Noelle, a member of Starwood Hotels & Resorts' Tribute Portfolio located in Nashville, announced new appointments to three key leadership roles in the areas of management, sales & marketing and food & beverage. The 224-room experiential hotel is located at 400 Fourth Avenue North, adjacent to Nashville’s historic Printer's Alley. The property is currently under construction, and is expected to open later this year.
Shannon Foster will serve as Noelle’s GM. A native Midwesterner, she began her career in hospitality while studying hospitality business at Michigan State University. In 2004, she went on to support the team at The Oxford Hotel in Denver, Colo., as director of operations of the 80-room luxury historic boutique hotel. Two years later, Foster made the move to Chicago, where, as front office manager at the Fairmont Hotel, she led all operations of the front office department of the 750-room luxury hotel. Foster then spent five years managing operations at boutique hotels Monaco Chicago and Salt Lake City — both part of Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants. In 2012, she relocated to San Diego where she spent three years as GM of Kimpton’s Hotel La Jolla, a 110-room boutique, resort style hotel. From there, Foster went on to lead San Diego’s Hotel Solamar where as GM she was responsible for day-to-day hotel operations, guest relations and business development for the 235-room stylish boutique hotel, including 14,000 square feet of event space, the Jsix Restaurant and Upper East rooftop bar.
A Tennessee native, Tracy Wray has been a fixture in the Nashville hospitality industry for over 20 years. After graduating from the University of Tennessee in Hospitality Management, she began her career in hotel sales and has assisted in the growth of the city’s hospitality landscape as director of group sales at Sheraton Downtown, director of group sales at Marriott Vanderbilt and senior sales manager at Hutton Hotel. Most recently, Wray was the director of sales and marketing at Sheraton Grand in Downtown Nashville where she effectively rebranded the property from the Sheraton Nashville to the Sheraton Grand. With her passion for hotels, Wray will head up both pre-opening sales and day-to-day operations of sales and marketing as Noelle’s director of sales and marketing.
Will Friedrichs is GM of food & beverage operations. Born in Sydney, Australia, Will Friedrichs developed an early interest in the hospitality industry while watching his father work in hotels as a musician and admiring the work of the restaurant’s maitre’d. He went on to study business administration and management at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1995. With more than 15 years of hotel, cruise ship and freestanding restaurant experience, Friedrichs has worked at top companies ranging from The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company in Australia, California, Florida and New York; Princess Cruise Lines in California; and The Joule Hotel in Texas. Within the past three years, he has been a part of opening teams at luxury hotel The Knickerbocker and the iconic Rainbow Room in New York as well as luxury hotel The Dewberry in Charleston, S.C.