Jeffrey M. Cava 

Jeff Cava joined Starwood May of 2008 as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer and member of the Senior Leadership Team, reporting to the President and Chief Executive Officer, Frits van Paasschen.  Starwood Hotels & Resorts is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world approaching 1,000 hotels in approximately 100 countries and 150,000 associates at its owned and managed properties.

Prior to joining Starwood, Cava held executive human resource positions with several major corporations.  He was Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Wendy’s International Inc., Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Nike Inc.; Vice President Human Resources for The Walt Disney Company, Consumer Products Group; and Vice President of Global Staffing, Training and Development for ITT Sheraton Corporation.

During his career as a senior HR officer, Cava has had the opportunity to serve several world class brands at various points in their strategic evolution.  His experience has been broad based with responsibility for all the HR disciplines in most countries across the world.  His contributions in the areas of global compensation strategy, U.S.-based benefits design, competency model development, leadership development, executive selection, and shared services design and delivery are most notable.

In addition to his role as CHRO at Wendy’s International Inc., Cava also had direct operating responsibility for The New Bakery Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wendy’s.  The New Bakery Company employed over 400 employees, was fully integrated, and generated over USD $70,000,000 in revenues annually with a ROIC of 15%, the best in the Wendy’s family of businesses.

He has played a high-profile role over the past five years in the critical area of national health care policy and has testified to the Congressional House Ways and Means Committee and advised the office of the President of the United States and state governments on health care strategy and practice.

Outside of his professional environment, he has been a regular supporter of the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park, Colorado.

Cava received both his Master of Science degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from San Diego State University.