Courtney Hanson

About Courtney Hanson

I build marketing into a growth engine — connecting brand, demand, and performance to drive revenue that\'s measurable, durable, and real.My career has taken me across hospitality, retail, luxury automotive, and pharma, always at the intersection of enterprise complexity and commercial accountability. What ties it together is a consistent belief that marketing works best when it\'s integrated into the full commercial model, not operating beside it. Because the consumer doesn\'t care which team owns the initiative.That mindset has shaped how I lead. In practice, it means treating media as the connective tissue of the marketing organization — the function that, when built and led well, makes brand, performance, loyalty, and field work as a system rather than in silos. It means earning credibility with finance and distribution the same way you earn it with brand. And it means designing for the full commercial picture, not just the part marketing traditionally owns.Today, I lead Paid Media and Digital Marketing at Choice Hotels International, governing enterprise investment across 22 brands and 7,500+ global properties, reporting directly to the CMO.Prior to Choice, I built a global growth organization at Fossil Group, consolidating fragmented regional teams across the Americas, APAC, and EMEA into a single, cohesive operating model spanning 14+ owned and licensed brands. Earlier in my career, I led media and growth practices on the agency side, partnering with global brands across luxury automotive, pharma, and financial services.I\'m known for translating complexity into clarity — whether that\'s building measurement frameworks that actually inform decisions, integrating AI-driven approaches into how teams operate and how brands show up in an evolving consumer discovery landscape, or helping a leadership team understand what their marketing investment is really doing.I\'m energized by complexity, built for ambiguity, and at my best when I\'m building something — a team, a capability, a model — that didn\'t exist before.

Experience

1. Vice President, Paid Media and Digital Marketing

   Choice Hotels International

   Dec 2024 — Present · Washington, DC, US

   Choice Hotels International is a global hospitality franchisor with 22 brands and approximately 7,500 franchised properties worldwide. As enterprise marketing executive reporting directly to the CMO, I lead the strategy, investment governance, and organizational capability behind paid media, social and creator marketing, field and local marketing, and SEO — operating these functions as an integrated demand generation system rather than separate channels- Lead enterprise go-to-market planning and paid media strategy across a complex multi-brand portfolio, aligning national and local execution to drive demand, revenue growth, and long-term franchisee value- Oversee a 9-figure annual marketing investment, with accountability for how dollars are allocated, measured, and optimized across channels and brands- Built and lead a centralized enterprise demand organization spanning internal teams and agency partners, establishing clear operating rhythms, decision rights, and performance accountability- Drive enterprise adoption of modern measurement frameworks including and incrementality testing, replacing legacy attribution models with approaches that more accurately reflect marketing\'s commercial contribution- Spearhead the organization\'s adoption of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and AI-enabled marketing, positioning the portfolio for how consumers discover and book travel in an AI-driven search environment- Collaborate closely with Finance, Distribution, Loyalty, Brand, and Data and Analytics to ensure marketing strategy is connected to enterprise growth objectives

Education

• The University of Texas at Arlington

  BA in Advertising, Communication and Media Studies

Skills

• Customer Retention
• New Business Development
• Project Planning
• Mobile Advertising
• Client Development
• Brand Architecture
• Strategic Planning
• Advertising Research
• Sales
• Strategy
• Online Advertising
• Online Marketing
• Mobile Marketing Strategy
• Marketing Research
• Crm
• Integrated Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Qsr Marketing
• Identifying New Business Opportunities
• Cpg Marketing
• SEO
• Digital Media
• Market Research
• Account Management
• Marketing
• Brand Management
• Marketing Strategy
• Social Media Marketing
• Sem
• Interactive Advertising
• Advertising Sales
• Client Relationship Building
• Social Media
• Creative Strategy
• Online Lead Generation
• Digital Production
• Digital Marketing
• Social Media Strategy
• Brand Development
• Digital Strategy