Leading IHG's Global Tech with a One Team Mindset with Jolie Fleming

Patrick Emmons: Hello fellow innovators, this is Patrick Emmons. Shelli Nelson: And this is Shelli Nelson. Patrick Emmons: Welcome to the Innovation and the Digital Enterprise podcast, where we go inside the decisions, tradeoffs, and breakthroughs that define how today’s leaders are shaping the future of their organizations. Shelli Nelson: Today’s guest has built her career on one conviction: that technology should disappear into the guest experience, not announce itself. Jolie Fleming is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at IHG Hotels and Resorts, one of the largest hospitality companies in the world, with 21 brands, nearly 7,000 hotels, and more than 1 million rooms across over 100 countries. Patrick Emmons: Jolie came up through E*TRADE, where she led award-winning digital channels for one of the most demanding user bases in financial services. People with real money on the line, expecting flawless digital execution. She brought that discipline to IHG in 2021 and has been driving its connected technology ecosystem ever since. Jolie, welcome to the podcast. Jolie Fleming: Hi! Thanks for having me. Shelli Nelson: Yeah. And Jolie, we’d love to jump right in. I would say most technology leaders in hospitality came up through the industry. You didn’t; you came from financial services. So, just curious, when you walked in the door at IHG, what surprised you the most about the complexity of hospitality tech at a global scale? Jolie Fleming: Well, so first I'll say, I always think it's great when companies hire somebody from outside of the industry because there's a lot of people that cycle within a given industry, financial services was no different, hospitality was the same, there's a lot of leaders that go from company to company. I always think fresh, new perspectives in adjacent industries is important. And while on the surface you might not think that financial services and hospitality are all that similar, they're both really, really high-transaction businesses where there's not a lot of room for error, right? Like, people don't want error when they're going on vacation, they don't want, you can't show up at a hotel and not have your room. Likewise, you can't be missing money in your bank account, right, or be off by, by a penny. On the complexity point, listen, there's lots that's transferable across industries. It's frankly what brought me to IHG is that I knew that I could take everything that I know and apply it to a new industry because there is so much that's transferable. But what's different and what is complex is some of the things that you were talking about in the, in the opening, in that you're building an ecosystem of technology for an incredibly large, complex, global business. So when you're building solutions that have to work in 100 countries, that have different privacy standards, different technical standards, different user standards... when you are building technology that also has to transcend over 20 brands that range from Holiday Inn or roadside hotel to an extended stay hotel to a luxury and lifestyle property, those different segments have different demands from, from guests and different price points, right, that then fuel those demands. So that's probably the things that I would say that make it the most complex. I guess, maybe one additional point that I'd add is that we do not own our hotels. These are franchised hotels; it’s a franchise business. And so when you're building technical solutions that need to be adopted by franchises, these are other people's companies that they are running day in and day out. And so you get to guide, you get to say these are things that are brand standards, but at the end of the day, it's a franchise. It's somebody's business that they need to be running and operating for, for their performance. And so that adds another layer of, I would say interest, but complexity as well to, to navigate. Patrick Emmons: You were promoted to CPTO in April 2024, and that title combines product and technology. And I think, as we were talking before, it, it's a relatively new title. I've seen it, I think, only in the last 18 to 24 months. Unless, have, is it something you've seen before? Is that, am I, from your perspective, accurate that it's kind of a newer title for folks? Jolie Fleming: You see it in tech-first businesses, probably more often. If you think about how most companies' technology teams are structured, they work hand-in-hand with a product function, right? Product sets the vision and the plan and the strategy and the requirements, and then you've got technology and you've got design, and the three typically serve as the three legs of the stool to, to bring products to, to life. It's frankly what's a little bit more progressive about IHG, and it was one of the things that made me really interested in IHG, is that we kind of took it to the next level and said, it's not that you all are going to be just partners day in and day out to deliver solutions, you're going to sit on the same team. You are going to have one leader that sets the vision, the strategy, the