Director, Brand Management

Starwood Hotels•New York, NY

About The Position

The Director of Brand Management is a key member of the Home Office Brand Marketing team for Starwood Hotels and its brands around the world. This role is responsible for evolving and activating brand positioning across all aspects of the guest journey, ensuring the brand is expressed consistently and meaningfully across experiences, communications, and marketing channels. This individual leads brand pull-through across key touchpoints of the customer experience and helps define the strategic proof points, concepts, and initiatives that bring each brand to life as the portfolio grows globally. The role also identifies opportunities to infuse the brand experience with new and innovative thinking, including emerging technologies, shifting consumer expectations, and cultural trends. Serving as a key liaison between Brand Marketing, Operations, and other critical Home Office corporate teams, this role helps ensure brand strategy is translated into clear, actionable standards and experiences across the organization. Working closely with cross-functional partners, including the Creative team, this individual ensures execution remains on strategy and aligned with the brand vision across the full customer journey. The individual in this role serves as the voice of the target consumer, representing the brand vision in all aspects of the experiences we create and deliver.

Requirements

10+ years of relevant experience in brand management, brand marketing, or experience strategy, ideally within luxury, lifestyle, hospitality, or consumer brands.
Proven experience developing and evolving brand positioning and translating it into meaningful consumer and team member experiences.
Strong understanding of brand strategy, marketing, guest experience, and the role of operational touchpoints in bringing a brand to life.
Experience partnering cross-functionally with Operations, Design, Procurement, People Operations, Digital, and Marketing teams.
Ability to influence and drive alignment across a matrixed organization through strong relationships, sound judgment, and clear communication.
Experience guiding creative development from a brand strategy perspective, ensuring work is on-brand and aligned to positioning.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to present ideas clearly and professionally to a range of stakeholders.
Strong attention to detail and a high bar for quality and consistency across all brand expressions.
Experience in the luxury and/or lifestyle space is required.
Collaborative, thoughtful, and team-oriented approach.
Must possess legal authorization to work in the United States.

Responsibilities

Define, evolve, and articulate the brand positioning for each brand, ensuring clear strategic direction across guest-facing and internal touchpoints.
Serve as a steward of the brand vision, ensuring it is expressed consistently across the customer journey, team member experience, and brand communications.
Identify opportunities to strengthen and modernize the brand through innovation, emerging technologies, consumer insights, and cultural trends.
Develop and refine brand proof points, experience concepts, and strategic initiatives that support portfolio growth and differentiation.
Act as a key liaison between Brand Marketing, Operations, and other critical Home Office teams to ensure brand strategy is effectively translated into operational standards and execution.
Partner with Operations, Procurement, and Design on OS&E development and standardization, uniform design and development, and other physical brand touchpoints.
Lead the development and ongoing evolution of brand standards in collaboration with Operations and People Operations.
Support key cross-functional initiatives such as brand immersions, training content, employer branding, mentorship, DEI-related programming, and other team member experience efforts.
Build strong relationships across the organization to align stakeholders, drive progress, and embed brand thinking into decision-making.
Shape the end-to-end customer journey by identifying and developing branded experience touchpoints and proof points.
Lead the development of signature guest experience programs, such as sustainability pull-through, family programming, pet programming, and other brand-defining initiatives.
Ensure that all aspects of the experience reflect the brand in thoughtful, differentiated, and operationally viable ways.
Champion the philosophy that everything communicates, guiding how the brand is expressed across physical, digital, service, and experiential touchpoints.
Partner closely with the Creative team to ensure all creative output reflects the brand strategy, positioning, and guest experience vision.
Provide strategic brand direction and feedback on creative materials, campaigns, presentations, and brand expressions across channels and touchpoints.
Ensure creative execution remains aligned with established brand standards, voice, and positioning.
Collaborate with the Assistant Director and Creative partners on brand tools and assets that support property needs, openings, new initiatives, and cross-functional business priorities.