Women remain significantly underrepresented in hotel company leadership relative to their share of the hospitality workforce, according to a report from Penn State’s School of Hospitality Management.
While women continue to gain visibility at the highest levels of executive leadership, advances remain gradual and uneven, according to the findings, which benchmarked leadership representation across the hotel industry in 2025. Growth at the highest level of corporate hospitality leadership conflicts with stagnation or decline at some mid-management levels, “underscoring the complexity of achieving gender diversity in hospitality leadership pipelines,” according to the report.
Despite recent challenges, C-suite executives from Extended Stay America and Peregrine Hospitality shared with Hotel Dive why advancing women leaders across all levels of an organization can be the key to its success.
A snapshot of hospitality leadership
Last year, roughly two-thirds of the entire U.S. lodging and accommodation workforce was female, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, the majority of students who graduated with a hospitality management degree in recent years were women, the report detailed. However, women continue to be unevenly represented across leadership roles at hotel companies.
Approximately one in four hospitality C-suite positions are held by women, with those roles concentrated in human resources and sales/marketing divisions, per the report, which was conducted with financial support from the AHLA Foundation. This statistic has remained relatively unchanged since spring 2023.
While the number of women in leadership positions has advanced across hotel investment, development and technology sectors since 2022, they still remain significantly underrepresented in those traditionally male-dominated sectors. And women have lost ground in the managing director and chief levels during that time, the report found.
In 2025, men outnumbered women at the partner/principal level as well, by 6.8 to 1, though this represented “substantial improvement” compared to the 11.4-to-1 ratio reported in 2022.
Some hospitality companies are exceptions. At Peregrine Hospitality, for example, the senior leadership team comprises 62% women, according to the company. Meanwhile, Extended Stay America’s workforce is made up of 65% women. At both organizations, women representation across job functions and levels is a recipe for success, executives told Hotel Dive.
Why representation matters
Kelly Poling, executive vice president and chief commercial and brand officer at Extended Stay America, said her company is “committed from beginning to end to supporting women,” as there are both “ethical and the financial benefits associated with having a diverse workforce.”
“Creating an inclusive culture is important because it’s the right thing to do and it fosters a positive environment,” Poling said, adding that research suggests that “diverse perspectives improve financial performance as well.”
“When leadership reflects the people who are driving your business, when diverse voices are represented, when diverse perspectives influence decision making, you get stronger insights, more innovative solutions, and oftentimes you get a deeper connection to your customers as well,” Poling said.
Meanwhile, diverse leadership at the highest levels of an organization can bolster career advancement and empowerment at lower levels, Peregrine Hospitality CEO Greg Kennealey explained.
“People tend to seek out mentors who have something in common with them,” he said. “What we’re seeing is that women in entry-level or mid-level management roles are gravitating towards our new female leaders for additional mentorship because [they] can offer a perspective, a set of experiences and, in certain cases, guidance on certain career issues that I'm frankly not as qualified to because I haven’t lived their experience.”
In recent months, Peregrine has appointed several women C-suite leaders, including as chief financial officer, chief operating officer and chief commercial officer.
The company selected who it thought would be the best candidate for the job, Kennealey said, after being intentional about casting a wide net for candidates — one that had very strong female representation.
Ensuring diverse voices are represented and heard extends beyond hiring, too, Poling said. Extended Stay America operates the Women’s Associate Resource Group — intended to champion women through advocacy and events — of which Poling is the executive sponsor.
Other hotel companies are spearheading women leadership initiatives, including Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, which launched the Women Own the Room initiative in 2022 to champion greater diversity among hoteliers.