plan for the business value that we're trying to unlock, and then you have total accountability end-to-end to build the product, deliver the solution technically, and then maintain and protect that solution. And what that's done is it's allowed us to operate with a level of speed and predictability and accountability. But it exists in other companies, it's just sometimes they don't have the same exact reporting line, but you're sitting right next to each other day in and day out. We just kind of took it to the next level. But I have seen, to your point, I've seen this movement happen over the last probably two years in large, tech-first businesses. Patrick Emmons: Absolutely. And I think it's one of those things, when I see somebody like there's a CIO who's in charge of it, that's generally to me an indicator of, you know, not adopting and not embracing, right? They're, they're still kind of stuck in "this is a cost prevention role, not a value creation role." And I'd love to get your perspective, is this the first time having this, this specific role, if not mandate? Because I know it's the title, but it's, it's really more like, hey, we're a seamless partner, like product and technology are not enemies. We are... kind of like when I hear marketing and sales hate each other, like well, how is that possible? Right? Like shouldn't you guys be friends? But they're not. So, what is some of the things like the unexpected things that, that have come from this role that have kind of surprised you, or opportunities that are now available because it, it's really creating that one stop, one vision, one team? Jolie Fleming: I'd say it's a massive acceleration path for driving results for, for a business. I don't think that that was surprising to me. I've always lived in an environment where the functions sat side-by-side or they were deeply integrated teams. So, I wasn't surprised at the outcome that it would drive. I think what I was a little surprised by is how incredibly embracing all levels of the technical side and then, I would say the security side as well, were of the shifts. Because all of a sudden what it did is for all people across our teams, it gave them the business context. What are we trying to do? What are we trying to achieve? What are the most critical things? And then it's your job as a technologist or as a product leader to help make that happen. I think sometimes when you just carve out tech as its own silo off to the side, people just feel like they're order takers, and they don't feel like they understand the business context for what's actually trying to be achieved. And so now they feel super deeply integrated in and feel like they're getting the context, which then empowers them to ask questions in new and different ways and deliver solutions that actually solve the problem and sometimes question the product team, right? Like, "Does this make sense? Should you be doing this?" So, I was happily surprised, maybe that's too strong of a word, but I was delighted to see the impact that it was having to bring the teams together and the desire that people had to really understand what is the business trying to achieve so that everybody felt like they could add value, down to a developer. Like, the developers feel it more than I would say, you know, most other, other people, because they feel more connected to driving impact for the business. Patrick Emmons: So, curious, is your background is it more product or is it more tech? Jolie Fleming: Product. But always in technology companies. And so I would 100% label myself a product mind who understands at a deep level technology and how to build technology and how to maintain technology. But I'm not a coder. I'm not a, from an engineering background. Patrick Emmons: Sound like we’re all going to be coders in about 18 weeks. Jolie Fleming: Well, you actually should be already, that's, that's the answer. At minimum, vibe coding. Patrick Emmons: That’s, that’s what I’m saying. I just made a, I made a product yesterday. It’s garbage, but I made it. Jolie Fleming: Well, it, you gotta start somewhere, right? That is the point, you gotta start somewhere. But I don't come from that background, and I will tell you that I have a massive, massive amount of respect for people that do. And so it's really important to me that sitting around the table, at least on my leadership team, are people that bring a strength that is not my strength. And that challenge me in totally different ways, because you really are the, the sum of your parts and you need people who can push and elevate your thinking to new levels. Patrick Emmons: The reason I asked was, I’ve seen that before and generally there is the "favorite child" situation of like wherever you come from. But it sounds like you’ve addressed that, because I've seen it where like somebody, a tech person, gets promoted to Chief Product Officer and the product team can see that they favor the tech team. But it sounds like you addressed that by making sure appreciation and respect and voice is part of how you engage the, the other side and you're very, it sounds like you're very clear about "hey, we are one team" and