ALPHARETTA, GA—Hotel Equities (HE) and Coakley & Williams Hotel Management (C&W) have formed a strategic alliance whereby HE will provide operational oversight and national support to all hotels within the C&W portfolio of properties.
The alliance provides C&W with additional resources, including HE’s operational platform; sales and revenue generation expertise; hospitality training platform; and proprietary business intelligence tools. The combined resources will help to ensure optimized performance across all disciplines while fostering a near 90-year legacy of industry equity between the two organizations.
Both HE and C&W are well-known in the industry for prioritizing culture as a key performance indicator for success, and both companies point to that cultural alignment being the foundation for the new alliance. HE was founded in 1989 by Fred Cerrone; today, he serves as chairman of its board of directors. Brad Rahinsky serves as HE’s president/CEO.
“This alliance was primarily driven by a shared vision of values and culture,” said Rahinsky. “Servant leadership to both our guests and our associates is at the heart of everything we do. Our industry-leading teams, tools and training programs will assist the Coakley & Williams team in elevating their performance across all KPIs. The alliance allows Coakley & Williams to stay intact and independent but benefit from Hotel Equities’ tremendous talent pool and industry-leading performance.”
C&W is a third-generation company founded in 1961. Today, Gary Williams, second generation, serves as C&W’s senior advisor. Williams assumed control of the company in 1996 and shared that his motivation throughout his career has been a desire to create a better workplace for his employees—an ideal shared by HE founder Cerrone. According to HE, Cerrone and Williams fought alongside one another on several occasions championing tough issues in the hotel industry over the years, and it’s that shared passion that gives Williams confidence in the new alliance.
His son, Mark Williams, serves as president of C&W and will continue to have oversight of the C&W portfolio. He remains deeply engaged in client relations and focused on continued growth through the alliance with HE.
“Our alliance with Hotel Equities allows us to preserve our name and legacy and that’s extremely important as we continue to grow,” he said. “We are creating a more powerful engine together and our clients and associates will immediately benefit from the additional resources made possible through the alliance.”
“We have always been and will continue to be focused on aligning with the right partners and we place a critical emphasis on ensuring we check all boxes starting with culture preservation,” said Joe Reardon, HE’s chief development officer. “We could not be more excited to support and drive C&W’s success and further support their great reputation in the industry. C&W has a proven platform on the REO/special servicer side of the business with deep relationships. This model makes incredible sense as we integrate the regional support from C&W and plug in our processes, relationships, training platform, procurement scale and proprietary systems.”