LEARNING – AMANDA JOINER, GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT THE RITZ-CARLTON LEADERSHIP CENTER: “IT'S ONLY THROUGH A LEADERSHIP TEAM UNITED BY A COMMON MISSION THAT EXCELLENCE CAN TRULY BE CREATED”
As head of the Center of Excellence at The Ritz-Carlton since late 2023, Amanda Joiner perfectly embodies the group's values: leadership, commitment and a culture of service. Amanda Joiner shares with us her vision and ambitions for the Leading Employee Excellence program.
LEARNING – AMANDA JOINER, GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT THE RITZ-CARLTON LEADERSHIP CENTER: “IT'S ONLY THROUGH A LEADERSHIP TEAM UNITED BY A COMMON MISSION THAT EXCELLENCE CAN TRULY BE CREATED”
As head of the Center of Excellence at The Ritz-Carlton since late 2023, Amanda Joiner perfectly embodies the group's values: leadership, commitment and a culture of service. Amanda Joiner shares with us her vision and ambitions for the Leading Employee Excellence program.
Founded 25 years ago at the dawn of a new millennium to understand and support the hotel group's best practices, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center is a center of excellence that has become a benchmark for corporate culture and customer experience. Today, it offers immersive training, interactive workshops and strategic advice to instill the spirit of the Gold Standards, following The Ritz-Carlton brand's flagship principles, in companies from all walks of life, whose common denominator is the quest for excellence.
At the helm of this exceptional center since the end of 2023, Amanda Joiner embodies The Ritz-Carlton philosophy. With over 30 years' experience in the luxury hotel industry, she has held senior positions in hotel operations, sales and marketing, shaping a unique expertise that gives her real legitimacy in her current role. Her success as General Manager of The Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis earned her the title of Global Ritz-Carlton General Manager of the Year and the prestigious Guardian Award. Today, as Global Vice President of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, she guides companies through strategic transformations through a culture of excellence.
Launched in 2024, the “Leading Employee Excellence” program has rapidly become one of the center's pillars. The result of an in-depth study conducted with The Ritz-Carlton's top leaders, this program is based on ten behaviors considered non-negotiable to inspire and mobilize teams. The objective? To provide managers with concrete tools for fostering commitment, sparking initiative and creating a genuine corporate and performance culture. Immersion in the world of The Ritz-Carlton, notably through face-to-face sessions in the brand's emblematic properties, fuels the power of this experiential training.
To find out how these principles can be applied in practice within companies, and how corporate culture can be sustainably transformed, we spoke to Amanda Joiner, Global Vice President of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, who shared her vision for this center of excellence and the program's ambitions in an interview with Journal des Palaces.
Journal des Palaces: Could you tell us more about the Center’s DNA, its core mission, and how it operates to help organizations achieve a culture of excellence?
Amanda Joiner: Culture is the business strategy of The Ritz-Carlton. It enabled 45,000 Ritz-Carlton ladies and gentlemen globally to be aligned toward a single mission of serving our guests and caused the company to be recognized as an icon for customer service excellence. With the success of The Ritz-Carlton, companies around the world began seeking a behind-the-curtain understanding of our best practices, and The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center was created. Today we are a global advisory and consulting firm that provides insights to the methodologies and mystique of The Gold Standards of The Ritz-Carlton through immersive courses, interactive workshops and strategic advisory offerings. Our unique approach differentiates and elevates customer and employee experiences, and after 25 years and thousands of clients, the demand for our services is stronger than ever.
Why did you develop the "Leading Employee Excellence" program, and how does this work so far?
Our methodologies are time-proven and relevant to all industries. Even so, we’re continuously refining and elevating content for our programs. The top one percent of Ritz-Carlton leaders around the world were interviewed to uncover the practices that enabled the best of the best performances to be achieved. Through this work 10 distinctive behaviors emerged that are leadership non-negotiables to foster excellence. Created with this material, “Leading Employee Excellence,” debuted in late 2024. The course redefines how leaders create excellence and equips them with insights to inspire employees to exert discretionary effort, each and every day, to create memorable experiences for customers.
The "Leading Employee Excellence" program embodies the philosophy of The Ritz-Carlton and its renowned Gold Standards. Could you explain how these standards serve as the foundation for this program and how they inspire a culture of excellence among leaders and their teams?
The Ritz-Carlton found its success by establishing The Gold Standards, our compass for all that we do, which contain many of the non-negotiables. As leaders of The Ritz-Carlton, we are guardians of the principles of our Gold Standards and it’s our role to assure that employees are aligned to them and understand their roles and greater purpose in creating customers for life. It’s only through a leadership team united by a common mission that excellence can truly be created.
This course explores ten distinctive leadership behaviors, including brand guardianship and empowering employees. Which specific behaviors do you believe have the greatest impact on a leader’s ability to inspire and transform a team?
Each behavior of “Leading Employee Excellence” provides a different intended perspective and outcome, but Authentic Storytelling is the thread that pulls these concepts together. Sharing meaningful stories, highlighting personal experiences, and using real life examples powerfully reinforce company culture. To paraphrase a thought often attributed to renowned American memoirist, poet and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, “employees may not remember what you told them, but they will remember how you made them feel.” The art of storytelling ensures that the concepts of excellence are emotionally felt, thereby enabling employees to replicate them.
This program offers a personalized six-month roadmap to help participants achieve their objectives. Could you share a concrete example of how this roadmap might translate into actionable steps within an organization?
Each participant brings their own set of circumstances, challenges and opportunities. We facilitate a learning experience that makes them think differently about how to approach the employee and customer experience. Participants absorb the methodologies of The Ritz-Carlton through activities, storytelling and reflection, then determine how the behaviors will impact their own organizations and author their customized roadmaps.
The Immersive on-site experience, such as the one planned at The Ritz-Carlton Dallas, Las Colinas, appears to be a defining element of the program. How does this in-person format set the program apart from other virtual leadership training offerings, and what unique value does it bring to participants?
We will offer ten immersive in-person experiences in 2025 that will bring six unique curriculums to life. By nature, these two-day courses are richly immersive because more time is devoted to exploring concepts and methodologies; they are held at Ritz-Carlton hotels which enables participants to experience the best practices of The Ritz-Carlton Brand firsthand; and participants have opportunities to continue discussions with others from diverse industries over dining and coffee breaks. We understand, however, that executives have varying time constraints, so our live virtual experiences are developed to meet the needs of these leaders by introducing concepts in abridged time frames.
What are the next steps for The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center?
That’s a great question, and it excites my imagination daily. We’re introducing our first-ever Summit on March 4-5. This in-person conference, offered only once this year, presents dynamic new content designed to rekindle organizational culture for success in today’s workplace. Also, new this year, we plan to present our live virtual courses internationally.
As a journalist and luxury hotel expert inspired by the men and women who embody it, Vanessa aspires to enhance and sublimate the beauty and elegance of palaces through her writing. "In a palace, simplicity serves the quest for excellence" she admires.