not showing favoritism or primacy or whatever we want to call it to, to the background. Jolie Fleming: 100% we are one team. And I would say it doesn't just for me, as a leader, it doesn't just account for product and tech; it accounts for all levels of the organization as well. So it's not just function, but it is every person on our team brings a unique superpower to the table that we have to care about and value. And so I use this example of, it’s important to me even things like a receptionist. A receptionist is the first person that a candidate sees when they come visit us, right, and have a meeting. I want to know what that receptionist had to say about the person. Were they nice? Were they a jerk? Were they disrespectful to you? Were they kind to you? Those are really important considerations because how you show up in all different types of circumstances matters. And so it's not just about your functional expertise and building one team there; it's frankly about building one team globally. Again, we have teams, I have thousands of colleagues that work on my team all over the world. And so you need to be, if you want to be a contributing high-performing member of our team, that means that you need to be able to bridge cultural differences, you need to be able to bridge functional differences, you need to be able to bridge hierarchy, which we try and flatten as much as we can. And so you have to adopt a "one team" mindset. This is how we show up with each other, this is the culture that we care about, because we are stronger and better together. Patrick Emmons: That’s awesome. Jolie Fleming: That was a soapbox. Oh, there you go, that's my soapbox. Shelli Nelson: I love that. So Jolie, I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and all the recommendations that you have and it just completely aligns with what you’re saying. I mean, I don’t think I’ve read anyone’s LinkedIn that has so many kind words, but also saying that you set very high expectations of yourself and of the team, but you’re always there both personally and professionally. You really care about your employees, back to that "one team," and I think there are a couple comments that you can execute like crazy. So, I really enjoyed looking through that as it sounds like you're a phenomenal leader to work for and with. Jolie Fleming: Oh, that’s very kind. Thank you. Shelli Nelson: And I know you’ve been at IHG for five years. So just curious when you look at where the product and technology organization was when you arrived versus today, what's the most significant, I guess structural change that you've made? Jolie Fleming: Oh my gosh, it feels like a totally different, totally different team and business since I, since I joined. Gosh, I don't even honestly I don't even know where to begin on that one other than I'm a big, huge believer in focus. There's a lot you could do, there's a lot you should do, most of it you cannot do. We have a team that understands a very, very clear vision, a very clear strategy and plan for how we're going to deliver against that vision, a high level of predictability and structure around making it happen, and a culture that celebrates those achievements and does it in a collaborative and fun way. Listen, if we're all going to come to work for the massive amount of hours that we come every day, we need to be in an environment where we are building people's resumes and building the resume of our business at the same time. And I think we've really put that culture and that predictable delivery model and trust from our business partners in place over the last five years. And we show up for our owners. We care, we have thousands of owners all over the world. And so it's not just about our internal colleagues, it's about caring for our owners, it's about caring for our investors, it's about caring for our guests. And I think each one of those stakeholder groups sees it and feels it and values the results that we’re really driving. So, this chapter of IHG that I feel lucky enough to put my, my imprint on is just building on the strength of the last chapter of the, of the business, right, that also put their imprint on it. But I’m really proud of the chapter that we’ve created here together. Patrick Emmons: With the idea of "where we going," what's the plan, right, for, from a, what are the themes? Like one or two themes that are driving your product roadmap and your thinking about what is going to be... I mean, we are in a massive time of change, right, of, like we were talking previously about AI and the education space and how much it's going to have a direct impact on so many things. So, what is, what are one or two themes that are driving your thinking, your roadmap... what are you most focused on in 2026? Jolie Fleming: Patrick, I wish that there were only one or two themes. There's a lot of themes. Patrick Emmons: Is the answer artificial intelligence? Jolie Fleming: That may or may not have something to do with it. So, I’m a big frameworks person. So again, in the spirit of focus, keep things simple for our teams because again, when you're mobilizing colleagues all over the world and thousands of