FAQ

Cornerstone Hospitality, part of Cornerstone International Group, is a global retained hospitality executive search firm, with deep sector expertise across luxury hotels & resorts, travel, leisure and branded living. We combine our worldwide reach in over 40 countries with nuanced local expertise.

Globally. We work routinely across EMEA, APAC and the Americas. Cornerstone International Group’s network of 60 offices across 40 countries means a senior hospitality search or coaching engagement can be supported on the ground in almost any market the role spans.

Owners, brands and operators in the hospitality, travel and leisure sectors.

A Cornerstone engagement covers the full search cycle: discovery and brief calibration, market mapping, candidate identification and approach, assessment, shortlisting, client interview support, reference work, offer negotiation, and three onboarding coaching sessions for the placed leader through the first 90 days in seat. The work doesn’t end at the offer letter; it ends when the leader is performing.

A full replacement guarantee within an agreed window of the placement, plus a structured 3-session onboarding support through our ICF-certified coach during the first 90 days to help the placed leader land well in the new role.

Property GMs, cluster and regional VPs, brand and operations presidents, C-suite across CFO, COO, CCO and CHRO, VPs across discipline heads. Furthermore, board directors and CEO successors.

Most senior hospitality searches run 12 to 16 weeks from kick-off to signed offer. Board-level non-executive searches can run longer because alignment on the “missing piece” takes time at the front of the process. A search timeline with detailed deliverables is tailored for every search.

An executive search places operational leadership, CEO, COO, CFO, CCO, regional managing directors, the people who execute the strategy. A board search places non-executive directors and board advisors who provide stewardship, governance, and independent perspective. The two require different methodologies: execution-level search is about operational fit; board-level search is about complementary capability and intellectual challenge inside the leadership system.

Both. The candidate pool is global but small, and we work across the full range, independent boutique operators, owner-operated groups, branded select-service, lifestyle brands, luxury and ultra-luxury. The brand-DNA fit conversation is part of every engagement.

A recruitment agency typically advertises a role and screens the candidates who respond. A specialist hospitality headhunter works the opposite way; we identify senior leaders who are already excelling in similar roles elsewhere and approach them confidentially.

ICF-certified one-to-one executive coaching for senior hospitality leaders. Engagements typically run 6 to 12 months with a structured cadence of 60 to 90 minute sessions, around a small set of contracted goals agreed at the start with the leader (and, where applicable, the sponsoring organization).

The independent literature is consistent: median company ROI in the broader executive coaching field is around seven times the cost of the engagement, with a widely-cited Fortune-1000 study putting the average at 5.7 times invested. In hospitality specifically, the strategic return is the compounding effect, a coached GM who unlocks a limiting belief about delegation runs their property differently for the next decade; a senior team that learns to surface disagreement productively makes better decisions for years.

Senior hospitality leaders engaging us directly for their own development, and hospitality organizations investing in coaching for senior people through promotions, mergers, new-hire onboarding, or strategic change. We also run team coaching for intact hospitality leadership groups.

Indeed, yes, and often it should. Notably, team coaching surfaces issues that individual coaching is the right venue to work through privately. In practice, the two coaches typically share goals at the team level while protecting individual confidentiality.

The strongest moments are: stepping up to a bigger role, a brand or geographic move, post-merger or restructure, a performance plateau, succession preparation, or a planned exit. Coaching is highest value at moments of transition or accelerated growth.

B2C means the leader engages us personally and the work is fully confidential. B2B means the company sponsors the engagement and there are agreed checkpoints with the sponsor on goals and progress, but the specific content of every coaching conversation still stays in the room.

Training delivers new knowledge or skills through structured content from a trainer to a group. Coaching surfaces what the leader already knows, challenges the patterns they have fallen into, and supports the changes they have decided to make. The two complement each other; our practice focuses exclusively on the coaching side.

Senior hospitality leaders are navigating an inflection point: General Managers moving to corporate or regional roles, corporate officers are preparing for the C-suite, senior leaders are between roles after a restructure, and executives are quietly considering whether their current seat is the right one for the next chapter. Overall, hospitality career transition coaching ranges from an individual engagement commissioned by the leader through to full executive outplacement commissioned by an organization.

Typically, six aspects: in-depth conversation, psychometric calibration, positioning (the narrative sentence, refreshed CV and LinkedIn), market mapping and network reactivation (surgical, not broadcast), interview preparation, and 90-day landing support once a role is identified.

Hospitality specificity. Every conversation, every reference, every recommendation is shaped by what works inside hospitality leadership search, brand-DNA fit, owner-relationship style, multi-property scaling, cross-cultural leadership. A generic program doesn’t read these signals.

In practice, we work directly with the leaving executive through every stage above, paid for by the organization. For governance, the organization receives a structured engagement summary at agreed checkpoints. Meanwhile, the leader receives a dedicated coach for the duration. As a result, the relationship between the leader and the organization usually improves; handling a senior exit well leaves both sides with their reputations intact.

No. Some of the strongest work happens before the exit is final, when the conversation is private, the narrative can still be shaped, references can be activated quietly, and the leader’s market positioning can be prepared. We work confidentially in either situation.

A decision-ready report: executive summary, role-fit matrix (six dimensions scored against the brief with evidence), leadership trajectory, risk and mitigation plan. Designed to be read in fifteen minutes by a board with limited time.

The online questionnaire takes around 30 minutes in the candidate’s own time. Meanwhile, the Chartered Psychologist handles interpretation, tailored report, candidate-specific questions and panel debrief. These fit the search timeline rather than slowing it.

Yes. Internal assessments are often the higher-stakes work, the leader is known, opinions are formed, and an honest external read gives the board real confidence in the decision.

Yes. We assess every candidate against the same robust framework, giving a consistent basis for comparison. Consequently, charisma, familiarity or personal preference pull less weight. Moreover, its forced-choice format is hard to manipulate. Every candidate also receives a developmental debrief, appointed or not.

Yes. Every assessed leader receives a full developmental debrief with the psychologist after final interviews. For those not appointed, this provides meaningful, respectful feedback. Equally, it reflects well on the client and search partner and protects the employer brand.