Robert joined Accor Greater China in 2005 and successfully expanded their hotel portfolio from 29 to 125 hotels by 2012. He launched new brands like Pullman and MGallery and created the new Mei Jue brand for China. In 2011, he became Chief Operating Officer for South East and North East Asia, overseeing Accor's business in 12 countries. As COO, Robert led the region's 180 hotels to improved profits and restructured the company for future growth.

1. ROBERT MURRAY
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER – ACCOR SOUTH
EAST AND NORTH EAST ASIA
In November 2005, Robert joined Accor Greater China, with
responsibility for Accor’s Operations in mainland China, Hong
Kong, Taiwan and Macau. His responsibilities focused on the
region’s business performance as well as the support functions
of Development, Sales, Marketing, Communications and Human Resources.
With 30 years of management experience in the hospitality industry, Robert's primary focus was
on driving the performance of the existing hotels within Greater China, while ensuring that the
company infrastructure was capable and ready to feed the significant development pipeline,
transitioning the company from a small enterprise into a significant business.
From 2005 through to his departure in 2012, Robert successfully led the region to robust
expansion, with hotels under management moving from 29 to 125 hotels as at April 2012. In
2007 he drove the launch and development of the strategic upscale Pullman brand, now the
fastest growing upscale brand in China and Asia, launched the MGallery brand, and created and
sold the business case for a new brand for Accor, Mei Jue, successfully launched in 2012 in
China and subsequently throughout Asia in 2013/14. He has also led China’s team in extending
the region’s territory to the Taiwan market with the opening of Novotel Taipei Taoyuan
International Airport in November 2009. Robert has been recognized as “The Leader of the Hotel
Industry” for five consecutive years from 2008 to 2012 at the “Golden Pillow Award of China
Hotels”. As at October 2014, Robert has in excess of 100,000 followers on Weibo, the Chinese
Twitter.
In October 2011, Robert was appointed to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer
South East and North East Asia, overseeing the business for Accor in Japan, Korea, Philippines,
Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Singapore. Through this
period Robert continued with the dual oversight of China before relocating to Bangkok, in April
2012.Since becoming COO, Robert has led the regions 180 hotels to significant profit
improvement and undertaken a corporate restructure to strengthen foundations for the future
growth Since mid 2013, recognising he was on the way to achieving his objectives, he has
worked closely with Accor Asia Pacific CEO, Michael Issenberg to transition out of the role and in
2014 will undertake a sabbatical before looking at new opportunities in due course.