Name: David Jerome
Title: Senior Vice President for Corporate Responsibility
Organization: InterContinental Hotels Group
Years with company: Two
My primary responsibilities: “Helping to define the company’s corporate responsibility strategy and helping to execute that strategy. Understanding how the company’s business objectives intersect with societal needs. My responsibilities cut across a lot of silos in the company.”
What keeps me motivated each day: “I like the complexity of the issues and have the fortune of working with a lot of smart people. It is a lot of fun.”
Organization’s most significant environmental accomplishment so far: “The many individual accomplishments across our company, from the Willard InterContinental in Washington, D.C.’s pursuit of 100 percent wind power to a unique air-conditioning system at the InterContinental Thalasso Spa hotel in Bora Bora, French Polynesia.”
Our biggest environmental challenge: “I believe there are two levels of challenges. The first is getting efforts at each hotel lined up with our corporate strategy. The second is to understand what the current environmental movement is going to mean for the future in our marketplace.”
WINDSOR, U.K.— Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is something the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) takes seriously. So serious, in fact, that two years ago it appointed David Jerome to lead the company’s efforts as senior vice president for corporate responsibility.
Jerome’s appointment in 2006 was part of IHG’s efforts to elevate its commitment to CSR. “We identified environmental management and support for our local communities as our key business priorities—and made a senior level appointment to drive our activity in these areas,” said Andrew Cosslett, CEO of IHG, in his March 2008 statement prefacing the company’s Corporate Responsibility Report.
Jerome brought a significant amount of executive-level and operational experience to the new position. He formerly led corporate affairs for InBev, the world’s largest brewer. Prior to InBev, he worked for General Motors in a variety of staff and operational roles. He was head of GM Korea before assuming responsibility for GM’s global reputation management activity. He practiced law in Washington, D.C. before joining GM.
Jerome says his experience in operations has been an advantage in helping to roll out IHG’s environmental programs.
“I always thought of myself more as an operations guy,” he says. “I believe it is important to have operational experience in this type of position. It helps you to understand the intersection between business objectives and societal needs.”
The senior vice president for corporate responsibility, who says he has always been a bit of a conservationist, says one of the things that has impressed him so much about working for IHG is the high level of support he has received. “Everybody wants to help,” he says.
Commitment Goes Back to 1991
IHG has long had a commitment to CSR, especially in regard to environmental responsibility. InterContinental Hotels helped pioneer the travel industry’s first collaborative response to environmental issues through the International Business Leaders Forum back in 1991. Since that time it has continued its commitment with corporate-level programs.
One such program is called ESCAP Enviro. Currently being implemented by many of IHG’s owned and managed hotels, it is a management tool to measure and internally benchmark the environmental performance of its hotels by energy and water consumption, and waste production. The Internet-based system allows individual hotels to enter data on a monthly basis which can then be reported over time by region and a wide range of other criteria. Jerome says it is IHG’s goal to roll out the program to its franchised properties in 2009.
“The bedrock of managing an issue is measuring it,” Jerome says. “Particularly now, resource management is extremely important. The good news is that there are large opportunities to improve your top and bottom lines. The opportunities to innovate are exciting.”
In regard to innovation, IHG earlier this year unveiled its online Innovation Hotel, an example of a futuristic hotel that includes just about every green technology or amenity imaginable. The purpose of the hotel concept is to help identify what green features are important to guests before making them part of brand standards.
“The site has been working very well,” Jerome says. “We have had a lot of hits on it. Many of our hotels are doing these things already. Right now we are just trying to understand what people like.”
Overseeing CSR for a hotel company that has more than 4,000 hotels and more than 590,000 guestrooms in almost 100 countries is no easy task but it is one that Jerome relishes.
“Doing the right thing is gratifying and an important legacy to leave,” he says.
Go to InterContinental Hotels Group.
Glenn Hasek can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.
