Colin Macdonald, Managing Director & SVP, US & Canada Operations, IHG Hotels & Resorts

Good afternoon. I'm Rachel Humphrey with It's Personal: Stories of Hospitality podcast, and I am delighted to be joined today by Colin McDonald of IHG Hotels Resorts. Colin, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me on.

I am excited to jump right in and spend a little bit of time today. You and I have known each other for a while now, but I am looking forward to digging a little bit deeper. So start off with talking a little bit about your journey to leadership. People know that I love how unique every path can be.

Talk about maybe how you got your start and maybe if there are any pivotal moments that you think resulted in getting you to where you are today. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Rachel, and it's great to see you again. I go back to the beginning when I think about my journey.

I actually grew up in Chicago, in Wheaton, just outside of Chicago, and I'm one of one of four. I've got an older sister about a year older, a younger sister named Claire who has autism, and then a younger brother, Brian, who's about seven years younger. And the reason I start there is because I think my whole leadership journey really started with the family dynamics I grew up in, and seeing my parents having to work through a really tough situation with a special needs child, it gave me a totally different perspective on what mattered in life.

And that's really shaped, I think, the way that I think about what matters now, right? Yes, it's nice to be in a leadership position. A paycheck's nice. But there are so many more things in the world that matter more than the career, the paycheck, and I think that comes down to the people that you're with and how they operate.

And so I usually start there and again, seeing my family lean into that I think made us just stronger as a unit. I actually had them all in town this past weekend, and it was great to see how everyone's grown from that challenging start of a journey and grown closer together. As far as my career goes as I was thinking about this, it was really a triangulation of being in the right place at the right time with the right attitude. I actually studied philosophy in college.

So all of my peers in college are either unemployed or teachers right now or authors, right? And I had a business journey from there, but it... the thing I loved about my philosophy classes is it changed from my business classes, which were all multiple choice, the answer's on a page and you have to pick it to it's an open-ended question and you have to explain What you think about something. And to me that was a really different muscle to work, and I loved it.

And then jumping into my career, I started off in a private equity company in Chicago, as an intern and then an analyst making very little and grinding it out. But I started in 2008. So if you know anything about the financial services industry in 2008, it was not a great time to start. But when everything happened in the great financial crisis the company cut about half of its staff.

They kept me on. Again, I think that they were... I was a low-cost resource. And they gave me all these things to do that I wouldn't have done for 5 or 10 years- including going to run one of their companies in Atlanta.

And so again, right place, right time, right attitude. And, I went down to help run this HR and payroll software company. Learned, how to do sales and and back office and board reporting and all this stuff for an asset they had invested in and then made a life in Atlanta. My wife had gotten a job.

We were recently married and wanted to stay here when that business transitioned out of the PE portfolio. And we did, and I went over to Turner Broadcasting on a startup venture with a really great group of leaders and a bunch of 20-something year olds that were creating three TV shows. It was, it was a blast. And we sold that to WebMD.

And then again stumbled into hospitality. And it's funny that, as you think back about the moments in your career that kind of change your trajectory I had been introduced to someone who was hiring for a strategy group at IHG and he got my resume from three different people on the same day. Not planned. He called me up.

He's living in the same part of town as I'm in. He says, "Let's meet at Starbucks at 4:30." This is like the middle of June, in June 20- 2014. And he's "Do you wanna sit inside or outside?"

And I'm like, "Oh, let's sit outside." I don't know why I said that. It was like 90 degrees out. We both had coffee.

I'm wearing a suit. I talked to him for an hour. We had sweat through our suits, and he said, "I'm gonna make a position for you." And I think it was just a great, foray into a partnership with an individual who led me through 10 years of my career journey.

But within an hour we knew that we would work really well together just by having a personal conversation and talking about life. And I thought that was a really cool way to start my hospitality journey. So There are so many incredible lessons in there. One of the things that jumps out at me as we think about leadership from a career standpoint, and maybe even as we're advancing in our careers, but you've tied yours back to so many of those early childhood and family and life lessons, and I really appreciate you sharing that.

