In terms of career paths, there are very few people who can draw a line from NASCAR to Vogue. Hyatt Hotels’ Arlie Sisson, our guest on the latest episode of Future Says season five, can. Currently a senior vice president and global head of digital for Hyatt, Sisson’s career has taken her from the world of racing to the world of hospitality, with more than a few detours along the way – including a stint at Condé Nast, the storied publisher of magazines like Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and more. 

Her diverse, unique experience has helped her thrive in her current position within Hyatt, which she calls “a dream role at a dream company.” Crucially, it has helped give her a holistic view of digital product development within hospitality and shown her what technologies are poised to reshape the industry.

Sitting at the Crossroads of Communication

In her role as Hyatt’s global head of digital, Sisson sits at the hub of communication from a variety of teams, each with different strengths and focuses. She says this has helped her become a more complete professional. “I’m very lucky to have a product role because here, you sit at the intersection of a lot of communication within a company,” she says. Of course, this position also frequently puts Sisson in unfamiliar territory. She says it’s important to meet this territory with humility and curiosity – there’s nothing a leader can do better than admit when they don’t have enough knowledge. “I’m always the first one asking ‘What does that mean?’ so I can get deeper into the topic, better understand it, and better help our teams,” she says. “You need to always be addressing your blind spots.”

This kind of behavior from team leaders, Sisson says, fosters a more trusting, more open work environment – which in turn makes people feel more comfortable asking questions and taking risks, creating a virtuous cycle. This kind of environment is something she’s always looking to cultivate, and something she’s incredibly proud of within her team. “The openness and care that the team shares for each other allows us to be successful in a safe space to create fantastic things,” she says. “I pride myself on being a very open and enthusiastic leader. My [high] energy level is something you have to have a taste for, but it’s what powers me through hard times. I try to instill in my teams open and truthful communication, and I try to empower them to make decisions. And lastly, it’s always about them knowing that I 100% have their back.”

Seeing a Transforming Hospitality Industry

Sisson’s career path within the hospitality industry is noteworthy because she’s worked within it in both pre- and post-pandemic digital roles. Before joining Hyatt, she worked for Mariott Hotels for roughly three years from 2012-2015. She says the pandemic has left a permanent stamp on the industry. She says these changes are most obvious in the way we interact with hotels and service. For example, these include things like auto-checkout, greater availability of on-demand services, the ability to see more information about hotels upfront, the evolution of mobile apps and self-service, and her personal favorite, the rise of better loyalty rewards and customer engagement. 

Sisson says the pandemic catalyzed these changes by giving organizations space and time to innovate and get in touch with their guests. “I think we did a phenomenal job truly listening and getting close to people during that time [the pandemic], and we used it to create these great programs,” she says. “In addition, we reevaluated our global digital strategies to make sure we’re bringing our best initiatives to fruition. And in general, it forced us to reconsider our assumptions and take a second or third look at everything. We’re still building on the changes we saw emerge during that period.”

Measuring Success and the Future of AI in Hospitality

With the preponderance of data now available to organizations and leaders around the world, measuring success should be easy and straightforward. But things rarely play out that way, Sisson says. She emphasizes the need to see success in both quantitative and qualitative forms. “I always say there are two ways of going about it: setting KPIs and benchmarks, such as revenue or guest satisfaction scores, and also qualitative assessments that ask how we learned and how we’re working differently,” she says. “Being outcome-focused is important – and outcomes are not always measured in dollars.”

Looking ahead to the future of the post-pandemic hospitality industry, Sisson forecasts an AI boom – specifically, the emergence of widespread generative AI (genAI) use. “AI for us – especially at Hyatt – has been a journey we’ve been on for a while. Our team believes it will totally change things, and we’re so excited for that.” She says genAI will be especially useful for hospitality organizations looking to increase personalization and automation. “I think we’ll continue to see genAI take off, continue to see that supercharge personalization and self-service, and just generally see a more hands-off, more effortless approach to travelers and traveling,” she says.

But to conclude, Sisson says the future of hospitality isn’t without its challenges. For instance, many data challenges still plague organizations. “There’s so much data today – but a lot of data is fragmented, which makes it a difficult place to work in,” she says. “There’s no one tool to solve everything where all the data is collected in one place – but I’d say we’re building towards that future. That’s what we want to achieve as a team.” Tools, computing, and personnel are also less than frictionless. “These [large-scale data and AI] projects cost a lot. They’re expensive to do and to scale. With growth comes cost,” she says. “And these are hard projects to hire for. In general, they’re hard to set up.”

But facing these challenges, Sisson concludes, is part of the fun. When asked to give advice to young professionals or people just starting their data and AI journey, she has a simple message that she’s followed herself throughout her career: “It’s ok to not know. Be bold.” 

Click here to listen to the full episode with Hyatt Hotels’ Arlie Sisson. To check out the rest of Future Says season five, visit https://altair.com/future-says. And be sure to subscribe to Future Says on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music/Audible, YouTube Music, and Podcast Addict.