people, your story has to be simple, repeatable that everybody can track and follow and see how they fit within it. If I think about a couple of themes, one theme and one kind of framework that we've introduced over the last year or so is that we need to do all that we can to promote a hotel. Help them get heads in their beds, because it's an asset that they have that perishes every night if somebody doesn't sleep in their bed, right? And so we need to care about their promotion of their hotels. We also have to think about how can they constantly be optimizing their operations to contain cost, to address turnover in colleagues, to drive commercial performance for their business. And then we need to think about ways that we can help hotels engage with their guests in new and different and smarter ways and predict what does that guest want before they even have to ask for it. So that you can deliver a more curated and personalized and high-touch experience for them. So if you think about those as themes of things, because again, I will always anchor to what is the business value that we are trying to drive. It's not about a tech initiative. It is about driving understanding the business challenge that's in front of us and then how do we apply technology in those areas. So if those are three big business problems/themes of things that we need to care about, when it comes to promoting hotels, how people are searching and planning for travel is materially changing right before our eyes. And so it is our job right now to be thinking about the AI disruption that's happening in that space. How do we meet guests where they are and where they're going to next, right? We're looking at conversational interactions right now through a digital channel with all the new channels opening with, with AI. But also voice; voice is coming next, if not it's here now. And so conversational is not just about the interaction that you have digitally, right, it is about an actual conversation that you might be able to have with some kind of AI-driven tool. So that is one area that we're focusing technically. But again, it's all in pursuit of promoting a hotel, making certain that we could put heads in beds. So you gotta show up in search, you have to show up in these new channels that are, that are here and growing and at millions and millions, hundreds of millions of users every single week. So that's just an example where we have a new property management system that we're putting in place that's helping drive that operational efficiency, so that's the second theme. And then we have an entirely new CRM (customer relationship management) tool that we're putting in place to drive engagement with guests, all of that being underpinned by AI. So super advanced AI capabilities built into each of these major technical investments that we're making. But again, it’s not about a single technical project, and it’s not even about AI, it’s like "what’s the business problem that you’re trying to solve?" and then how do you leverage all of these evolving tools to close gaps in the business. Patrick Emmons: So, as you’re talking, I mean, 100 countries, thousands of location, millions of beds... the theme for me on the marketing sales engagement side is the thing that’s transformed is that hyper-locality, right? Like you, you don’t get to sell because you’re the biggest brand; you’ve got to really get hyper-local. Like you look at some of the, the social media efforts. Is that part of, and again, I’m not asking to tell any strategies, but is that like the mindset of "we got to be omnipresent in a very micro way" now versus we used to go buy big billboards and we'd spend on, on TV and national, right? You, I think you still have to do that and again, I’m not intelligent enough to answer that question, but, you know, the hyper-locality just seems so clear of like, you've got to be relevant down to like almost this square mile. Jolie Fleming: I think you're, I think you're raising an important point which is across all of our strategies, we need to be thinking about a global approach, because if you don't have a global approach, you don't have scale. Right, I, you can't do everything at a hyper-hyper local level, but you want a global approach that is locally relevant. And then when it comes to understanding a property and what a property offers, you just need a lot of specificity around what is that property, what's close to it, what are the experiences that you can have there. And that's where you could get really hyper-localized, but when it comes to technology specifically, we need to take a global approach but make it very, very locally relevant. Because you wouldn't have a bespoke solution, right, for each individual country, otherwise you could never scale. Patrick Emmons: So the engagement, is that, you mentioned CRM and some of these other tools, is that the format by which you’re going to engage and get more recurring customers? Jolie Fleming: So we have, so on the engagement side, it is really underpinned by our IHG One Rewards loyalty program. We have a very, very extensive, robust, rich program that we offer our millions of loyalty members. But