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MOVERS & SHAKERS Jeremy McCarthy DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL SPA DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS, STARWOOD HOTELS & RESORTS


How did you get into the spa business? In 1991, I was working as a recreation man- ager at Four Seasons Santa Barbara, in California when we decided to open a spa. My background was in fitness – I was a per- sonal trainer, swim coach and triathlete – so was excited to be setting up a small gym, but I didn’t know anything about spas. That turned into 14 years with Four Seasons opening and operating luxury spas around the world. After that, I spent a few years opening a gigantic new spa at the famed La Costa Resort & Spa in southern California and then I came to Starwood seven years ago.


As director of global spa development and operations for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Jeremy McCarthy supports the spas for all its brands including St Regis, the Luxury Collection, Westin, Sheraton, Le Méridien and W (see SB10/3 p24). That’s 400 spas in more than 100 countries with at least another 120 in development. He’s worked in hospitality for 22 years and since join- ing Starwood in 2006 has helped develop and implement five in-house spa concepts. In addition, he recently completed a mas- ters degree in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadel- phia and wrote the book The Psychology of Spas & Wellbeing.


56 spa business handbook 2013


What have been your biggest recent achievements? My second son Max was born in January 2012, I published my book on The Psychology of Spas & Wellbeing and I updated our Heavenly Spa concept for Westin hotels by bringing in Aromatherapy Associates as the new prod- uct house and creating new treatments and marketing collateral.


Is your life on track? I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a track for life. So I feel my life is flying along completely off track... and that is exactly how it should be.


If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing? I’d be a college professor. It’s still my personal career goal – this year, for the third time, I taught an online course in positive leadership


as part of the Spa and Hospitality Manage- ment Certificate at UC Irvine in the US.


What are your goals at Starwood? This is a long list. In 2012, we updated our Heavenly Spa and Shine Spa concepts for Westin and Sheraton, this year I hope to refresh our Away Spa concept for W and begin refreshing our Explore Spa concept for Le Méridien. We also have a ton of web- site projects around our spas. Long term, I’m always thinking about ways to better support and engage with all of our spa managers as they’re the ones who really make things hap- pen. In my spare time, we are also opening a heck of a lot of new spas!


What spurred you on to do a psychology degree? I actually studied psychology as an undergrad- uate before I ever started my career in spas, and I’ve always believed it had a direct impact as this business is all about how we make peo- ple feel. My studies in positive psychology – which focuses on research around enhanc- ing wellbeing – not only influence everything I do in the spa world, from facility design, to treatment development and leadership skills, they’ve led me to work on other projects for Starwood around driving customer service and enhancing workplace culture.


What did you learn from your recent trip around Asia? I spent a lot of time in China as we have so much development there and in Asia going on


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