Defining Hospitality

What if the smartest thing a design leader can say is that design alone will never be enough? In this reair from the Defining Hospitality archives, Dan Ryan sits down with Kristen Conry for a conversation that starts with a legendary dinner the host never made it to and ends up somewhere much bigger. Along the way, they dig into why tight budgets can sharpen creativity, what the industry was learning as it climbed out of the pandemic, and how a short-lived job selling t-shirts shaped the way Kristen leads. Revisit a warm, funny, and thoughtful look at what hospitality really means when the spotlight isn’t on you.At the time of this conversation, Kristen Conry was and still is the Senior Vice President of Global Design for Marriott International, guiding design across one of the most expansive brand portfolios in the world. An architect by training with a degree from the University of Michigan, she also logged historic preservation work in Bulgaria and earned her MBA. Before Marriott, she spent over a decade shaping the design side of Hyatt, which makes her a true insider on both sides of the table.Chapters:00:00 Why Hospitality Matters00:41 Meet Kristin Connery01:42 Alinea Dinner Story03:25 Sensory Dessert Spectacle04:55 Service Makes It Magic05:55 Why Marriott Beckoned09:53 Culture and People First14:01 Arne Sorenson Legacy19:54 Design vs Service and Constraints32:14 From Preservation to Hotels32:52 Chicago 2001 First Hustles33:54 Boystown Bars and High Touch Design35:03 Bulgaria Preservation Detour36:33 Mentors and the Hyatt Leap40:33 Hyatt Deep End Learning41:50 Select Service Innovation Boom45:59 Marriott Future Data and Discipline54:22 Branded Residences and Closing AdviceQuote of the Show: “Design cannot make up for lacking service, but great service can make up for a gap in design.” - Kristen ConryBuilding a hotel, brand, or guest experience? Reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or hit reply on the Substack to share what you’re working on.🔗 CONNECT:Guest’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conry/ Guests Website: https://www.marriott.com/default.mi Dan Ryan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedailydanryan/📧 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER:https://www.defininghospitality.live 🏨✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by Berman Falk https://www.bermanfalk.com/ - Check out their impact page! 🌍🌱 https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/ 🎧 LISTEN ON YOUR FAVORITE PLATFORM:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPXApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419Transistor: https://www.defininghospitality.live/

What if the most unreasonable thing you can do for your business is make people feel something? This reair brings back a conversation that is well worth a second listen. Dan Ryan and Will Guidara dig into why the smallest gestures leave the biggest marks, how a daily 30 minute huddle can reshape a culture, and why connection beats being right every single time. A six hour dinner that felt like six minutes and a handwritten card of travel tips prove the point, and along the way they make the case that every industry is already in the hospitality business, whether it knows it or not.Will Guidara is the author of Unreasonable Hospitality and the restaurateur behind Eleven Madison Park and NoMad. He cut his teeth at Tribeca Grill, Spago, and Tabla before opening restaurants at the Museum of Modern Art. He also created the Welcome Conference, a gathering that has left a lasting mark on the people who attend it.Chapters:00:00 Restaurant or Hospitality00:52 Meet Will Guidara01:25 Six Hour Magic Meal02:23 Nomad Library Surprise03:42 Games and Card Trick04:29 Culture Takes Root06:36 Finding Your Why07:38 Will Origin Story08:50 Hosting and Family11:19 Hospitality Economy14:09 Scaling Culture Daily16:56 Values Beyond Posters19:58 Impact of the Book23:24 Unreasonable Intentionality26:30 Offense in Adversity31:10 Defining Hospitality35:39 Beginner Mindset Dad37:51 Advice and FarewellQuote of the Show:“Service is black and white. Hospitality is color.” - Will GuidaraBuilding a hotel, brand, or guest experience? Reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or hit reply on the Substack to share what you’re working on.🔗 CONNECT:Guest’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willguidara/ Guests Website: https://www.unreasonablehospitality.com/ Dan Ryan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedailydanryan/📧 SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER:https://www.defininghospitality.live 🏨✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by Berman Falk https://www.bermanfalk.com/ - Check out their impact page! 🌍🌱 https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/ 🎧 LISTEN ON YOUR FAVORITE PLATFORM:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPXApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419Transistor: https://www.defininghospitality.live/

