Arnie Weissmann
In the mid-1990s, an outside counsel hired to represent Marriott International was doing an excellent job.
Bill Marriott, then CEO of the eponymous company, was impressed by the lawyer s style and capabilities. That s one sharp guy, he told a senior Marriott executive at the time, and he expressed a desire to bring him in-house.
Soon, the attorney, Arne Sorenson, was the company s associate general counsel, and a short time later, a senior vice president for business development, handling mergers and acquisitions. He was to go on to become CFO, COO and, in 2012, CEO. One of Bill Marriott s greatest abilities is to hire people different from himself, the senior Marriott executive told me.