Vice President, Customer Experience + Innovation

Marriott•Bethesda, MD

11h•$182,100 - $325,300•Hybrid

About The Position

The Vice President, Customer Experience Design + Innovation leads Marriott’s enterprise experience design, customer journey management, and innovation agenda. As a senior advisor and champion across the organization, this leader identifies future opportunity spaces that support growth, loyalty, and brand differentiation, and addresses major challenges by designing innovative solutions to test and learn against customer needs. The role leads experience design and innovation delivery and is accountable for the health, impact, and return of Marriott’s innovation portfolio. It ensures the company focuses on important customer and business problems and translates them into scalable concepts, pilots, and experiences. The Vice President establishes the culture, capabilities, systems, and partnerships needed to design and innovate at enterprise scale, working closely with leaders across the organization. Marriott HQ roles are hybrid for candidates within commuting distance of Bethesda, Maryland; candidates outside commuting distance may be considered for remote positions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.
12 or more years of progressive professional experience across experience design, innovation, strategy, research, consulting, or related fields.
Demonstrated success leading insight-led experience design and innovation efforts and translating research, trends, and analytics into actionable strategies and concepts.
Experience working across physical, digital, and service environments, with a strong service-design orientation.
Proven ability to lead teams and senior stakeholders through ambiguity, with strong change-leadership and influence capabilities.
Exceptional cross-functional leadership, executive communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
Experience operating effectively in a large, matrixed, global organization.

Nice To Haves

MBA or equivalent advanced degree.

Responsibilities

Establish and lead customer research, observational insights, trend and foresight analysis, and signal spotting for Marriott’s innovation capability.
Conduct competitive and analogous-industry scans and explore emerging technologies to identify disruption risks and growth opportunities.
Synthesize insights into problem statements and whitespace opportunity areas that inform experience design, innovation priorities, and investment decisions.
Advise executive leadership on emerging customer needs, industry shifts, and future-back opportunities.
Advocate for the customer experience while balancing customer needs with business objectives.
Translate insights and opportunity areas into experience strategies, service models, and design concepts across physical, digital, and experiential touchpoints.
Lead enterprise journey mapping, service design, and experience-definition efforts.
Oversee concept ideation, synthesis, and visualization, ensuring experiences reflect Marriott’s brand promise and differentiation.
Guide concept validation across desirability, feasibility, and viability.
Partner with Brand, Digital, Operations, Technology, and other disciplines to integrate experience improvements at scale.
Lead end-to-end enterprise innovation, from portfolio prioritization through experimentation, piloting, and scaling.
Orchestrate Marriott’s product innovation agenda so efforts across functions are aligned, prioritized, and focused on high-value opportunities.
Lead the Innovation Lab as an enterprise experimentation and learning platform for rapid prototyping, testing, and validation.
Define and oversee approaches to prototyping and testing, pilot design and in-market experimentation, learning agendas, and performance measurement.
Partner with business and functional leaders to move validated concepts into pilots, rollout plans, and commercialization.
Develop Marriott’s external innovation ecosystem, including startups, technology partners, academic institutions, and strategic collaborators.
Develop, structure, and manage strategic partnerships that accelerate learning, experimentation, and scale.
Represent Marriott externally as a leader in experience design and innovation.
Scout and vet startups aligned with defined opportunity spaces.
Lead innovation workshops, design sprints, and structured problem-framing sessions for senior teams.
Build enterprise innovation and design-thinking capability through training, tools, and shared frameworks.
Establish common language, methodologies, and standards for consistent innovation practices across the organization.
Contribute to internal and external innovation thought leadership.
Lead and inspire a high-performing, globally connected team and champion cross-continent collaboration.
Provide day-to-day oversight for shared product teams and cross-functional working groups delivering global priorities.
Develop and mentor brand leaders and build an organization recognized for creativity, commercial impact, and strategic excellence.
Foster an inclusive and empowering culture that rewards innovation, agility, and accountability.
Shape the next chapter of Select & Midscale brand leadership through vision, influence, and enterprise partnership.

Benefits

401(k) plan
Stock purchase plan
Discounts at Marriott properties
Commuter benefits
Employee assistance plan
Childcare discounts
Medical coverage (full-time positions)
Dental coverage (full-time positions)
Vision coverage (full-time positions)
Health care flexible spending account (full-time positions)
Dependent care flexible spending account (full-time positions)
Life insurance (full-time positions)
Disability insurance (full-time positions)
Accident insurance (full-time positions)
Adoption expense reimbursements (full-time positions)
Paid parental leave (full-time positions)
Educational assistance (full-time positions)
Washington applicants: accrued paid sick leave, PTO accrual, and eligibility for a minimum of nine holidays annually