What if a hotel could change the way you see the world? Dan sits down with Paolo Ferrari, founder of Studio Paolo Ferrari, to talk about design that goes beyond beautiful and into transformational. They get into why luxury lives in the stitch and not the chair, how film shapes the way he designs urban hotels, and why constraints and friction make for better work. Paolo also explains why shared values matter more than any pitch, how to protect a big vision when the budget gets real, and why physical spaces will matter more than ever as life moves online.Paolo Ferrari is the founder and principal designer of Studio Paolo Ferrari and was named Boutique Design's 2025 Designer of the Year. For over 20 years he has been shaping some of the most ambitious hospitality projects in the world, including the cave-carved Desert Rock resort in Saudi Arabia. He is known for blending timelessness with courageous invention, and for chasing that moment when someone walks into a space and feels something they never expected.Chapters:00:00 Ambition And Uncertainty00:31 Podcast Mission And Sponsor01:06 Meet Paolo Ferrari03:03 Optimism And Joyful Energy03:57 Defining Hospitality As Generosity04:41 Luxury Lives In Details09:34 From Experience To Transformation16:04 Programming And Urban Wonder22:04 Designing For The Future33:53 Friction Fuels Excellence34:58 Sponsor Sustainability Update35:23 Why Budgets Must Be Shared36:55 Start With Vision39:06 Value Engineering Creativity43:01 Paradigm Shifting Projects46:16 Design As Optimism49:26 Choosing Aligned Clients54:17 Analog Spaces MatterQuote of the Show:"Those physical spaces are gonna carry so much more weight. They're not just indulgent. They're how we connect." - Paolo FerrariBuilding a hotel, brand, or guest experience? Reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or hit reply on the Substack to share what you’re working on.Links:Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@defininghospitality?sub_confirmation=1 Substack: https://www.defininghospitality.live/ Guest’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/studio-paolo-ferrari/?originalSubdomain=ca Guests Website: https://www.paoloferrari.com/ Dan Ryan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedailydanryan/🏨✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by Berman Falk https://www.bermanfalk.com/ - Check out their impact page! 🌍🌱 https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/ Ways to Tune In: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPXApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419Transistor: https://www.defininghospitality.live/

What if the best sign of great hospitality is that nothing ever gets in your way? Dan Ryan sits down for a live recording of Defining Hospitality, set in a podcast studio tucked inside a former 1930s sandwich shop at Rockefeller Center. The conversation moves from frictionless guest experiences to the habit of saying “we” instead of “I,” with stops along the way for world building, big stakeholder rooms, and the fears that grow as a business does. It’s candid, funny, and built on a friendship that came before any business did.Drew Stewart is an architect, interior designer, and occasional developer, and a founding partner and director of construction and development at INC Architecture & Design. He has spent 20 years growing the New York studio into a powerhouse, earning a spot in the Interior Design Hall of Fame along the way. His work includes the TWA Hotel, 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, and the Atlas Hotel at Harvard, and he is celebrating the milestone with a monograph, Us Is More, hitting shelves TODAY October 14th.Chapters:00:00 Why Hospitality Matters00:35 Meet Drew Stewart01:22 Recording at Rock Center03:00 A Designer’s Eye for Detail04:09 Defining Frictionless Hospitality05:44 Managing Mega Projects11:19 Tech That Aligns Stakeholders14:52 Hall of Fame Moment19:07 Us Is More and The Book34:38 Spending Your Own Money35:10 Fine Tuning Design Value35:54 New Empathy For Developers37:06 Entrepreneurship And Risk38:04 Fear Grows With Success39:08 TWA And World Building41:06 Rockefeller Concourse Redesign47:29 Building 1 Hotel With Barry50:51 Book Future And FarewellQuote of the Show:“Having creative, thoughtful people across the table turns out to be the single most important thing about any project.” - Drew StuartBuilding a hotel, brand, or guest experience? Reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or hit reply on the Substack to share what you’re working on.Links:Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@defininghospitality?sub_confirmation=1 Substack: https://www.defininghospitality.live/ Guest’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-stuart-22bb286/ Guests Website: https://inc.nyc/Us is More Book: https://a.co/d/01ctnv2F Dan Ryan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedailydanryan/🏨✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by Berman Falk https://www.bermanfalk.com/ - Check out their impact page! 🌍🌱 https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/ Ways to Tune In: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPXApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419Transistor: https://www.defininghospitality.live/

What if the biggest advantage in hospitality design isn't having more options, but fewer, better ones? On this episode of Defining Hospitality, Ashley Squires walks through how The Stylist Group is rethinking the front end of design sourcing. She breaks down how her team narrows a project down to a tailored "starter kit" pulled from dozens of premier manufacturers, why a fast turnaround can save a firm real time and money, and how she's working to bring a sense of joy back into a process that too often feels like a grind.Ashley Squires is an interior designer, hospitality design expert, and creative strategist with more than 25 years of experience across hospitality, multifamily, and private aviation spaces. She's led design work for major hotel brands, multifamily developments, and cruise lines, giving her firsthand insight into where the sourcing process breaks down for design teams. Alongside her partner Andrea, she co-founded The Stylist Group to turn that experience into a free resource other designers could lean on.Chapters:00:00 Stylist Group Promise00:24 Show Mission Intro00:48 Sponsor Message00:57 Meet Ashley Squires01:23 Time Is Money Setup02:57 Defining Hospitality03:25 What Stylus Group Does04:50 Library Space Problem06:24 Curating From 27 Makers09:26 Designer Testimonials11:26 Fast Turnarounds15:33 How Palettes Get Picked18:25 Christmas Day Unboxing19:54 Sustainability Break20:19 Measurable Time Savings22:06 How To Get Started25:12 Recent Project Wins33:27 Wrap Up And ContactQuote of the Show: "No matter what the needs are, whether you're a big firm or you're just starting out, consider us your design resource library." - Ashley SquiresBuilding a hotel, brand, or guest experience? Reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or hit reply on the Substack to share what you’re working on.Links:Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@defininghospitality?sub_confirmation=1 Substack: https://www.defininghospitality.live/ Guest’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyksquires/ Guests Website: https://www.stylist-group.com/ Dan Ryan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedailydanryan/🏨✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by Berman Falk https://www.bermanfalk.com/ - Check out their impact page! 🌍🌱 https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/ Ways to Tune In: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPXApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419Transistor: https://www.defininghospitality.live/