Davidson Hospitality Group has promoted Steve Keck, SPHR, to Vice President, People & Culture, Field Operations, placing him in a wider leadership role across the company’s hotel and resort operations.
In his new role, Keck will partner with operations leaders across Davidson’s business verticals to support the integration of people, processes and culture while maintaining compliance and operational excellence. He will also lead the company’s Regional and Area Directors of Human Resources, with responsibility for engagement, turnover and talent metrics at property and regional level.
The promotion reflects Davidson’s focus on aligning people strategy more closely with field operations. For a hospitality management company, that connection is critical. Hotels do not deliver service through policy alone. They deliver it through hiring, training, leadership behaviour, team consistency and the ability of property-level managers to respond well under pressure.
Keck joined Davidson Hospitality Group in 2022 as Regional Director of Human Resources and was promoted to Senior Director of Human Resources in 2024. During his tenure, he played a key role in the rollout and adoption of the company’s HRIS transition to Workday, and was also involved in the creation and rollout of a companywide payroll standard operating procedure within Workday.
That experience is particularly relevant to the expanded role. In large hospitality management platforms, HR leadership increasingly sits between strategy and execution. The function must support recruitment, retention, performance management, compliance and culture, while also helping property teams manage the operational realities of hotels, resorts, restaurants and meeting spaces.
Keck brings more than 23 years of human resources experience in the hospitality industry, spanning frontline operations through to executive leadership. He attended Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio, and holds a Senior Professional in Human Resources certification.
Linda Schumann, Senior Vice President, People & Culture at Davidson Hospitality Group, said Keck has built a track record of creating value since joining the company and described his leadership as grounded in empathy, credibility and relatability.
The promotion also places Keck within a broader company structure that has evolved over the past several years. Davidson Hospitality Group was rebranded from Davidson Hotels & Resorts in 2021, bringing its operating platforms under one masterbrand. The company’s four specialised operating verticals are Davidson Hotels, Pivot, Davidson Resorts and Davidson Restaurant Group.
That structure makes field HR leadership more complex. A heritage-branded hotel, a lifestyle property, a resort and a restaurant-led operation may all sit within the same company, but each carries different labour needs, guest expectations, compliance considerations and leadership rhythms. A central People & Culture leader working across field operations must therefore support consistency without flattening the differences between operating models.
Davidson Hospitality Group describes itself as a full-service hospitality management company with a portfolio of 84 hotels and resorts, more than 220 restaurants, bars and lounges, and 1.5 million square feet of meeting space across the United States, Europe and the Caribbean.
For a portfolio of that scale, people metrics are not simply internal HR indicators. Engagement, turnover and talent development have a direct relationship with service delivery, owner confidence and financial performance. A hotel with unstable staffing or weak leadership depth may struggle to maintain standards even when demand is strong.
Keck’s continued service on Davidson’s We Care committee also adds context to the promotion. The committee provides support for team members facing severe, unexpected financial hardship, and reflects the company’s stated focus on people, culture and community.
Davidson’s wider people positioning includes an Inclusion, Culture & Belonging Council and initiatives such as WILD, Women in Leadership at Davidson, which the company describes as an employee resource group offering professional mentorship to women on its corporate team.
The promotion comes at a time when hospitality companies are placing greater emphasis on field-level people leadership. Labour availability, retention, training, manager capability and compliance continue to shape hotel performance. For third-party management companies, the challenge is sharper because people strategy must satisfy several stakeholders at once: associates, property leaders, ownership groups, brand partners and guests.
In that context, Keck’s role will be to help turn Davidson’s people strategy into consistent operating practice across the field. His remit connects culture with measurable outcomes such as engagement, turnover, recruitment effectiveness, performance management and HR compliance.
For Davidson Hospitality Group, the promotion signals confidence in an internal leader who has already worked across systems, payroll process, HR adoption and regional people support. For Keck, it represents a broader mandate to shape how the company’s People & Culture function supports hotels and resorts at property level.
As hotel management companies continue to compete on both performance and culture, field HR leadership is becoming more strategic. Davidson’s elevation of Keck suggests that the company sees people operations not as a support layer, but as a core part of delivering operational excellence across its portfolio.
