Heather Balsley’s first job was as a poultry butcher at a farmer’s market. She calls it “a great formative experience” that taught her how a small business runs, how to serve customers and how to balance discipline and hard work with the rest of her life as a teenager.
Now Balsley is chief commercial and marketing officer for U.K.-based IHG Hotels & Resorts, the global hospitality giant whose Americas office is in Atlanta. An 18-year IHG veteran, she oversees more than 1,400 properties and roughly 80,000 employees across brands including InterContinental, Holiday Inn and Kimpton.
Her work centers on a deceptively simple idea: filling rooms.
“What’s fascinating about hotels is that every night we have to sell that room. A room night really is a perishable product,” Balsley said. She also loves the complexity behind what the industry calls “putting heads in beds” — from pricing and promotions to guest experience.
“At the end of the day, it’s about creating customer experiences and making decisions in pricing and marketing that inspire people to choose our hotels,” she said.
Growth path
Balsley grew up in Philadelphia with early ambitions in finance. She watched her mother build a clear career while also supporting the family, something she recalls as both motivating and “hugely inspirational.”
She attended Duke University, where she studied sociology — “the liberal arts version of business,” as she describes it — and knew she wanted ultimately to work in business and economics.
After earning an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2006, Balsley joined IHG and has worked in hotel strategy and service roles ever since, including leadership posts in the company’s Americas business.
She says she was drawn to hotels not just for the brand-building side of the business but for the experience itself. “It was like a love of travel,” she said.
Data, AI and the modern hotel business
Balsley stepped into her current role in March 2024. Her remit runs the gamut from data analytics and artificial intelligence to loyalty, marketing, pricing and revenue management.
She describes a team that blends highly analytical talent with more collaborative, customer-focused thinkers.
“Some people are deeply analytical — they love revenue, propensity and promotion models and really super-targeted marketing,” Balsley said during an interview at a Holiday Inn Express. “Others are more collaborative. They want to work through what we should do with colleagues over coffee and think about how we drive the customer experience day to day. It’s important to have both kinds of brains in the business.”
Picking battles and navigating bias
Balsley acknowledges she was “naive” early in her career about the challenges women face at work.
Over time, she said, she became more aware of how disagreements and different communication styles can be perceived differently when they come from women — and how implicit bias can shape those perceptions.
She credits former IHG executive Claire Bennett, one of the company’s first senior female leaders, with helping her adapt her leadership style without losing authenticity.
Along the way, Balsley said she has learned to “pick your battles” and to focus on when it truly matters to challenge a decision. Persistence, she added, can be as important as speaking the loudest in the room.
Male mentors have also played a valuable role in her career, she said, while stressing the importance of being true to herself and working alongside women who are willing to use their voices.
Advice for early-career professionals
Balsley encourages people starting out to seek breadth as they build experience.
“Even if you love marketing, ask to work on projects that stretch you,” she said. That might mean opportunities across different functional areas or work that offers a new perspective on branding and customer experience.
Careers rarely follow a straight line, she added.
“The reality is it’s a journey with many possible next steps,” Balsley said. “You need a vision for where you ultimately want to go, but you also have to factor in timing and circumstances. Sometimes people get so focused on the next job that they lose sight of the work that’s interesting and the direction they really want.”
About Her+Story
Her+Story is an Atlanta Journal-Constitution series highlighting women professionals — including founders, executives and creators — and the communities they help build. Email herstory@ajc.com with suggestions of women to feature, and visit ajc.com/herstory to learn more.