Mandarin Oriental

What was going on.Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group had a digital strategy from Deloitte and agencies that couldn’t keep pace with what 35 hotels actually needed. I joined as a web designer in 2006 and left as senior product manager in 2013, reporting to the VP of E-commerce. Then I kept the group as the anchor client of my own consultancy, League, until 2019.

What I found.The gap was between what headquarters designed and what the properties needed. Corporate wanted consistency. Hotels wanted to sell their own market. Both were right.

What I did.Interviewed every executive with a stake, up to VP and C-level, and turned what they said into trade-offs leadership could decide between. Showed the organization its future in design, so a roadmap argument became something people could look at. Worked with Deloitte on the roadmap and priorities, then owned the execution. Sent costs and value up the chain as data, with as little of my own opinion attached as I could manage. From 2013 I did it through League: a core team of five, specialists for the big projects, everything through me.

What came out of it.Thirteen years of shipped work for the group, and from 2013, for Langham and Taj as well. League grew to $2.8M. We shipped 12 products for the hotel group in 18 months, in the time agencies quoted for one, and got an 18% lift in non-English markets by treating localization as product work.

What I took from it.The part I’d forgotten I’d invented: let the evidence travel without your thumb on the scale. It’s the fourth move of the method, and it’s a 2008 habit.