Cleo Clarke Shares Insights at National Industry Conference

Addressing the 2025 National HR in Hospitality Conference last month in San Diego, Cleo Clarke, vice president of M&R’s People & Culture team, discussed what it takes to run a high-impact HR department with limited resources.

The conference, held May 14-15 at the Hotel del Coronado and produced by Cornell University, brought together human resources and legal professionals to discuss key issues impacting the hospitality industry.

Drawing from nearly a decade of experience leading people strategy at M&R, Cleo stressed the importance of getting creative to meet the needs of the workforce and business. “We’ve had to build a model that’s highly reliant on field leaders, centralized systems and key partnerships,” he said. “When resources are scarce, every initiative must serve multiple purposes: boost retention, protect the bottom line and build culture.

“At M&R, we run a very tight HR ship. We’re managing HR for over 1,000 employees across Hilton, Marriott and IHG branded hotels, as well as independent assets, but our core HR team is just a handful of dedicated professionals.”

In his first panel, “Managing a Lean and Mean HR Department: Leveraging Community-Based Organizations,” Cleo delved into one of M&R’s most impactful strategies: partnering with local community groups to fill operational and support gaps.

“Community-based partnerships have been a lifeline,” Cleo said. “They’ve helped us extend our reach in recruitment, wellness and training that we simply couldn’t afford to tackle alone.”

Cleo highlighted collaborations with workforce boards and nonprofit job training organizations like The HOPE Program, STRIVE and Workforce1 career centers in New York City to place candidates into front-of-house roles. M&R also worked with programs to support “second chance hiring” for citizens reentering the workforce, including one standout employee who was promoted to housekeeping supervisor within 18 months.

Beyond hiring, these partnerships have addressed employee well-being in innovative ways, he said. “During COVID, we leaned on community clinics and behavioral health groups to provide no-cost counseling and stress management. The team also partnered with immigrant-serving nonprofits to offer English classes to employees in off-peak hours as part of its ESL and workforce literacy programming. “Whether it was free counseling or financial literacy workshops, our community-based organizations helped us serve the whole employee—not just the shift worker.”

Cleo laid out his criteria for choosing community-based organizations: mission alignment, cultural competency, responsiveness and a strong track record of follow-through. “These relationships didn’t happen by chance,” he said. “We actively sought partners that shared our values, could move quickly and understood our teams. And we treat them as strategic collaborators, not just free labor pipelines. We asked, ‘Who’s already serving the communities our workforce comes from?’ Then we built those partnerships through chamber events, word-of-mouth and hotel associations.”

For Cleo, the future of HR isn’t about scaling teams; it’s about deepening networks. “There’s untapped potential in partnerships focused on workforce housing, childcare support, digital literacy and leadership development,” he said. “We’re exploring collaborations with tech nonprofits for AI training and with immigrant-serving groups for upskilling in culinary arts and hospitality certifications.

“Community-based organizations aren’t just social service providers—they’re HR’s secret weapon. The future of lean HR is networked, not siloed.”

Cleo also spoke at an executive summit, which brought together hospitality leaders and legal experts to explore some of the industry’s most complex human resources issues. Topics ranged from labor law compliance to long-term talent planning, with Cleo providing a grounded perspective from the front lines.

Cleo emphasized the importance of field-level leadership and centralized systems, noting that M&R’s success hinges on strong general managers, department heads and reliable partners for functions like payroll and benefits.

“In a lean model, it’s not about doing more with less,” he said. “It’s about doing more with others. And when we treat community organizations as extensions of our team — not afterthoughts — we multiply our impact. The greatest return on investment in HR comes from human relationships—both inside and outside your organization. That’s what community partnerships are about.”