Who Gives Women in Hospitality Their Next Big Break?

At The Hospitality Show in Miami Beach, five women shared what hotel owners expect from their suppliers and what helped them get the chance to lead.

When Kimberly Nguyen was at Web.com, founder and CEO David Brown put her in charge of the company’s PGA Tour partnership. He also backed her as she built an advertising agency serving the Tour and its players. “He gave me real ownership, trusted me to make decisions, and supported me in building something from the ground up,” she said.

Kimberly Nguyen of Uberall (left) with Stacy Silver at the Uberall stand at The Hospitality Show in Miami Beach.

Nguyen, now a director of strategic alliances, North America, at Uberall, told that story at The Hospitality Show in Miami Beach. Much of the conversation there was about what owners expect from the companies they hire. But when the women I spoke with talked about their own careers, a different question came up. Who gave them a chance to take on work they hadn’t done before?

Who puts your name forward?

“At the start of my career I felt that my performance was enough to move up,” said Christine Petersen, a senior director of account management at Avendra International. Her mentors helped her see that it mattered who knew about her work, both inside the company and across the industry.

It was Rosanna Maietta, now president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), who hired Kara Filer there and who has continued to challenge and support her. “To me, sponsorship is about seeing what someone can become and helping them create a path to get there,” said Filer, now AHLA’s senior vice president of strategic partnerships and business development. She sees a role for the show itself in widening that path. Students often arrive thinking mostly about jobs inside hotels, she said, and leave with a sense of how many other careers the industry offers.

Many of the people who advocated for Renee MacDonald in her career were men. “If we want more women in leadership, advancing women cannot be the responsibility of women alone,” said MacDonald, Encore’s vice president of strategic and venue partnership development.

For Cheryl Fosberry, vice president of sales at Jacaruso Enterprises, that means giving others a chance to demonstrate what they can do. “If you see ability and drive in someone, give them the opportunity,” she said. “Don’t make them wait until they’ve already done the job to decide they’re capable of it.”

Stacy Silver with Cheryl Fosberry of Jacaruso Enterprises (right) at the Jacaruso stand.

What hotel owners want to see

The focus on the show floor was practical. Hotel teams could compare everything from kitchen equipment to sales technology, and an expanded matchmaking program helped them meet suppliers who could solve specific problems. The executives I spoke with also described how technology can free up hoteliers’ time to build the customer relationships that drive business.

Can a supplier bring in business or take work off the team’s plate? Those are the kinds of questions MacDonald hears as hotel owners look more closely at what they get for their money. At one property, she said, Encore used an AI tool to show a customer how different lighting concepts could transform the same meeting space into entirely different, immersive experiences.

Petersen sees opportunities to help properties make better use of their purchasing programs by evaluating equipment for labor and operating savings alongside its purchase price. “This is not just price on invoice,” she said.

Stacy Silver with Christine Petersen of Avendra International (right) at the Avendra stand.

Before a hotel can win a booking, it has to make it onto a traveler’s shortlist. Nguyen is looking at how AI is changing that step. Someone asking an AI tool for a place to stay can get very specific about the neighborhood, the amenities or what’s nearby. If the tool can’t find enough accurate information about a hotel, it won’t recommend it. That gives hotel teams a reason to pay attention to how their properties show up across search and map platforms, well before a guest lands on their own website.

A salesperson can spend hours looking up accounts and chasing down contact details before speaking to a single customer, Fosberry said. If technology can take on some of that work, there’s more time to follow up and build relationships. Her test for any AI tool is simple. “Did AI make the work better, faster, or easier?”

The Hospitality Show returns to Las Vegas March 27–29, 2028, at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall, where the show first launched. The move to spring is intended to better align with when hotels plan budgets and make purchasing decisions, and the organizers plan show-branded events throughout 2027 in the meantime.