And then also, like you said, the right place at the right time and doing things you wouldn't have been... Saying yes to a lot of opportunity, working hard that maybe you hadn't, wouldn't have had, had circumstances been otherwise. It's funny that you mention the timing of 2014 because you and I met, I think, fairly soon after you started at IHG. And one of the things that I was really taken with in your leadership at the time was I would reach out to you and I would share a bunch of conversations, and you would listen.

You would ask really good questions back. Then you would go our separate ways, and then you'd come back to me and say, "Hey, I've asked around about all of those things. I've looked into each of those things." And it was an incredibly collaborative approach to leadership.

But also you weren't just saying, "Yes, I hear you," and then moving on. You weren't just taking notes. I could tell you were listening. Maybe it's the philosophy you were just mentioning, experience, but you were very interested in the information, but also in making sure that you came back with the information that you had found, and I thought it was a really interesting and maybe not unique approach, but something that really helped, I think, both of us in the situations that we were in and trying to move forward.

And one of the things that makes me think about is we have people today who move around companies a lot, and sometimes it's because the company makes a move, sometimes it's because the employee does. And then we have lifers, who of course we all know who those are in the industry, who've been with the same company 25, 30 years. But when you're with a company for any period of time, you're gonna have a lot of different roles. You're gonna have a lot of different teams.

I'm curious, in your over 12 years now at IHG, what you would talk about your leadership evolution through those different roles, and how do you make sure you don't stay stagnant when you're at the same company? Yeah, I remember those conversations that we had. Just a point of reflection on that, I think I'm generally very curious. So when you ask something about a topic, I wanna go understand it, not just to come back to you, but I wanna understand what's going on.

And then, a couple of leaders that I've really really trusted and have guided me in this space have just taught me how to care about other people and be accountable, back to them with results or answers, et cetera, and I think that's a big part of just being in life, right? And keeping your promises. But for, from a career standpoint, I think there have been- Some pretty big changes in my career. When I came to IHG 12 years ago - So I'm in a strategy group, right?

I am the only person without my MBA and without any consulting experience, and the amount of times over the last 12 years I've been asked, "Where did you get your MBA and where did you do consulting?" is a hundred times, and I remember having this conversation with my boss who had hired me in at the time. Same guy that we were sweating at the Starbucks at. And he - I went to him, I said, how do I do everything in PowerPoint?

Everyone else is better than me. I just wanna have conversations with people about the business. I don't wanna have to go do all these presentations." He's "Look, all the people around you have been building this skill set out, for five or six years in consulting.

They've just got the repetitions. You just need to get the repetitions and learn from them." And it wasn't just about the PowerPoint, it was, leading a meeting, doing some of the strategic thinking, that gets you to solutions in a corporate business. And that really stuck with me because, he didn't say, "Oh that's - you're not good at that, so do something else."

He said, "No, you can figure this out. Just learn and I'll help you and we'll do some of this together." And then, being in strategy, I thought I knew, okay I'm in strategy I know the whole business, right? Which is the most non-humble thing to think, but you get to see a lot of projects.

And then I became Elie Malouf's chief of staff when he was the Americas CEO. So 2017 to 2019, I was his chief of staff. Actually, first month of 2020, which was another interesting transition. And, I was like, "Oh, wow, I don't know anything about this business."

Elie was dealing with, HR and legal and, communications, and I was just on strategic projects. And so I, I learned my aperture got even wider when I was in that role. And then, two years as chief of staff was the normal horizon and I had gotten there and we'd started looking at what's next. And our COO at the time said that she would love to have me over in operations.

And I said I, you know I've never operated a hotel before," right? I was like - I was my own kind of sounding board of, "Hey, are you sure that you want someone like me in your group?" She's "That's exactly why we want someone in the group. I have plenty of people who have operating experience.

I need people who can be strategic and think about new ways to do the work that we're doing." And to me, as a leader I've, in, even in my own career, made the mistake of trying to hire or put people in positions that maybe think like me, right? And it actually creates a less effective outcome most of the time, right? You need people who are gonna sharpen the team and bring different dynamics.

