PHOTO: Starwood Hotel & Resorts interim CEO Adam Aron. (Courtesy of Philly.com)
Over the past week, many of us in the travel media, along with the rest of the industry, were shocked by the departure of Starwood Hotel & Resorts CEO Frits van Paasschen, who reportedly resigned by "mutual agreement." Van Paasschen (whose name was always a bit of a challenge for me to spell) was viewed by much of the industry as someone who was highly regarded as head of one of the world's most prominent luxury hotel companies for the last seven years.
Now he's out, supposedly because Starwood's board was not happy with recent results or perhaps results to come, which seemed to show slower growth than anticipated. He also may be out due to strategic disagreements, such as the recent spinning off of Starwood's vacation rental business.
For me, however, the bigger surprise was who's replacing Van Paasschen-none other than my old friend Adam Aron. Now I've known Adam professionally for 20 years. He appeared on the cover of my former magazine at least four times as an executive with such companies as United Airlines, Hyatt Hotels, Norwegian Cruise Line and Vail Resorts.
Now I'm not sure about the order of those posts, but you get the idea: Aron is a veteran travel industry executive who has quite literally seen it all. Indeed, he's been more than a travel executive; he's owned a major Caribbean resort, Cap Juluca in Anguilla (I think he still does) and he's served on the boards of several travel-related companies, including Starwood and, I believe, Apollo. He even had a two-year stint as president of the Philadelphia 76ers (I'm a Knicks fan, so I can't say I rooted for him in that post).
What Aron will do with Starwood remains to be seen, and he's coming in as interim CEO anyway. My guess is he will indeed be interim (though that could be for a year, two years or more), because Adam has never stayed long with in any post. But Starwood is apparently betting that he can deliver the kind of growth that Van Paasschen apparently could not.
Good luck Adam! I'll be rooting for you.
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