It was a sweltering work day in mid-July of 2019, and I’d was en route to a highly unusual rendezvous: Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott International had invited me to lunch at the just-debuted Edition hotel in Times Square. The hotel’s manager showed me to the open-air restaurant on the top floor, festooned in an Arabian Nights motif of flowing curtains and oriental pendants. I wore a suit; Arne appeared in his signature jeans and cowboy boots. He was unaccompanied by Marriott execs except for PR folks. For the next two hours as we enjoyed Cesar salads, Arne and I exchanged views on which CEOs we most admired, his view of the hotel trade as melding artistry and commerce, and especially, the bout with pancreatic cancer that would eventually take his life on February 15 at age 62.
I knew then that Arne was facing what could be a death sentence. Marriott had made the news of his condition public two months before, and he was awaiting surgery in November. The day the doctors at Johns Hopkins told him that they’d found pancreatic cancer, he recalled, they didn’t yet know how far the disease had advanced. He drove home to tell his wife and four children that his condition could be fatal. His kids huddled and told him that it would be a tragedy if he passed away before they could honor him with grandchildren. “It was a terrible three days,” he says. “I spent the whole weekend making plans on the fear that I might go quickly.” Arne and the family harbored the hope that his cancer was in stage two, a state that’s treatable with surgery and chemotherapy.
Shortly thereafter, he recounted, “I went back to Johns Hopkins to get the full diagnosis, then drove back home, opened the door, and announced to the family, ‘Stage two!'” It was hugs and high-fives all around.
Arne was a lean, super-fit jogger; in any city, he always stayed at a Marriott near a park where he could go on early-morning runs. He related with pride that on a recent outing, he’d been speeding past the entrance to one of Marriott’s many Manhattan hotels when a doorman jumped out to yell, “We’re pulling for you, Arne!” Employees often emailed him to say that the support and affection he’d inspired at Marriott gave him an Arne’s army of support, and a special power to overcome.
At our lunch, Arne confided that his greatest pleasure as a hotel CEO was working with the artistic types whose brilliance in design created great brands. Many of them were temperamental, so handling strokes of genius interspersed with outbursts was a challenge, but one he relished. The goal, he said, was to strike a balance between nurturing wonderful flights of fancy, and nixing ideas that were just too costly. He cited as especially fruitful his partnership with Ian Schrager, the mercurial genius behind Edition, who’d even convinced him to install a skating rink at the Edition in Miami Beach, where guests sip daiquiris as they glide.
Arne and I also compared notes on CEOs. I’d predicted that Brian Moynihan would succeed when he first took charge of Bank of America in 2010, when most observers saw failure. I’d been impressed by his grasp of the banking fundamentals other leaders had jettisoned in the run-up to the financial crisis. “I’ve gotten to know Brian quite well in the past few years,” said Arne. “Early on, it was too easy to overlook that this was a strong leader.” He also expressed admiration of GE’s embattled chief Larry Culp. “I’ve known and admired Larry Culp for years,” he told me. “I’d really like to see him turn this thing around.”
I had originally met Arne in the spring of 2017, while doing a piece on how the merger with Starwood was reshaping Marriott. The site was an extravaganza for regional managers at the Gaylord Texan near Dallas, whose towers framed a collection of restaurants, gardens, and patios under a gigantic dome. Arne addressed the crowd for 20 minutes, sans notes, never uttering an “I mean,” or a “you know.” From my experience, his skill in rallying employees was only rivaled by Ed Bastian of Delta Air Lines.
The walls in Arne’s office in Bethesda, Maryland, featured spears and bows that his parents, Lutheran missionaries who raised him in Japan, brought back from New Guinea. The decor reflected Arne’s love of exotic family vacations. A trip to Varanasi, India, was one he loved to relive. Framed by the spears and bows, Arne recounted that the family guide on the banks of the Ganges River was one “Doctor Shailesh,” a figure whom he described as “a Brahmin version of Vincent Price.” Arne recalled marveling at “the Holy cremations being performed on timber fires, throngs of people bathing in the river and clusters of floating candles.” The scene, he said, was the ultimate in “sensory overload.”
At the Edition, I asked Arne if he’d give me an exclusive on how he’d battled cancer while running the world’s largest hotel empire. He agreed, and we emailed back and forth frequently about the timing of the story. On September 30, 2019 he wrote, “Surgery coming up in November. That’s terrifying to me. But I can’t wait to have it behind me.” In his next email, Arne’s trademark optimism was undimmed. “Surgery is six weeks back,” he he declared. “All good here. Recovery seems to be proceeding apace. I’ve been back to work and have never felt more eager.” His final missive on December 3 said he was “looking forward to seeing you next year.” Indeed, telling the story of his triumph over cancer was my prize project for 2021.
On March 19, 2020, Arne hosted a video for Marriott employees where he talked about COVID’s devastating impact on the industry, and the inevitable wave of layoffs to come. He noted that his team had thought hard about having him host a video because of “my new bald look,” but that it was “exactly what was expected” from his treatment. He then turned from his own calamity to the “crisis we share.” His performance was a profile in both courage and leadership. In mid-January, he was still well enough to host a senior leadership meeting. But his condition worsened quickly, and on February 2, Marriott announced that routine screens showed the cancer was still present, and that he’d step back while remaining CEO.
In Arne’s office, a photo of his family gathered at the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2011 took pride of place. They’d spent the night in a crater at 19,000 feet, 500 feet from the peak, and were suffering from altitude sickness. Their guide kept shouting “Poli, poli,” meaning “slowly, slowly” in Swahili. When they reached the summit, Arne, his wife and four children stood shoulder to shoulder in triumph. In business, and in the loyalty he evoked in everyone from the Manhattan doorman to his closest associates, Arne triumphed as well. His passing reminds me of what the great psychologist Amos Tversky said when he was dying of melanoma at age 59––that his life was “a short book, but a good book.” Arne’s life story was all too short, but it’s harder to think of a better book.