That's why you don't have a basketball team with five point guards or five centers, right? You've gotta have a dynamic team and she taught me that through that hiring process. Yeah, now, I report in to Jolyon Boufflet, CEO of the Americas. Ellie's moved on to be the CEO globally.

And Jolyon and I, I think have the same type of drive and almost impatience for the business a little bit. And so the dynamic with me and him is different than me and Ellie, but it works really well. And so I've also learned that, y- right place, right time, right attitude, but also understand who you're working with or working for and try to be in the game with them, how they play it, right? And that's, Jolyon and I think have gotten on really well the last year to drive some really great actions through the business.

And but I've had to change my style, I think, a little bit to, to make sure that I'm operating fast and effectively and, bringing him along in a different way than maybe other leaders need to be brought along. I think that's just normal course. Every leader's gonna be a little bit different 'cause every person's a little bit different. I like the idea of really looking at the individual, but something I can relate to in there is actually the pieces of the business and getting to know and being curious about everything you can, even in areas that might seem wildly different from your own.

I wanna follow up on that in a minute, but I wanna ask you about something else first. A lot of us find that when you're involved with boards or nonprofits, associations, there's a lot of skills you can learn for leadership that are wildly different from maybe the substantive skills that you learn in your day-to-day job. You are someone who is very involved in hospitality and outside of hospitality in some other opportunities for leadership. Talk a little bit about those roles and maybe some of the skills that you've developed by taking on stuff that maybe not being as specific to the IHG universe as some other things.

Yeah, I think it comes back to this idea that if you're curious and you're learning about things and you're expanding your own horizons, you're gonna grow and develop in new ways. And I think with boards and associations and nonprofits, depending on, you know- Which, which area they're over, whether it's, AHLA or Atlanta Hospitality Alliance, or many non-profit charities around the, around, where you're located or the country. I think all of those things stretch you to think about something that's outside of probably your day-to-day job, right?

And for us in the industry, there's a lot of advocacy that happens at all levels of government and even in Atlanta, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, right? And if you're not involved in those associations and boards, you can miss what's going on in the wider context of the industry and the policies that may impact your ability to do business and operate in the future. And so to me what those opportunities have given me, I was the president of the Atlanta Hospitality Alliance, which, is not a big name board.

It's it's actually a, it's a non-profit but it's a non-profit that gives back to some hospitality schools minimally but effectively, and it allows people to connect in Atlanta that are leaders in the industry, and we put on four events a year. We, we showcase some new hotels or renovated hotels in the area in Atlanta. But what that's given me is this network of people in my own backyard who I can pick up the phone and call and say, "Hey what's going on over here?" Or, "What about this deal over here?"

And that's something I didn't have before I joined that organization. And that also was an organization that I joined 10 years ago when I was earlier on in my career at IHG, and three or four industry leaders who have been notorious in the hospitality space were on that board and mentored me through those early stages of my time at IHG. Then for non-profits, and charitable boards, I think that's even another level of back to my earlier point of what actually matters in life. Giving back and seeing communities and individuals grow from that charity and then being involved in delivering that.

We were we were actually at a gala a few weeks ago for Kennesaw State University's hospitality school, and there were, I think maybe 15 awards given out, many to students, and one of the best ones was an award that was given out to a student that we just hired at IHG. And she gave up and gave a speech about what it meant to her and the program and so you can see, this I think for me too, where I am in my life, like- Seeing that happen and seeing someone grow from work that a group has done out of the goodness of their heart and 'cause it's the right thing to do for the industry, for the charity that punches pretty hard, right?

That, that hits you pretty hard of wow, this is really meaningful. So that's probably the biggest thing for me. And I think as you get into other boards and organizations, some of them are strategic for your business, but some of them are strategic just, for the communities that you live and operate within to make sure people are taken care of. And I think, the ability to build those relationships and especially earlier in your career in hospitality is such an important opportunity.

But again, the way that the real world, if you will, has an opportunity to collide with career can be so important. As a complete side note, I actually saw you at KSU a couple months ago- and a student asked you a question about your background, and that's where I learned for the first time that you were a philosophy major. And I think a room of about 400 people were just mind blown that the, operations and philosophy could have any tie in. So if we continue on that topic of the people that you met, the leaders that you now have in your network, people you can call on to bounce ideas off of or for other reasons.

