PBN 2021 Leaders & Achievers Awards
Susan Colucci | Controller, Marriott Providence Downtown
Just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, the 354-room Providence Marriott Downtown was operating at an average 70% capacity and was bustling with guests and more than 200 employees.
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Then the economy was hobbled and the hotel found itself at 2% occupancy with eight employees, one of them being controller Susan Colucci.
Colucci had been in the hotel management business for about 40 years, many of those in management roles at the Marriott, so she and seven colleagues soldiered on.
That period of crisis, and the economic recovery that is still underway, demanded from Colucci and her co-workers a quality that she lists as essential to leadership: the ability to adapt to and embrace change.
“It was chaos,” Colucci recalled. “It was all adaptation at that point.”
Although she had worked in these areas earlier in her career, Colucci suddenly had to do much deeper hands-on work in accounting, purchasing and human resources, including the heartbreaking task of laying off employees. “I had to relearn the systems that my staff had been doing so that I could be effective,” she said.
Colucci’s early career had been packed with fast adaptations. She said she began working in 1979 for Interstate Hotels Corp. In the early 1980s, she was sent to Charlotte, N.C., and then to Cincinnati to open or assist in the management of hotels. In 1987, she enrolled at Bryant University to earn her bachelor’s degree in accounting. She rejoined Interstate Hotels Corp. in 1990 and the Providence Marriott in 1992.
Developing the capabilities of employees is one of the most important and enjoyable parts of management, Colucci said. “Leadership comes with the development of subordinates,” she said. “To be successful, people have to understand why they are doing something one way rather than another. I like the gratification of being able to contribute to someone else’s success.”
