Charlene Carter

About Charlene Carter

Charlene “Charley” Carter is the Chief Development Officer at The Carver Companies, a national leader in hospitality staffing, executive search, and transformational task force support. She also serves as a senior advisor for hotels and service-driven organizations, helping teams strengthen culture, elevate leadership, and navigate change with confidence.With more than two decades in hospitality, Charley has built her career on developing people and stabilizing operations during pivotal moments. Her experience spans traditional leadership roles, rapid-response task force assignments, and long-form transformational gigs—partnering with properties that need steady hands, strategic clarity, and a culture reset. Whether she’s stepping in to rebuild a department, guiding a team through a transition, or shaping long-term leadership pipelines, Charley brings structure, empathy, and results.She is the creator of The Velvet Standard, a leadership philosophy grounded in emotional fluency, accountability, and legacy-minded service. Through workshops, consulting, and on-property task force mentorship, she helps teams rethink how they lead, communicate, and care for one another—because operational excellence and human connection should never be at odds.Charley’s influence can be felt across boutique properties, lifestyle brands, luxury hotels, and large-scale hospitality organizations nationwide. She is a sought-after keynote contributor on people-first leadership, culture transformation, retention strategies, and the evolving expectations of today’s workforce.A lifelong student of human behavior and team psychology, Charley blends lived experience with modern leadership theory to challenge outdated power structures in hospitality. Her work centers on the belief that today’s teams thrive when leaders pair high standards with emotional presence, clarity, and compassion.Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Charley divides her time between mentoring women in leadership, supporting Carver’s national network of consultants, and championing the next generation of hospitality professionals. She’s known for her clipboard, her quote cards, and her uncanny ability to walk into any hotel and bring order, calm, and purpose back to the room.

Experience

1. Chief Development Officer

   Carver Hotel Group

   Jan 2013 — Present · Atlanta, GA, US

   Listed as one of the prominent “Who’s Who of Executive Business Women in Hospitality” Charley’s objective is to maximize revenue growth and enhance company visibility while overseeing the executive sales and operational development of Carver.Charley\'s approach is simple \"We don\'t do things different, just BETTER\". The hospitality industry continues to grow and is one of the largest, fastest growing industries in the world and with it, the need for qualified talent at all levels. Carver have become the premier provider for solutions to staffing challenges. Our staffing solutions are designed to help hotels and hotel management companies fill opened sales and operation positions with a short-term fix. We add value for our hotel partners by allowing the property adamant time to finding the qualified candidate with the right credentials.