…With Damilola Okunoren

In this week’s column and leading up to the 2025 Guardian Woman Festival, Damilola Okunoren, Senior Director of Lodging Development, West Africa at Marriott International gives her thoughts as a woman in business. This is in line with the festival’s theme, ‘Women Mean Business’ as the event is scheduled to take place March 14, 2025 at Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island.
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For Okunoren, “Women Mean Business” is having the audacity, first and foremost, to not just occupy business spaces, but to do so on our own terms – with authenticity, with courage and with the confidence to set goals and strive to attain them. By understanding ourselves, the business needs in our environment, doing the work to equip ourselves and building strong communities around us, women who mean business are not shrinking in the face of challenges, but are rising to them fearlessly, and are learning that glass ceilings are meant to be shattered repeatedly.

As a woman in a business role, I have found myself treading a non-traditional path into a career in hotel investment and development. Fresh out of university and armed with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, I knew I also had personal interests in travel, exploring new cultures, and being part of the development story in my home country and continent. However, I did not know exactly how I could tie all these interests together in my career.

I accepted my first role as a staff accountant at the Marriott International headquarters and soon found myself handling accounting records related to various hotel projects that the company had across the world. I saw a dearth of activity in my home country of Nigeria and in Africa, and it struck me profoundly. This constituted a great opportunity. And I made it my mission to find my way to the other side of the business and to be directly involved in driving business growth in my part of the world. Today, I am the Senior Director of Lodging Development for West Africa, at Marriott International.

My early career pivot from accounting commenced with earning an MBA in International Hospitality Management from ESSEC Business School, Paris, thereafter landing a role in hospitality investment advisory (W Hospitality Group, Lagos), then a role in Investment & Portfolio Analysis (RLJ Lodging Trust, a US Hotel REIT), also starting up a hospitality business of my own (Hausse Hospitality), and, eventually landing in my current role, thirteen years later.

It was a full circle moment, when I returned to the company that helped start me on my path, and it has been a very fulfilling journey thus far. In my time in this role, I have closed deals for the development of almost 2,500 hotel rooms in the region, which will create value for the local markets these hotels will operate in, provide jobs, create quality hotel stock, and open new destinations up to conferences and events, business, and tourist travelers.

I owe a lot of my journey thus far to my upbringing, to my mother who was a successful banker and my first role model growing up, to being raised in an environment that was willing to bet on the female gender – whether through education or career opportunities, and to having the freedom to make my own decisions.
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