In hospitality, I think especially building relationships and networking is a really important part of our leadership in advancing our careers. But we all do it differently, and we have to do it very authentically to who we are as people, maybe our personalities. Can you talk a little bit about how you think you build relationships and how that maybe matches who you are as a person? Yeah.

If you ask my wife, she would tell you that I can build a relationship with anyone. She's introvert, I'm extrovert. I get a lot of my energy just from learning about people, right? And understanding what their story is.

And so for me, it... I think it's quite natural to be at an event and work around a room and just try to get to know as many people as I can. But some of the best relationships, I think, that I've built are ones that that, go deeper than the networking events, right? And it's that next...

It's the follow-ups, right? You talk to someone at an event like, "Oh, I know this guy, I know that. Working on this deal." But it's, it's the Monday morning or Tuesday morning.

I had a few texts even this morning from people I met over the weekend, one of which is a father of a new employee at IHG. And he said, "Will you get coffee with my son?" I'm like, "Absolutely." And I think if you don't lean into some of those conversations, you miss a lot of connections that aren't just made for connection's sake, but- Who knows?

Maybe this next individual that I have coffee with is someone I can mentor for the next 10 years, right? And so I think I go about building relationships through just a genuine sense of curiosity about the other person. And then, I've got a couple of friends around the industry that I... they're on speed dial.

They're, my top, top 10 on my call list, and I do a lot in the car. I'm still... it's funny, we've got all the new technology. We've got texting, we've got AI I am still a pick up the phone and call a person.

And I think, even if someone can't pick up, they get back to you, you talk to them later. I use the car to do a lot of that. I don't have a long commute, but it's really effective for me. And it ke- keeps the ties up, right?

So it's a little bit of a flavor of how I do it. I'm sure Atlanta traffic cont- needs to contribute to how you can have that time. Oh, yeah. My commute is either 10 minutes or 45 minutes.

Yeah. Right? Sounds about right. You mentioned earlier that one of the pivotal moments in your career was when one of your executive leaders came to you to talk about a role that you questioned whether you were the right fit for or had the right background for.

And a lot of times I think that regardless of gender, we can really be our own biggest obstacle in how we either think about a role, think about ourselves. I'm curious because you present very confidently, if you have these moments of self-doubt. If so, if you've developed strategies for overcoming them or what you would tell someone who may be contemplating an opportunity in the same way that you did, wondering whether or not they're the right fit for something. Yeah.

I think for me, there's this balance between being self-critical and self-doubt, right? I think it's a big pivot, 'cause I actually think it's okay to be self-aware and understand, what you need to work on, what you're good at, and get feedback from people, right? We talk about this at the business all the time. It's if you stepped off the field, and you were a player, basketball, soccer, whatever you play it'd be awkward not to get feedback from your coach, right?

But in the corporate sphere, it's not always the case. And so we've been really pushing that, at, in our culture at IHG. I think you should do that with yourself, too, 'cause it actually helps change your self-doubt into self-awareness, right? And then an understanding of, how are you showing up?

Sometimes it's hard to go outside in when you're delivering or you're leading an organization. I think when I look at how we can do that for others too, there's- I, I think everyone has a component of self-doubt. You just think about going through life, you're gonna have ups, you're gonna have downs, you're gonna have comparisons. My eight-year-old son is playing baseball right now, and when he hits a bomb he's super confident.

When he strikes out, he's got a little bit of self-doubt. But I think it's about coming alongside individuals when you recognize that. And just like my boss did for me with, PowerPoint and presentations, it's okay, it's not about that you're not good at something, it's how can you get better- right? And how can you be confident in that, and where are your strengths and weaknesses too?