anybody can be a member of IHG One Rewards and I will tell you it is a great way to earn points and then, and stay. So if you are staying in an IHG property, you should sign up absolutely, because the program is very rich. Not just with tiers that you can achieve, but milestones that you can achieve in between that give you all kinds of rewards. Everything from like get free food and beverages to suite upgrades, etc. Shelli Nelson: You should be in sales, Jolie. Jolie Fleming: I’m not intending to sell you. I believe it, I believe it. I’m in tech, I’m not a sales person, but I would tell you it’s a very, it’s a great program that I have personally reaped lots of benefits from. So, our loyalty program, so to answer your question, not trying to, to sell you but rather highlight a benefit, but the loyalty program that we have underpins how we engage with guests. What we're building on top of and above the loyalty program is a CRM. They'll both have the same backend, which is a partnership with Salesforce. And that will allow us to have a more holistic view of who are the guests that are coming into our hotel. What brands do they favor? What are their travel preferences in their universal profile? What are their travel preferences on an individual stay so that we can better curate the experience for them. And an example of that is let's just say you have a pet. And you want us to know that you have a pet and you add your pet to your travel profile. So we have the Kimpton brand as an example. The Kimpton brands all allow pets, as long as they can fit through the door, they can come to a Kimpton property. Please don't bring your horse, but you could, I guess if you needed to. But then we could welcome you and curate the experience for both you and your pet when you arrive at one of our properties. And then you don't have to tell us every time, right? It's just part of the, it's just part of the experience. So that's an example of one of the areas where we're making a very major technical investment to advance and really curate a much better experience for the guest. And then you layer AI on top of that, right, so that you can fine-tune the operations at the hotel so that they better and more efficiently see "Shelli's coming, she has a pet horse, this is what she likes to have in her room," and then hopefully deliver a more seamless experience for the guest at the same time streamlining the operations of a hotel. Patrick Emmons: I, one of the last things I, I know you talk about, the loyalty program, I think that's, that's tremendous. If you were going to think two or three years out, right, what is it look like for IHG's technology capability? What is, what is that big North Star for you? What does it look like? What are some of the things you, you maybe didn't think were possible, I mean, we’re all rethinking things, what's now possible that you're like "that was on a 'maybe' list and now it's on a 'maybe not that challenging' list"? Jolie Fleming: I mean three years out... I'd like to be able to predict three months out at this pace. The rapid amount of change, you know, you feel like there's whiplash every day. I'm like, okay, what's in the news today? What new model got released? I mean, really, I’m not, I mean, I’m not kidding. We've had a few big initiatives, like some of the ones that we've talked about today, that have been in the works for 18 months and are set to release this year. And these are big, massive investments and areas where we wanted to unlock massive functionality and we are. But you can't roll them out the way that you originally imagined them 18 months ago because it's a completely different world now. And so you really have to take a step back and say "how do you pivot?" Right? How do you pivot in and now adopt all of the new AI tools, because I think to build on your point earlier, what's possible now was certainly not possible 18 months ago. What's possible now might not even have been possible two weeks ago. That is the rate and pace of change that we are dealing with every day. And so I think the biggest gift, maybe this is said a different way, but the biggest gift that I can give to the company from a technology standpoint at this point is to be building a flexible enough architecture and team and technical models that we can adapt to the environment around us with the rate and the pace that we need to. And so it's the flexibility in the adaptability that will be, I think, where the magic happens. Patrick Emmons: Jolie, I, I can’t say thank you enough for taking the time to do this podcast with us. Jolie Fleming: Happy to have made the connection, thank you so much for having me and giving us the space to, to showcase all the exciting things that myself but more importantly our team is, is working on and, and crushing and. Patrick Emmons: All right. No, thank you so much and we want to thank our listeners, we appreciate everybody joining us. Shelli Nelson: And if you want to subscribe, subscribe on Substack at idestpodcast.substack.com or find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Patrick Emmons: This episode was sponsored by Improving and produced by Dante32.