Newsmaker: Floyd Heads Hyatt Sales Following Exec Exodus

The recent exodus of several long time corporate sales executives is not a purge of the Darryl Hartley-Leonard leadership, it's a tribute to Hyatt's management strength, president Doug Geoga recently told Business Travel News. Geoga said the hotel company is holding to its course with Hyatt-lifer Chuck Floyd now in charge of corporate sales.

In little over a year, four Hyatt vice presidents of sales have left the chain. The first to leave was 21-year veteran Jim Evans, who moved to Doubletree in February 1996. Then Frank Calaguire took 18 years of experience with him when he left in April 1996 for Renaissance--now owned by Marriot. In March 1997 Evans was joined at Doubletree by John Lavin. On Lavin's departure, corporate sales responsibility was turned over to Cody Plott, a 24-year-Hyatt veteran. Plott left the hotel chain in May.

While he admitted to differences in management style with Plott, Geoga said the other executives left Hyatt due to individual opportunity rather than management upheaval. "Hyatt typically goes years and years and years with no turnover in its senior ranks," he said. "Our present turnover is reflective of the people we have raised. We attract good people and train them well and bring them along and they are attractive candidates to play more senior roles in other companies," Geoga said, explaining that the executives were lured away by senior positions at other organizations after they "hit a career plateau."

Floyd, 37, has spent his entire working career at Hyatt, in effect preparing for his new position as vice president of corporate sales. Joining Hyatt Hotels Corp. in 1981, Floyd has held various management positions in hotels around the country. He began his most recent position, vice president and managing director for Hyatt's Western Division, in 1995 when he gave up the role of general manager at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco.

Geoga said that, rather than a change at the top, the selection of Floyd was a reaffirmation of Hyatt's existing strategy and management team.

"Part of the reason we turned to Chuck, an internal candidate," the hotel company president said, "is because we wanted someone who understood our organization and who was committed to and in a position to provide continuity of the direction we were planning."

A graduate of Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management's Executive Development Program, Floyd was nominated for Hyatt's general manager of the year for three consecutive years. In his stint at Hyatt's Western Division, 18 hotels were under his supervision.

"Chuck Floyd is a superb leader, a keen intellect, a gifted manager and a quick study," Geoga said.