Being aware of that is also important, right? But I think now that I have a team, a very dynamic team, very diverse team being... Starting off with being curious about who they are and where they come from, it's probably still the most important part because if you go in assuming, "Oh, they must just be struggling with this thing," and you don't even know their name, like that's not gonna go very well, right? And so I still think even though I may know all of my team, I don't know all of them as intimately as I might know others, and I think it's a journey to understand them and make sure they know that you see what they bring to the table and how you can help them navigate their own journeys in their roles and in future roles.

I like the intersection too of self-awareness and how do you then learn maybe some of those peop- places that you can continue to develop. And without that first part of self-awareness, you're gonna be less likely to have the ability to sit and continue to develop it. Colin, I have a million questions I still want to ask you. We're gonna run short on time.

So from a kind of speed round questions one of the things, you've talked a lot about curiosity, whether it's about your team, whether it's about other roles, whether it's the philosophy background. Tell me something either inside or outside of hospitality that you're curious about right now. Oh I I don't wanna say I'm curious about this, but I'm into it for better or worse. I signed up to do a every two years at, as I get older, I sign up to do something stupid and ath- athletically.

So two years ago it was a half marathon. Now in a month I'm going to ride a 200-mile charity bike race for No Kid Hungry out in Bend, Oregon. So- Oh, I love that i've been forced to get really into like cycling and biking which is a terrible time commitment, by the way. E- going and training for these rides is four hours of riding.

And it's... But it's been good too. I think for me, one of the things that I've prized in my life to keep me Sane, healthy is exercise, and doing something active, right? And that doesn't necessarily mean I gotta go run a marathon every day, but, hiking, biking even walking around the neighborhood, with the kids and wife, I think.

So right now I've gotten really into nutrition. What do I need on a four-hour ride? All this stuff. It's actually, this is one of the best advents and use cases for AI.

I literally have a training plan and nutrition plan that I can tweak that's in Claude. I put it in Gemini too and, it makes it easier to execute. But that, that's one thing I've been into lately. That is super interesting for me.

My daughter did an Ironman last year, and she said the bike training part and the nutrition part and how long y- it takes to train while also having a professional career was the hardest part of all of the training. But I love that, and I love the focus on self-care and wellness and the benefits that come to that and the example you're showing to your family and also your colleagues. I think that's important that they see that you're taking care of yourself as well. One of the things that I love about the podcast so much is I interview a lot of people I've known for a very long time in different ways, and I'm always shocked at something I learn that I didn't know.

I would have learned the philosophy thing if I hadn't heard it a couple weeks ago. But tell me one thing either people don't know about you or one misperception that you think people have about you. This is a... I love this question.

I'm gonna start weaving this one into my n- daily questions I ask, Okay the people at different places. This is a good one. So I just have a few. So one kind of punchline one is I've got 19 aunts and uncles.

Okay. So huge extended family. And that's grown, plenty of cousins and cousins with babies now which makes it really easy to travel around the country because a lot of times I can just, check in on people in different cities, which is really fun. Nice.

And then, one of the things I was thinking of is there was this moment where, everyone's taken all these personality tests. I think I've taken all the personality tests that are available out there. I am curious, but just over time, I think is... you do the DISC, you do Myers-Briggs.

But I remember when I was probably late high school, was at a family reunion and someone pulled out the Enneagram test and our whole family took it, and my immediate family was all n- there's nine categories, right? So my immediate family was in the ninth category, which is the peacemakers. And I took it, and I was in the fourth category, which is individualist or romantic. And my family was shocked.

I was shocked. But- it's basically characterized by, deep desire for self-expression, authenticity, and significance, right? That's the headline for what I got labeled as. And most people, I think, see me as corporate, buttoned up.

I've got a job wearing a jacket, and and very organized. But I actually think that the part of me that people don't see in my kinda corporate world, my friends do, and the people that I know really well, is that I actually get a lot of energy from, doing things that are introspective and creative. My brother's a musician. I am not as good of a musician.

I enjoy philosophy. I enjoy reading. I don't do enough of it, but, I do love that side of life, and it goes back to me being curious, I think. But yeah, so don't put people in a box, don't put me in a box.

