had a long chat with him about what his vision for that meant. One of the things we agreed on was that we had a strong legacy – there was an incredibly strong knowledge of the brands globally. But at the same time I think we all agreed that Hilton had become a bit rooted in the legacy of those brands rather than building and keeping them current.” Traxler says that for him to have an impact on the
company, Hilton Worldwide had to become a design driven organisation. “I needed Chris to reinforce that vision with our operations team and with our development teams. It really had to be a credo from the top down or we weren’t going to have much success in turning this big ship around. Chris jumped in right away and supported the need to restructure the entire organisation.” The overhaul was comprehensive. “I wanted to build
the team from the ground up with some of the best and brightest people out there,” says Traxler. “The whole turnabout of the design methodology within Hilton started with our own internal team and restructuring of how we work.” Further key appointments were made to head up
regional design teams. In Europe, Celia Geyer came in from WATG to head up architecture, with Chris Webb, formerly of United Designers, fulfiling a similar role on the interior design side. “Chris and Celia are a testament to our desire to
go directly to principal level design leaders within the regions,” says Traxler. “We’ve done the same thing with Asia Pacific, and we’re doing the same thing within Latin America. I have design directors in all of our major development centres.” The design team for the Middle East & Africa region
is based in Dubai. The Asia-Pacific region has three design offices – one in Delhi, looking after India, one in Shanghai, which handles Greater China and Mongolia, and one in Singapore which covers Southeast Asia and Australasia. “We have a Miami base for Latin America right now
but we have considered shifting that down to Sao Paulo if we could find some cost effective office space, as that’s a growing location,” adds Traxler. In Europe, as in each of the other regions, the structure
around Celia Geyer and Chris Webb enables them to provide regional design support within a global context. Strategically and functionally both Celia and Chris report in to Larry Traxler in Global Design Services. However, tactically at a regional level they provide design support to the regional team of Project Managers led by Gordon Coles, who heads up the Architecture and Construction team for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Both Coles and Traxler in turn report into Matt Richardson.
HILTON WORLDWIDE KEY FIGURES IN THE EUROPEAN & GLOBAL DESIGN TEAMS
LARRY TRAXLER Senior Vice President , Global Design Services Larry Traxler joined Hilton in April 2009. In his current capacity, he has oversight of Hilton’s worldwide team of design managers and will direct the design review process provided to existing owned and leased hotels as well as delivering new hotels into the Hilton System. Previously, he was Vice President – Architecture & Design for Global Hyatt Corporation.
CELIA GEYER Senior Director - Architecture , Global Design Services Europe Celia Geyer is an architect with experience working on a wide range of projects from residential, commerical to luxury hotels and resorts. Her region includes the UK, Europe, Turkey, Russia and the CIS where she looks after projects across the Hilton brands. Prior to working for Hilton she was an Associate Vice President for WATG.
CHRIS WEBB Senior Director - Interior Design, Global Design Services Europe Chris Webb joined Hilton Worldwide with over 15 years of international interior design and hotel experience, having worked on luxury hotel and resort design projects for many of the major hotel brands both in Europe and the USA. Prior to Hilton, Chris was a Director of Design at United Designers in London, where he was appointed Managing Director in 2009.
GORDON COLES Vice President – Architecture and Construction, Europe, Middle East and Africa Based in London, Coles is responsible for all property, design and construction related activity across EMEA encompassing newbuild development management, capital expenditure and property management within the existing hotel estate. Since joining the company in 2002, Coles has overseen the design, construction and opening of more than 100 hotels.
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