Maryam Banikarim

Maryam Banikarim is the global Chief Marketing Officer at Hyatt Hotels Corporation. She is responsible for driving the company's individual brands and the experiences they offer online and offline while working across the organization to facilitate innovation around the guest experience. Her most important role is to be a catalyst for change – helping the company uncover its DNA and bring it to life.

Maryam’s unorthodox career began at Young & Rubicam at the dawn of the dot-com era. From there she went on to Turner Broadcasting, MacMillan Publishing, and was a lead team member for the launch of CitySearch. She then founded a designer handbag company and a thriving consulting business that provided strategic counsel to clients such as Deutsche Bank, Bacardi and Time Warner. She has served as the Chief Marketing Officer of Univision Communications, Inc. and Senior Vice President for Integrated Sales Marketing at NBC Universal. Most recently she was the first Chief Marketing Officer at the Gannett Company, responsible for national sales, company-wide marketing, communications and research.

Widely known for her boundless curiosity, ability to build dynamic teams and forge partnerships, Maryam applies her entrepreneurial talents to drive change and affect growth. Her achievements have been widely recognized: The New York Post’s “50 Most Powerful Women in NYC,” Fast Company’s “Fast Fifty” list of corporate trailblazers and trendsetters, Fast Company’s “Top 10 Disrupters,” Crain’s New York Business and Advertising Age’s “40 under 40,” Advertising Age’s “Women to Watch,” Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business 1000,” and most recently Adweek’s “Changing the Game” list of advertising women of New York.

Additionally, she is recognized as a Woman of Distinction by the League of Women Voters of the City of New York and was honored by the Girl Scouts Council of Greater New York. She serves on the boards of Reporters Without Borders, Columbia University’s Alumni Association, the Ad Council, Advertising Week and the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center.

Maryam earned both her MBA and Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University, and received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College, where she was a Harry S. Truman scholar.

Maryam resides in Chicago with her husband, two teenagers and dog named Charlie.