And that your professional brand is one thing, which is intentional and how you want to be seen by others, but that there can be a lot more facets to you is such an interesting point. We're on a podcast, public speaking s- visibility, such a critical part of a lot of our career journeys and career advancement. Can you remember the first time you ever spoke at a conference, maybe in the hospitality industry specifically, and what that experience was like for you? Yes.

It was, I got kinda called in. I think someone else was, like, sick and and I was, like, told, "You gotta go speak at this thing." And, I had speaking points and I had prepared. But I think when I got up on stage, it was...

And it was in front of, maybe 200, 300 owners. My, my boss, CEO's on stage and I've gotta speak too, so he's gonna be in the crowd. And I think I kinda got up there and blacked out. I didn't pass out.

I kinda just I was like, I went. I, I had pr- I'd overprepared, right? I got good feedback, but, since that time I've gotten some really good advice from people to not prepare so much, and think about what you wanna say thematically- Not directly for every single word, which is a huge unlock 'cause it actually takes less time, and it's more organic, and the audience likes it better. You gotta be careful in a public company that you're not saying the wrong things on a stage.

But to me, as I think about preparing now, it's okay, if it's a 15-minute speech, it's like- Let's have an outline, but let's put three or four talking points on there that you can talk about 'cause you know the content already 'cause you're doing it in your job. But yeah, the first time was... I was nervous, right? Like anyone- i- in public.

And think you kind of repetition. You get... The more repetitions you get, the more natural it feels and the more natural you probably are to the audience. That repetition is a great point, and you can't have the repet- repetition if you don't do the first one.

But I really love the concept of you are an expert in what you do and in your information, and so not overpreparing the information allows you to be much more genuine in the presentation of it. I wanna wrap up with two questions. Those who listen regularly will know what they are. But as you think back today on, let's call it 16-year-old Colin outside of Chicago, in your family dynamic, what is something you would tell that young man either about how things have worked out for you or something you wish you knew sooner that might have made your journey a little bit different for you?

This is a great question. It's my favorite question, by the way. Yeah. I would...

It's gonna, this is gonna sound funny, but I think there were a lot of moments that we didn't get into deep in my... in, in this conversation, but where I thought it was gonna be like terrible, like- great financial crisis, and I would just say fr- say to myself like, "It's going to be okay," right? Yeah. "Don't get so spun up about things that are outside of your control.

It's gonna be okay, and you have a lot of people supporting you," right? A- and to me, s- a realization, probably something I should have always thought, but I think when you're younger in your career and even to today, you look at things and you go, "Was this uncertainty gonna, tank my career?" Or, "What's gonna happen next?" And you can get anxiety around it.

And I think for me, it'd be just to tell myself like, "Tr- trust that you care about other people, and that it's gonna be okay. Don't worry about what's outside of your control." And we didn't get a chance to talk about it today, but that you have people that will support you, such an incredibly important message to people about support systems and leaning into them. And I think a lot of us, we...

I used to give myself that same advice when I thought about this question a lot, which everything was gonna be okay, that whether it's the personality of those in the business or something else, we do tend to get, as you said, very spun up or very anxious about how it's gonna play out. As we've talked today about a lot of leadership topics, is there anything that you want to share with our audience? Maybe a piece of final advice. Yeah.

I would say, it's, again, it's advice that I've gotten from others, which is usually how advice works, right? But I would say it, it doesn't take a lot to care for other people and care about other people. And to me, that's one of the reasons why I'm still in the hospitality business is because I think at the core of our business, it is about caring about others. And whether you do that in the corporate setting you're in or in an actual hotel where you're delivering something to a guest, I think that's the ethos of our business.

But you can do that anywhere. It does not take a lot to, to care about others. And so that'd be my advice is if you do that genuinely, y- usually good things will come from that. And you'll build a lot of great relationships along the way.

That is great advice. I appreciate you sharing that. I appreciate you sharing more about your personal journey, some of your leadership insights as well. To our audience, we know you have a lot of ways to choose to spend your day, so appreciate you spending it with us.

Visit itspersonalstories.com to hear from other hospitality industry leaders. But Colin, thank you so much for joining us, and keep up the great work. Rachel, it's great to talk to you today.

Thank you so much for the time. Nice to see you again. You too.