a and LA on the apprenticeship program. Now, in that program, I mandate that over half of all have to be a minority or woman. 80% of our GMs are men. And that's something that we are working on doing, at Remington 60% of VP. To director roles or women or minorities. So we've done a really good job, but once you get above to e v, P and C-suite, it's mostly all white male. And so I think that is something that I'm very focused on. And there's a really good business reason for diversity is because studies have shown that people of diverse backgrounds come together better because if you're all of the same cut of the cloth, same background, you have blinders. and I, quite frankly, I think if you look at me, yes, I'm a white male and I'm the first admit I wouldn't have been c e o at 38. I think it admitting that is part of a step in the right direction. But I also come from an engineering and non-traditional hospitality background that has brought diversity of thinking. And I think about that, like how much value that is brought to Remington as an organization. Cause I'm not just a traditional hotel. And that same applies with people, women who have different diversity and background and also minorities that have so I think it is we have to have programs in place. We, you also have to work for a company that recognizes. We have bias in the workplace and we need to collectively address it. And I think programs like a few companies have rolled out where they're helping back minority based investments, maybe within hotels. We're a big supporter of the forward conference and, trying to elevate women within. The company. But yeah, at the end of the day you gotta you need to have an organization that says, Hey, we have a problem and we're gonna work on it, and continue to elevate women and minorities.
David Kong:That's absolutely right. Just one last question, Sloan. Curious. Not everybody gets it like Remington does, and not everybody is keen on d e i. If a woman or minority person was to face this kind of intentional, conscious on subconscious bias, what should that person do?
Sloan Dean:I think they need to raise their hand first and foremost. You should never be feeling like you're discriminated against. And it's a delicate balance. A lot of people don't wanna speak out. My significant other is Chinese. She immigrated when she was six from Taiwan. And I think that is seeing her and her struggle that, particularly in this, quite frankly we're you've had this Asian hate going around in a covid world. It's a real thing, and I've seen it firsthand with her. And how it's impact. And so I've, even with her, I've advocates, Hey honey, you need to speak up if ultimately if you work in an organization and that's the way you feel you should speak up, but, and be an advocate within the organization, but maybe you should. And go work for, because I think there are plenty of companies that recognize it. Like there are other Remington's. I think what Marriott and Hilton and Beth Western and several others are doing an industry and some of my competitors recognize that we have to have more diversity and inclusion. So I, I do think there are many others that recognize and are doing a lot about it, and I think that's good. No
David Kong:I'm very gratified and very happy that so many companies are getting it and understanding the importance of it. It's not only the right thing to do, but good for business, like you mentioned. And I like the fact that you're suggesting that people should just speak up and maybe call attention to it. Cuz sometimes people just don't know. Yeah. They're not aware of
Sloan Dean:it. And I think unfortunately, like I said, some of it. I wouldn't call it racism or sexism, but it's almost this undercurrent of you, you like to promote your likeness. Yeah. It's like this human bias. Yeah. That, I would say some of it is not nefarious, but you gotta recognize
David Kong:it. Yeah. I totally agree with you on that. Thank you. I appreciate your insightful comments. We've talk up a lot of your time and I really appreciate it.
Sloan Dean:I appreciate I have followed you from afar for many years, David, and. I've seen you speak many a time and it is my pleasure to be here in an honor. And I really appreciate what you're doing now with your advisory group and really trying to empower individuals. Yeah, thanks
David Kong:very much for that. I appreciate the kind comments. To our audience, thank you for tuning in and if you'd like this interview, there are plenty more on our website, deiadvisors.org. We hope to see you there. Thanks again, Sloan.
Sloan Dean:All right. Have a nice weekend. Thank you. Bye-bye.