January 10, 2023
SHL Alumni Spotlight: Joe Hayes
Hyatt Hotels recruited me at an ECU career fair. After completing two internships, I became a student ambassador for the company, where I successfully recruited other ECU students to Hyatt.
Upon my 2010 graduation, I accepted a position in Hyatt’s Corporate Management Training Program at the Grand Hyatt New York, where I held numerous positions before being promoted to front office manager at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay in May 2012. After finishing my Hotel Real Estate & Asset Management Certificate course at Cornell University, I was accepted to a master’s program at New York University to study sustainable development. Concurrently, I was offered a revenue analyst position at the NY Hilton Midtown, the largest hotel in NYC. In under a year, I was promoted to revenue manager while still pursuing my graduate degree.
In August 2015, I accepted the role of key account manager at Booking.com in their Global Chains Division, where I managed the global enterprise relationships with our key chain partners. I excelled at finding commercial opportunities in technical solutions, and in August 2019, I accepted the global commercial innovation manager role at Booking.com HQ in Amsterdam. In my current role, I develop, implement, and operate programs to optimize our 700+ technology partners as both solution enablers and scaled sales channels.
In March 2022, I launched a dark kitchen concept, Mac Shack, which I own and operate with my partner, Mazen Fathy. I met Mazen by building an innovative partnership with Hotelschool the Hague, and the business is thriving.