Senior Vice President, Guest Experience & Operational Excellence

Position Summary:

The Senior Vice President, Guest Experience & Operational Excellence is the enterprise leader responsible for defining, institutionalizing and continuously improving the Live! standard of hospitality across the estate. This executive works with the functional leadership team to ensure the establishment of the service architecture, training systems, quality assurance disciplines and measurement tools that create a consistent, differentiated guest experience while preserving the unique personality of each Live! business and concept.

This executive does not replace property or venue operating accountability. The role works through property leaders, general managers/managing partners and venue leadership to build capability, identify performance gaps and drive sustainable improvement. Operators remain accountable for execution every shift.

Reports To: Chief Operating Officer, Live! Hospitality & Entertainment

Peer:  Senior Vice President, F&B Operations – Cordish Gaming

Scope: Food & Beverage Enterprise wide, including Live! Casinos, Districts, Standalone venues and affiliated concepts

Essential duties and responsibilities:

Enterprise Hospitality Standards. Create and maintain a clear set of enterprise-wide Live! hospitality and service standards that translate the company's vision and values into observable guest-facing and leadership behaviors. Define appropriate concept- and business-specific applications across casinos, districts, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and other operations.

Live! Hospitality System. Build an integrated operating system connecting brand standards, onboarding, training, manager coaching, employee empowerment, service recovery, recognition, quality assurance and accountability. Ensure standards are practical, memorable and executable in high-volume operating environments.

New Openings & Brand Integration. Ensure new properties, concepts and acquisitions launch with Live! hospitality standards embedded in recruiting, onboarding, training, opening procedures and leadership expectations.

Operational Excellence. Partner with operators to identify and resolve systemic guest-experience issues including arrival, departure, reservations procedures, cleanliness, speed of service, host interactions, security touchpoints, wayfinding, VIP experiences, service recovery and departure. Facilitate root-cause problem solving rather than relying solely on compliance checks.

Leadership Capability & Culture. Coach property and venue leaders on hospitality leadership, accountability and frontline engagement. Establish recognition mechanisms that celebrate employees and leaders who consistently demonstrate Live! service behaviors and create captivating guest moments.

Quality Assurance & Field Execution. Develop and lead an enterprise quality assurance program incorporating structured property visits, operational observations, mystery shops, brand-standard audits and follow-up action plans. Establish clear minimum performance thresholds and escalation protocols for persistent gaps.

Training & Certification. Partner with Human Resources, Training and operating leaders to develop frontline onboarding, hospitality certification, manager certification, train-the-trainer programs, refresher training and field coaching. Establish methods to verify behavioral competency, not simply course completion.

Guest Experience Analytics. Create an enterprise Live! Guest Experience Scorecard integrating guest satisfaction, review sentiment, complaints, service recovery, quality assurance, mystery-shop results and other relevant guest data. Identify recurring friction points and convert insights into operating priorities.

Continuous Improvement & Best-Practice Sharing. Identify top-performing properties and practices, codify what works and accelerate adoption across the estate. Maintain an active pipeline of guest-experience improvements and periodically refresh standards as guest expectations and Live! businesses evolve.

Strategy and Thought Leadership. Provide ongoing strategic and innovation focused leadership as a member of the Live! executive team. 

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive hospitality operations leadership, with meaningful multi-unit, multi-property or regional responsibility.
• Demonstrated success leading high-volume guest-facing operations; experience spanning food & beverage, entertainment, gaming, hotels or complex mixed-use hospitality environments strongly preferred.
• Direct operating and P&L experience required. Candidates whose backgrounds are exclusively learning & development, quality assurance, consulting or brand marketing are not preferred.
• Proven ability to design and implement service standards, operating disciplines, training systems and performance measurement across geographically dispersed operations.
• Strong understanding of luxury or premium hospitality principles combined with the judgment to adapt them to energetic, high-volume and entertainment-driven environments.
• Demonstrated credibility with experienced operators and the ability to influence results without relying on direct reporting authority.
• Strong analytical capability, including experience using guest feedback, review sentiment, operational data and quality-assurance results to identify root causes and prioritize improvement.
• Exceptional facilitation, communication and executive presence; able to coach frontline managers, challenge senior operators constructively and communicate effectively with executive leadership.
• Track record of building cultures of accountability, recognition, empowerment and continuous improvement.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant experience required; advanced degree or recognized hospitality/operational excellence credentials are beneficial but not required.
• Ability and willingness to travel extensively throughout the Live! estate, up to 80% of working hours.
• Ability to work nights and weekends as needed.

Supplemental Information:

Leadership Profile

• Operator first: understands the realities of running busy hospitality businesses and earns credibility in the field.
• Guest obsessed but commercially grounded: connects hospitality improvements to loyalty, frequency, revenue and long-term brand value.
• Teacher and coach: builds capability in operators rather than becoming a permanent dependency.
• High standards, low bureaucracy: creates simple, observable standards that improve execution instead of adding administrative burden.
• Influential and collaborative: can challenge leaders directly while maintaining strong partnerships.
• Data informed: combines firsthand observation with objective guest and operating measures.
• Culture builder: recognizes that sustainable service excellence comes from leadership behavior, employee engagement and reinforcement - not a manual.

Key Performance Indicators

The role will be evaluated through a balanced scorecard that rewards improved guest outcomes and operating capability, not simply audit compliance. Final targets should be established annually based on enterprise baselines.

Critical Enterprise Measures

• Estate Consistency: reduce the variance between top- and bottom-performing properties, with particular focus on improving bottom-quartile locations.
• Minimum Standard Attainment: increase the percentage of venues consistently operating above the enterprise minimum hospitality standard.
• Sustained Improvement: measure whether corrective actions remain effective over subsequent measurement periods rather than rewarding one-time score improvement.
• Operator Adoption: demonstrate that property and venue leaders actively use the standards, scorecards and coaching tools as part of their own operating routines.

First 12-Month Priorities

• Complete an enterprise diagnostic of the current guest experience, service standards, training programs, quality-assurance processes and performance gaps.
• Define and gain executive/operator alignment around the Live! hospitality promise and a concise set of enterprise service standards.
• Establish baseline guest-experience and estate-consistency measures for every major property/business.
• Launch the Live! Guest Experience Scorecard and ensure a consistent enterprise quality-assurance/mystery-shop framework.
• Build and pilot frontline and manager hospitality certification in representative casino, district and standalone venue environments.
• Create formal remediation and coaching processes for locations below minimum standards.
• Establish a recognition and best-practice-sharing program that makes hospitality excellence visible across the company.
• Present a year-two roadmap based on measured results, field feedback and identified enterprise opportunities.

Role Success

This role is successful when a guest can experience different Live! properties and concepts and consistently recognize the company's hospitality DNA; operators understand and own the standards; frontline employees are equipped and empowered to deliver them; performance is measured objectively; and the gap between the strongest and weakest locations steadily narrows.