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Dorothy R. N. Hildebrandt is a purpose-driven executive with over two decades of experience, serving as the Senior Director of Corporate Procurement at Hilton. Dorothy and her incredible team create value by leading global internal cross-functional teams with suppliers/vendors to solve challenges, drive efficiencies, and achieve long-term goals across Hilton’s corporate business functions supporting 22 brands with 7,200+ properties in over 123+ countries.
Could you provide an overview of your role and responsibilities within the company?
As Senior Director of Corporate Procurement at Hilton, I have the honor of leading the teams that support Hilton centralized business functions in their purchasing and supplier contracting, supplier payments, and sourcing execution. We collectively help to connectover 7,200 Hilton properties in 123+ countries with the systems and services that drive their operations. Additionally, we partner with suppliers and vendorsworldwideto solve challenges, create operational efficiencies and achieve our mutual goals around sustainability and responsible sourcing.
In my current role, I’m able to leverage my background in management consulting, legal, procurement transformation and technology to support and enhance our supplier contract negotiation strategies and payment methodologies. I’ve also had the opportunity to work oninitiatives that seek to expand Hilton Supply Management’s reach and scope within our global group purchasing organization. For those not familiar with Hilton Supply Management (HSM), HSMis the world’s leading hospitality procurement, logistics and end-to-end supply chain provider, servicing Hilton’s properties globally plusthousands ofglobal independently-managedhospitality properties and businesses that translate into better deals for us and our suppliers. We have strong scale that continues to grow our negotiating power.
“Recent accomplishments by our Corporate Procurement team include multi-million-dollar savings achieved across the year and numerous competitive bids that have introduced new vendors.”
Recent accomplishments by our Corporate Procurement team include multi-million-dollar savings achieved across the year and numerous competitive bids that have introduced new vendors that will enhance support and reduce cost for Hilton properties as well as adding diverse suppliers who bring new perspectives to challenges we’re solving.
What are some of the key challenges you face?
Like every procurement organization in recent years, we have faced numerous challenges stemming fromthe supply chain stability, spiking transportation costs and the rising consumer pricing index. Yet to our team’s credit,our organization has remained adaptable and agile to weather these challenges.
I would say that our team’s primary challenge in any season, however, is keeping pace with the rapid speed of businesswhile always operating with integrity and offering our stakeholders a personalized touch. Hospitality and procurement are both incredibly complex, fast-moving industries, and our team has a sizable remit and responsibility, managing nearly $1B in corporate spend and increasing. In an effort to keep Hilton competitive while scaling responsibly, we focus on seeking the greatest areas of opportunity to support our strategic initiatives while continuing to safeguard our partnering properties and the Hilton enterprise in every contracting process.
What would you say are some of the futuristic trends that will have an impact in the next 18-24 months?
The procurement community has been abuzz of late regarding the potential uses for artificial intelligence (A.I.) across the world’s supply chains. Personally, I am very curious to see how we can leverage A.I. to hone our market insights, negotiate more strategically and drive greater efficiencies around competitive bidding and pricing for products and services. I’m excited about the volume of data A.I. is capable of analyzing and eager to see how that data can be employed to improve business processes—so long as it’s used for good purposes!
What advice would you give to young professionals who are interested in pursuing a similar career, and what qualities do you think are essential for success in this field?
I would tell young professionals interested in hospitality procurement (specifically corporate procurement)to be prepared for afast-paced,yet equally invigorating career path that’s ripe with opportunities and ideal for strategic thinkers.
The field of hospitality procurement and supply chain management can change on a daily basisas a reflection of any number of external economic factors thathaveripples across the supply chain.Each ripplecan have an impact on negotiation strategies and vendor relationships which brings a level of excitement and newness with each deal.
So for those interested in pursuing this career path, I suggest that you: remain open to learning new things; pay attention to the ways in which major hospitality brands develop new functions to support properties; work on always remaining curious andask good questions; and prepare to pivot your strategy as necessary to adapt to changing market conditions. This is an exciting and rewarding field,where you have the opportunity tocollaborate across teams toset up contractsthat support properties and ultimately enhance the guest experience.
