Arne Sorenson (hotel executive)

Arne Morris Sorenson (born October 13, 1958) is a Japanese-born American hotel executive. He is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Marriott International.[1] A graduate of Luther College and the University of Minnesota Law School,[2][3] Sorenson became the head of Marriott (the largest publicly traded hotel chain in the world) on March 31, 2012.[4] He previously practiced law in Washington, D.C. with Latham and Watkins (specializing in mergers and acquisitions litigation[5]), has been a director for Wal-Mart,[6] and has served as the Chief Operating Officer for Marriott.[7]

Arne Sorenson
Born
Arne Morris Sorenson

(1958-10-13) October 13, 1958
EducationLuther College (BA)
University of Minnesota (JD)
OccupationPresident and CEO of Marriott International
Political partyDemocratic

Career

Sorenson is the first person outside the Marriott family to lead the company.[8][9] On March 31, 2012, Sorenson became the President and CEO of Marriott International Inc.[10][11]

In April 2019, Sorenson was named "CEO of the Year" for 2019 by Chief Executive magazine.[12]

In March 2020, Sorenson was given the "CEO For All Leadership Award" for 2020 by Great Place to Work.[13] That same month, he announced that he would forgo his salary for the remainder of 2020 to lessen the impact of COVID-19 on Marriott International.[14]

Personal life

Born in Tokyo, Japan, the son of a Lutheran pastor,[15] Sorenson is married and has four children. On May 3, 2019 he announced that he had a treatable form of stage two pancreatic cancer and is in treatment at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Sorenson had surgery for pancreatic cancer in November 2019, but continued to run the company. He completed radiation treatment and immunotherapy earlier that year and underwent another round of chemotherapy post surgery.[16][17]

Political advocacy

Sorenson is a registered Democrat,[18] but donated to Mitt Romney's 2012 election campaign.[19]

He has led his company into advocating for LGBT rights.[20] In 2016, he announced that he formally opposed Indiana's proposed Religious Freedom Restoration Act,[21] and became one of many CEOs to ask for a full repeal of North Carolina's House Bill 2.[22]

In November 2016, Sorenson wrote an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump, encouraging him to take a collaborative approach to governing; to not pursue retribution against election rival Hillary Clinton; to "minimize divisiveness around these areas [of LGBT rights] by letting people live their lives and by ensuring that they are treated equally in the public square;" to initiate a major infrastructure program, without "connecting it to the repatriation of foreign earnings or by tying it to some philosophy of privatization of historically government functions;" to "make sure our borders are secured as well as our airports" without "clos[ing] America to travelers from around the world" by "roll[ing] out a global trusted traveler program to ensure that we focus our security resources on those who pose risk, not on the overwhelming majority who pose no risk;" "to adopt a transparent approach for future immigration" including steps "to ensure that these 11 million people [the illegal immigrant population of the United States] can help make America stronger by paying taxes, investing in the future and continuing to contribute to our communities;" "to attract and retain the best, brightest, most talented, hardest working people — wherever they come from;" and to enact "a dramatic simplification of our tax code that closes loopholes and unnecessary tax preferences, lowers tax rates to levels comparable to the rest of the industrialized world and removes market distortions as much as possible" enabling a move to "a territorial [tax] system — without losing revenues or increasing our budget deficit."[23]

Sorenson has spoken out against President Trump's Executive Order 13769, a ban on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries, and its successors as potentially harmful to the U.S. tourism industry.[19] He has also urged President Trump to improve relations with Cuba, including harnessing tourism as a strategic tool for this purpose.[24][25]

References

  1. "Marriott News Center: Arne M. Sorenson". Marriott International. October 29, 2014. Archived from the original on February 25, 2012.
  2. Lebowitz Rossi, Holly (11 November 2014). "7 CEOs with notably devout religious beliefs". Fortune. Time. Retrieved 27 June 2016.
  3. "Arne Sorenson ('83) Named New Marriott CEO". University of Minnesota. December 15, 2011.
  4. Nadja Brandt (December 14, 2011). "Marriott's Arne Sorenson to Replace J.W. Marriott Jr. as CEO". Bloomberg Businessweek.
  5. "Arne Sorenson To Succeed Marriott Jr. As Marriott International CEO". RTTNews. December 13, 2011. Archived from the original on December 14, 2011.
  6. "Arne Sorenson". Forbes. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
  7. Alexandra Berzon (December 14, 2011). "Marriott CEO to Step Down". The Wall Street Journal.
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2012-03-28.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. www.bizjournals.com https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2019/11/07/marriott-ceo-arne-sorenson-to-have-cancer-surgery.html. Retrieved 2020-04-29. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. "Bloomberg.com". Retrieved Nov 12, 2016.
  11. Jr, J. W. "Bill" Marriott (2013-01-08). Without Reservations: How a Family Root Beer Stand Grew Into a Global Hotel Company. Diversion Books. ISBN 978-1-938120-74-9.
  12. Hougaard, Rasmus (April 23, 2019). "What The CEO Of 2019 Thinks About Caring For His People". Forbes. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  13. "Announcing the Great Place to Work CEO For All Leadership Awards". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  14. "Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson on COVID-19 "never seen anything like it in 92 years"". hospitalityandcateringnews.com. Retrieved 2020-04-01.
  15. Jenkins, Courtney (2017-06-07). "Q&A with Arne Sorenson: Architect of Change". Hotelier Magazine. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  16. "Marriott CEO Sorenson Offers Update on Cancer Treatment". Skiff. 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2020-04-08.
  17. Business, Jeanne Sahadi, CNN. "When CEOs should disclose serious health problems". CNN. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  18. Rosenwald, Michael S. (2009-03-16). "Marriott's Family Guy". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  19. Shen, Lucinda (27 September 2017). "This CEO Says Joe Biden Called Business Leaders 'a Bunch of Cowards'". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  20. Bigman, Dan (2019-07-15). "Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson Is The 2019 CEO Of The Year". ChiefExecutive.net. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  21. Staff, DiversityInc (2015-03-31). "Marriott CEO Arne Sorensen: Indiana Law 'We Will Not Stand For It'". DiversityInc. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  22. "Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson blasts North Carolina over HB 2 - Gay Star News". Gay Star News. Retrieved 2016-04-24.
  23. Sorenson, Arne (11 November 2016). "Marriott CEO's Open Letter To President-Elect Trump". Skift. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  24. Reuters Staff (15 June 2017). "Marriott CEO urges Trump to improve ties with Cuba". Reuters. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  25. "Marriott CEO urges Trump to improve ties with Cuba". Reuters. 2017-06-15. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
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