Legendary hotel dealmaker Steve Bollenbach, who most notably served as Hilton Hotels Corp. CEO from 1996 to 2007, passed away in New York City on October 8 at age 74 after a battle with a long illness.
The one-time Marriott CFO who was instrumental in decoupling Marriott’s real estate from its operating company, the man who acquired Promus for Hilton, engineered the deal to bring Hilton and Hilton International back together under one umbrella, and eventually sold out to Blackstone for US$26 billion was known as a no-nonsense and disciplined leader who was legendary for creating shareholder value.
“Yesterday the hospitality industry lost one of our most accomplished CEOs of all time with the passing of Steve Bollenbach,” wrote Cachet Hotel Group CEO Alex Mirza in an email Friday morning. “If there was a “Good to Great” book written on the hospitality industry, there would be not just an entire chapter on his accomplishments. Steve would be the central character in the book who created the flywheel for how to create value in hospitality by integrating real estate investments with brands and new technologies. He was Mr. Discipline and nothing short of the industry version of Master Yoda.”