How I Landed My New CIO Job: A perfect cultural fit

Were you actively looking for your next CIO role?

I wasn’t actively looking, but I had started to think seriously about what the future might hold for me career-wise. So when a great opportunity at Omni Hotels and Resorts presented itself, the timing was right.

How did you hear about the CIO opportunity at Omni Hotels & Resorts?

I was contacted by a vice president in IT here whom I’ve known for a long time through various industry organizations and vendor customer boards. He said, “How would you like to work together with me at Omni?” That's how it started.

What piqued your interest in this CIO opportunity?

First, Omni had recently expanded into luxury resorts and their goals for growth and innovation through technology required a new strategy. They wanted technology to be a key business enabler and that aligned perfectly with my experience and value contribution.

Earlier in my career, I was with one company, Hallmark Cards, for 14 years. Then I spent the next 12 years in the hospitality industry among large casino and hotel brands and boutique managed properties. I wanted to find another solid hospitality company I could remain with and provide long-term leadership. I was looking for my next home, in career terms, and Omni fit the bill. Omni is a solid brand with a strong company culture, and it was exactly what I was looking for.

What was Omni looking for in their new CIO

First and foremost, they wanted somebody who could be a true partner to the executive team. They wanted a CIO with strong communications and strategy skills, who could put a plan together and then drive toward those results. They were also seeking a strong leader who could provide outside perspective and expertise to the team.

What was your interview strategy?

My interview strategy was to demonstrate to the hiring committee my proven track record of experience and accomplishments and that my leadership style would fit in with the dynamics of the executive team and company culture.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

While researching the company I was looking to confirm that there was a solid structure to the business. Things such as revenue: how good is flow through? What about EBITDA - were they hitting their goals? Have they been successful? And then, what were their challenges? From there I thought, “What interview questions would I ask if I were them?”

I developed a list of my experiences that demonstrated that I had proven successes in the areas where they needed help the most.

Was there a particularly memorable moment during your interviews?

The first interview was out of the ordinary. I had planned a trip to California to visit my daughter over Easter weekend. Coincidentally, Omni was holding a GM conference nearby on the very next day, a Monday, so I got to interview with a majority of the executive team in one place.

I was set to meet with the owner of our parent company, TRT Holdings, a meeting which was unexpectedly joined by the CFO and the CEO of Omni. They wanted to know about operational involvement – how had I contributed or added value on operational issues in the past as a CIO. It worked well with my preparation, but it was memorable because I hadn’t been asked those questions at the ownership level before.

Who do you report to?

The President of Omni Hotels & Resorts, Mike Deitemeyer.

How did you prepare to start your new role?

I have been an IT leader at four hospitality companies during my career, and I have worked with most of the leading IT vendor firms in this industry for a long time. So I reached out to my contacts at these companies, told them that I was coming to Omni, and asked for their perspective. “How could they better maximize the use of your tools?” The first 60 days were a lot of listening, watching and observing operations.

From day one, what were some of the concrete steps you took to learn the business and build relationships across the enterprise?

I held conversations with every single IT staff member, and the head of every department in the company. I asked them what was working, what could be better, and what single goal could IT help them achieve.

What else did you focus on in the first few weeks?

I completed a thorough assessment of all of our infrastructure and processes in the first 45 days, noting where standardization was lacking and where processes needed to be tightened. In a company like this, there was a lot of tradition – some ways of doing things that were very longstanding. I was constantly asking people, “Why?” to understand the process behind the procedures, to better determine what was working well and what could be improved.

Did you find any crises that needed to be dealt with right away?

One of the biggest projects was an update to the financial system. The Oracle application had not been updated for eight years, so we were somewhat behind on functional improvements, and there were performance issues. There were changes to make to longstanding business processes and we had to roll out a new chart of accounts. All the hardware would be new too. I worked directly with the CFO and VP of Finance, got the contract signed and the project executed.

Change management and communications were critical because we were asking people to change the way they worked. So we focused on the ability people would have to work smarter, not harder. We focused on the positive and how change would make their jobs easier.

What significant technical changes do you plan to make in the near future?

The biggest change is in the area of information management, which is core to everything that we do. This includes business intelligence, the data warehouse, and analytics with user friendly reporting tools. It is the single most important project here and it will be completed shortly.

We have many other goals for efficiency in all of our hospitality systems. I have created a three year plan with my team that covers CRM, customer experience management (CXM), mobile strategy, as well as workflow and document management. These will be standardized, enterprise level solutions rather than property-based, and for the most part they will be in the Cloud, not hosted by us.

How do you know when your IT organization is succeeding?

One measure is our customer satisfaction score - how well we are meeting the expectations of our customers. And also systems stability and reliability. Are we providing 99.9 percent system up-time? How is our ticket responsiveness? Are systems secure?

On projects, I look at whether we are providing improvements in performance, and delivering the ROI we expected.

If you were granted a ‘redo’ on your first 100 days, what would you do differently?

I would increase direct communications with each of the GMs at our 60 properties at the beginning - establish direct rapport earlier. I have done that now, but if I were starting again, I would do that earlier.

What advice do you have for sitting CIOs thinking about the move to a bigger role and a bigger challenge?

Be clear in stating what your goals are and what it is you are looking to achieve. Understand the challenge you are asking for and whether it aligns with your professional goals. If you want a bigger role, what does that exactly mean for you?

Being a CIO requires a lot of time. It’s a lot of work. I would advise people to be sure they are ready for the commitment, willing to dedicate the time and energy that is required, and open to risk. Because as a CIO, you are going to have to step outside your comfort zone. That being said, it’s a rewarding career with great potential.

About Kris Singleton

Kris Singleton is Chief Information Officer of Omni Hotels & Resorts. She provides the enterprise-wide information technology vision and leadership for operating a reliable and stable infrastructure, fostering innovation to enhance guest services and operations, and leading the deployment and management of current and emerging technology products, services and systems across the organization. A 26-year veteran of the technology industry, Singleton has more than a decade of experience in the hospitality industry. Most recently she was chief information officer for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

About Omni Hotels & Resorts

Omni Hotels & Resorts creates genuine, authentic guest experiences at 60 distinct luxury hotels and resorts in leading business gateways and leisure destinations across North America. With over 20 world-class golf courses and award-winning spa retreats, to dynamic business settings, each Omni showcases the local flavor of the destination while featuring four-diamond services, signature restaurants, Wi-Fi connectivity and unique wellness options.