Openings Executive - EMEA

About the role

The Openings Executive for EMEA drives hotel openings across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, ensuring each property launches with strong operational readiness, brand compliance, owner confidence and commercial momentum. The role leads hotel opening projects from pre-opening planning through post-opening stabilization, coordinating ownership groups, hotel leadership, regional teams and Hilton brand functions. It is based in Dubai.

Key responsibilities

• Centrally manage the openings process across all brands, covering project governance, operational readiness, stakeholder alignment, launch quality and post-opening performance.
• Lead hotel opening projects from early planning through post-opening stabilization, with clear governance, ownership and escalation management.
• Develop and maintain opening plans, critical path timelines, milestones, risks, dependencies and deliverables.
• Coordinate ownership groups, hotel leadership, regional teams and Hilton brand functions to align decisions, actions and launch priorities.
• Ensure all hotel departments are ready to operate at launch, tracked against pre-opening milestones, and support onboarding, training, system adoption and team operating rhythms.
• Align opening activities with Hilton brand standards, regional strategies, owner expectations and commercial priorities.
• Monitor post-opening indicators such as guest experience, operational stabilization, commercial ramp-up and brand readiness, and coach hotel leadership teams during stabilization.
• Capture lessons learned and turn opening insights into repeatable process improvements.
• Support regional KPIs such as Hilton Honors enrolments, Stay Experience Score and commercial ramp-up, and maintain support materials, knowledge articles, tools and processes.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Hospitality, Business or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Minimum five years of hotel operations experience, ideally including pre-opening or transitional environments.
• Strong understanding of Hilton brand standards, hotel operating disciplines and systems.
• Excellent communication, organization, stakeholder management, problem-solving and influencing skills.
• Willingness and ability to travel across EMEA to support openings and stakeholders.

Preferred qualifications

• Multilingual capability, with English required and additional EMEA languages advantageous.
• Project management certification or experience managing complex, cross-functional delivery plans.
• Experience across both managed and franchised hotel operating models.