The Chengbao Hotel, in Dalian, Liaoning China, is set to open in January 2014.


“There’s a lot of communication that can be imparted through your facial expressions and your hand gestures. It’s a social nicety to


meet in person—and it’s expected.” Kristin Prohl, Vice President and General Counsel, Starwood Hotels and Resorts


W “We do a lot of formal and informal training,” Cohen


says. “We’re operating in more than 15 diff erent countries in Asia, and each country has its own legal system, its own norms. We do an overview so our lawyers understand the country they’re working in and get a sense of whether their host country functions under common law or civil law, which allows us some generalization in terms of our approach. We also do a lot of on-the-job training for local lawyers. We have them work with diff erent specialists in the United States to understand the specifi cs of working for a multinational company and to address the issues that have come up in the past and ways to troubleshoot going forward.” In addition to learning all the legal ins and outs, U.S.


attorneys working as part of Starwood’s international team also have to consider the subtle yet equally important cultural nuances when negotiating. Although English is often the default language for deals made abroad, small gestures such as greeting fellow attorneys in their native tongue and mak- ing time for in-person business lunches can go a long way. “A large cultural diff erence for transactions in those areas of the world is that meetings are held in person, which meant a lot of travel so we could meet face-to-face,” says Kristen Prohl, a Starwood vice president and associate general counsel who spent two years in Brussels, which is where the company’s Europe, Africa, and Middle East offi ce is located. “T ere’s


JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®


a lot of communication that can be imparted through your facial expressions and your hand gestures. It’s a social nicety to meet in person—and it’s expected.” Understanding the cultural politics is an imperative at


Starwood. It provides an opportunity, Siegel notes, for staff attorneys to experience the increasingly diverse nature of busi- ness fi rsthand. “Starwood’s notions of diversity begin to take on entirely diff erent dynamics because we’re hiring indigenous people in their own regions and linking them with American trainees to get the best of both worlds,” he said. As the company looks to increase its long-established


lead in Asia, its sights are set fi rmly on the future. Investing early may have given the company an advantage, but Siegel says the new global economy has made one thing certain: Success favors those who are bullish about their growth prospects. And with experts predicting that 70 percent of the world’s growth over the next decade will come from fast-developing markets, it appears that Starwood has posi- tioned itself to be at the right place at just the right time. “We see the future, and Asia is going to play a very big part


in it,” Siegel says. “We need to be in Asia to grow, to prosper— really to be competitive. And we’re taking advantage of the fact that we started out there before everyone else, and we’re using that to essentially go from strength to strength. If you held up a map of the world and threw a dart, the odds are there is a Starwood property there or there will be.” D&B


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