Some industry professionals spend years going from job to job and company to company. Kyle Hughey, CEO of Charlestowne Hotels, has only ever worked for two hospitality businesses, and rose to the top spot thanks to his business acumen and an education that can only be described as “regimental.”
Honor, Duty, Respect
Growing up in Greenville, S.C., Hughey dreamed of becoming a major league baseball player. He played the sport all the way through high school, but as a student at The Citadel he was drawn more towards the military and academic sides of his education rather than the athletic. “They really promoted the well-rounded person,” he recalled. “With any military training, I think one learns to adapt to change and overcome difficult situations.” The college emphasized academics, physical fitness and faith in addition to the military side of education, he added—all of which prepared him for a career in the intense world of business. “The military probably dictated my path in terms of shifting and changing, being agile and open to different things.”
After graduating with his bachelor degree in business administration, Hughey took a position with the Elliott Davis business solutions firm as an accountant. In early 2007, Hughey joined Kiawah Partners, which owned the Kiawah Island Club in South Carolina’s low country, as a controller.
“It was at the Club that I really saw high-touch hospitality firsthand,” he said. “I was completely blown away by the level of service that the club employees [provided] their members.” Delivering memorable service, he learned, can have a long-lasting impression on a guest. “It just made the team feel great about it. And we knew that that was what made Kiawah Island Club special, and really was the essence of hospitality. I saw that and I knew that I wanted to find a way to marry my background in finance and business with the passions of the service and hospitality industry.”
In the Club’s accounting department, Hughey also learned to appreciate the business side of hospitality. “You learn to be collaborative to deliver success for an owner or a client,” he said. “That translates really well into the hospitality business because you have to learn to work with others, to develop and create a thoughtful and personalized guest experience, to elevate that guest stay and really bring the entire property experience up.”
New Responsibilities
After more than 12 years of crunching numbers, Hughey was ready for a different side of hospitality. He learned that Charlestowne Hotels was looking for a vice president of finance and was attracted by the company’s culture. “They had a reputation for a willingness to teach and open up and collaborate across departments,” he recalled, noting that this kind of attitude is “pretty uncommon” in a small to midsize company.
When Hughey joined the team, he learned about a broader range of hotel and food-and-beverage operations in a variety of markets. “It allowed me to be exposed to the operations, the marketing and the revenue management components of business that I never knew anything about.”
After four years as VP of finance and two as chief operating officer, Hughey was named the company’s CEO in early 2022. “I was able to grow my knowledge base enough that would warrant the trust to guide Charlstowne Hotels as the CEO.” Hughey credits his team at Charlestowne with teaching him to appreciate the guest experience and the demands of providing high-level service. “If I was still in a finance role or asset management, it would be hard to get into the actual essence of hospitality and deliver for that guest,” he said. As a management company, however, he can pay attention to guest service as well. “It’s a great balance.”
His background in business and accounting helps him connect with owners, Hughey added. “It allows me to put myself in our clients’ shoes, to see their perspective as it relates to investment, profitability [and] legacy,” he said. “Most owners got into the hospitality business for an investment, so being there with an accounting mindset and that business background, I’m able to relate pretty well to an owner, too.”
In his three roles at Charlestowne over the past eight years, Hughey helped steer the team through a range of challenges. “Overcoming difficult situations is something that we’ve all seen in the past four years,” he said. “Nothing was easy about a global pandemic—no revenue, no income, a bunch of unknowns about what was to come.” The labor shortage and overarching concerns over economic instability were other causes for concern—“and yet, we’ve overcome those, and have continued to successfully operate hotels and restaurants.”
After nearly two years in the company’s top spot, Hughey is looking forward to helping Charlestowne grow. “We know that the space is going to change, but we’re going to hold to the trends that really have staying power the areas that we excel at and have been successful at,” he said. The culture that first attracted Hughey to Charlestowne is still firmly in place at the company, he said. “We’re still centered on that. We still have a willingness to teach and help each other grow professionally—and really, I see it helping us to recruit [and] retain talent even today.”
Hughey still tries to balance the four disciplines he studied at the Citadel, although he feels that family has replaced the military training. “I’ve tried to focus and have good balance across all areas.”