Five reasons consultants target exit opportunities in hospitality

As the economy remains unpredictable heading further into 2024, hospitality organizations are continuing to build dynamic strategy teams to stay ahead of the curve. Luckily, this space has been a consistently popular choice for consultants seeking new opportunities.

In 2024, around 10% of consultants who self-identified as “likely” or “highly likely” to leave consulting in our 2024 Strategy Consulting Compensation Study said they would target hospitality for their next career move.

While technology and private equity operations remain the two most popular industries for consultants, what makes hospitality a top-10 choice? In our experience placing over 1,300 strategists through their post-consulting career, the following five factors are most appealing:

1. Brand recognition
2. Innovation
3. ESG / sustainability
4. Health and wellness
5. Value alignment

In this article, we explain why each one of these factors presents a favorable opportunity to both strategy consultants looking to leave their current role for a new industry and to former consultants making a career move.

But before we dive in, it’s important to understand that there are four main reasons A-players change jobs: The new company has a compelling story, its company culture and caliber of talent are strong, the role includes impact and exposure to senior leaders, and there is opportunity for growth.

Download: Four Reasons A-Players Change Jobs

With these factors in mind, let’s take a deeper look at the most attractive features offered by the hospitality industry:

Brand recognition

People want to work with brands they know and love. This is perhaps the most compelling aspect of a leadership role within a top hospitality organization, and it directly relates to impact and exposure. A well-known brand can strengthen your résumé and allow you to interact with highly visible people in your respective field. Our placed candidates have also shared that they feel highly accomplished when they help launch a hospitality product or experience because they can see its impact on the consumer almost immediately.

Innovation

Strategy consultants often seek careers where they can serve on the frontline of a unique innovation. This is why the rapid pace of the tech industry is so appealing to both current and former consultants. Hospitality also offers exposure to innovations (think airline accommodations, never-before-seen resort experiences, etc.), but, unlike other industries, these are more-often developed with a consumer-first mentality.

ESG

While there is an ongoing movement to hold companies of all kinds accountable for their commitments to the environment and social justice, hospitality organizations are often in the headlines. For strategy consultants, this is a worthy challenge. The consultant toolkit revolves around problem-solving, so we frequently place candidates who are actively searching for roles with good challenges. These can either be a challenge that is interesting, or it can be a challenge that is very worthwhile and has a positive impact on the world at large. ESG in hospitality often checks both boxes.

Health and wellness

One of the fastest-growing subsectors in hospitality is health and wellness. Wellness resorts, spas, “bleisure,” and other experiential health-based products and services have grown sharply in popularity, and organizations are hiring strategy consultants to oversee their development / future feasibility within larger strategic growth plans. Like the broadly desirable trait of ongoing innovation in hospitality, brands focusing on the rise of health and wellness will be attractive to strategy professionals.

Value alignment

Another important reason we’ve seen strategy professionals migrate to hospitality has to do with value alignment. Consumers seek out products, services and experiences that make them and their families feel good, and our placed candidates have told us they enjoy a career where happiness is the end product. While other career choices can provide high impact and high exposure, hospitality allows leaders to serve their customer base in a more meaningful, individualized way.

The takeaway:

The hospitality industry is an increasingly preferred destination for former strategy consultants to leverage their expertise, driving positive change and creating memorable experiences for consumers globally. These elements not only provide growth opportunities but also align with consultants’ aspirations for meaningful and impactful work

To learn more about our capabilities in recruiting top strategy talent, contact Derek Terry at (336) 217-9185 or derek.terry@charlesaris.com.