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LVR’s Dedicated Duo Pushes Company Toward 2025 Targets
Names: Alex Smith and Leigh Deforest
Titles: Alex: Director of Social Purpose and Analytics; Leigh: Social Purpose and Sustainability Manager
Company: Legacy Vacation Resorts, Orlando, Fla.
Years in Current Position: Alex: Nine months; Leigh: Four months
Primary Responsibilities: Alex: “Ensuring that Legacy Vacation Resorts is achieving the highest social purpose impact possible, supporting team fundamentals, helping to work through objectives, and communicating with the leadership team.”
Organization’s most significant accomplishment in global corporate responsibility: Alex: “Becoming a B Corp. was a big step. It took a lot to certify and get tested.”
Organization’s most significant challenge moving forward in global corporate responsibility: Alex: “Team...
Six Senses’ Jeffery Smith Elevates Company’s Sustainability Standards
Name: Jeffery Smith
Title: Vice President Sustainability
Company: Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas
Years in Current Position: Two Years, Six Months
Primary Responsibilities: Managing operational impacts across 18 hotels and 32 spas, while supporting sustainable development for a pipeline of projects that grows the brand to touch on six continents.
Organization’s most significant accomplishment in global corporate responsibility: “We eliminated plastic amenity bottles in 2003, plastic straws in 2016, and have been using coral safe sunscreen since 2019. Also, in every hotel there is a provision for funding to be spent outside the hotel operation. It allows each hotel to decide what is locally...
Los Poblanos Names Kim Vollers Director of Hospitality Operations
ALBUQUERQUE—Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm welcomes Kim Vollers as Director of Hospitality Operations. Vollers oversees lodging, guest services, dining operations, events, programming, grounds maintenance and facilities on the 25-acre farm. Vollers has over 25 years of hospitality experience, the majority of which was spent at the Woodstock Inn & Resort in Vermont. At Woodstock, Vollers oversaw guest services, spa and housekeeping, and was involved with dining and farming operations. Woodstock Inn & Resort was built by Laurance and Mary Rockefeller to help preserve Woodstock’s rich hospitality history and maintains a dedication to sustainable farming and environmental stewardship.
Vollers...
Cuypers Joins Louis T Collection as Director of Food & Beverage
BANGKOK—Hospitality & building solutions group Louis T Collection is going green on the food front with the help of new Corporate Director of Food & Beverage, Anselm Cuypers.
“As we move into a new decade we’re implementing a lot of changes in our F&B departments,” said Cuypers. “Our core focus is on sustainability, developing Louis T’s signature F&B offering, and launching wellness-focused menus across the properties.”
In this new role, Cuypers will focus on expanding sustainability initiatives at the restaurants and bars at Louis T Collection’s properties in Thailand, Taiwan, and Australia.
Examples of the group’s next steps include forbidding suppliers to...
GSN Planet Announces Thor Holm As President
NANTUCKET, MASS.—GSN Planet (GSN) announced recent board appointments to the Board of Directors who are dedicated to leading the spa and wellness industry in creating long term, regenerative, and life-sustaining practices.
Thor Holm, General Manager for Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary, has been appointed Board President following his two-year term as Vice President. Holm will succeed Bonnie Baker, Founder of Satteva Wellness Group, who has just completed her two-year term as Board President. Baker’s passion and dedication to both the planet and wellness has left a lasting impact on the organization during her six-year tenure on the Board of Directors. GSN...
Aqua-Aston’s Theresa van Greunen Successfully Blends Communicator, CSR Roles
Name: Theresa van Greunen
Title: Assistant Vice President, Corporate Communications
Company: Aqua-Aston Hospitality
Years in Current Position: Two (with Aqua-Aston since 2015)
Primary Responsibilities: “I play a unique role. The company has allowed me to carve out my own initiatives. I often partner with the operations team. I have been able to create new initiatives. Strategy is a big part of my job and keeping my ear to the ground and knowing what we can make positive change around.”
Organization’s most significant accomplishment in global corporate responsibility: “Developing the corporate social responsibility program, Advocate with Aqua-Aston, and most notably, the #ForOurReef campaign.”
Organization’s most significant...
Bitte Ferngren to Leave Scandic HR/Sustainability Post
STOCKHOLM—Bitte Ferngren, Senior Vice President Human Resources & Sustainability, has decided to explore new opportunities outside of Scandic. Ferngren will continue working in her current position until the end of May. Scandic has initiated the process to find a replacement.
Since October 2019, Ferngren has been part of Scandic’s Executive Management Team with responsibility for HR and sustainability initiatives. She is now leaving this role to start a new position at an international company within the finance sector.
Ferngren has contributed to Scandic’s ability to make significant changes in its operations in a short period of time, which has been absolutely...
Yalmaz Siddiqui Helps Keep Sustainability the Norm at MGM Resorts International
Name: Yalmaz Siddiqui
Title: V.P., Corporate Sustainability
Company: MGM Resorts International
Years in Current Position: Four
Primary Responsibilities: “The main ones are to think about what the company should focus on. What should the company prioritize? To initiate new ideas. To start new things. To integrate the preferable habits and practices so they become normal. Partnering with marketing and social media to communicate.”
Organization’s most significant accomplishment in the area of global corporate responsibility: “There are many but our decision to create CityCenter—which was the world’s largest privately funded LEED certified development when it opened in 2009.”
Organization’s most significant challenge moving forward in the...
Ellen Mitchell-Kozack Joins LEO A DALY as Chief Sustainability Officer
DALLAS—LEO A DALY, the global planning, architecture, engineering and interiors firm, announced that Ellen Mitchell-Kozack, AIA, LEED BD+C, WELL AP, SEED, has joined the firm as Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer. In this role, she leads LEO A DALY’s strategic initiatives in sustainable design worldwide, including Environmental Social & Governance, alignment with the UN Global Compact and Sustainable Development Goals, carbon footprint assessment and social impact. She is based in the firm’s Dallas design studio.
Mitchell-Kozack is a nationally recognized voice in sustainability and public interest design. As Senior Vice President, Director of Sustainability at HKS, she led the firm’s...
Victoria Kruse Named Sustainability Manager for Amilla Fushi, Maldives
BAA ATOLL, MALDIVES—Amilla Fushi, Maldives has appointed Victoria Kruse to the newly created position of Sustainability Manager, underlining a major new focus on sustainability and the environment as the new decade begins. Embodying the resort’s vision of becoming a leader and innovator for sustainable tourism in the Maldives, Kruse is already proving an invaluable asset in driving and developing an ambitious program of eco initiatives throughout 2020.
Kruse returned to the Maldives in October 2019 after two and half years at Six Senses Fiji, where she was responsible for running the Wellness Kitchen for the newly launched resort. It was during this tenure...