Kathleen Matthews

Kathleen Matthews is the former chief communications and public affairs officer for Marriott International, where she was responsible for the company’s global brand public relations, corporate communications, social responsibility, culture, and government affairs. She co-chaired Marriott’s Executive Green Council and served on the company’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Council. Matthews also served as vice-chair of the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board to the Secretary of Commerce and chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the future of travel and tourism in 2016, Matthews ran for U.S. Congress in Maryland's 8th Congressional District.

Prior to her career at Marriott, she was an award winning news anchor and reporter at the ABC-TV affiliate in Washington, DC for 25 years, and hosted the nationally syndicated “Working Woman” television show. Matthews has been awarded nine local Emmys and has been honored as a “Woman Who Means Business” by the Washington Business Journal and Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine. She is a graduate of Stanford University, and a 2004 Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

Read: Finding My Political Voice, Huffington Post