Madison Austrich Champions Inclusion and Environmental Responsibility in Hospitality

Celebrating 10 Under 10 honoree Madison Austrich ’19

A champion for gender equality who is passionate about making the hospitality industry more inclusive and environmentally responsible, Madison Austrich ’19, a graduate of the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration, is one of the 2024 10 Under 10 Notable Alumni honored by the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Austrich is a transactions and portfolio growth manager at Hyatt Hotels, where she also serves as development and education committee cochair for Women@Hyatt. Before joining Hyatt in November 2023, she was a business analytics manager at Aimbridge Hospitality, where she had also held a role as senior financial analyst and was a vice chair for Aimbridge Women Excelling. Before Aimbridge, and directly after graduation, she was a finance manager in training at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

Austrich has received numerous accolades, both as a student and in her career. In 2019, she won the Cornell Hotel Society’s Hotelie for Life prize, awarded in recognition of her contributions to the school, Cornell University, and the broader community as well as her commitment to academic growth and performance. She has excelled in her job roles and made several successful pivots between accounting, finance, business analytics, strategy, and transactions. Recognized as an invaluable contributor to her company’s and industry initiatives supporting women’s progress and development, she was named a Thirty Under 30 hotel industry top rising star by Hotel Management magazine in 2022.

Austrich hails from Tampa, Florida and now lives in Chicago. As a freshman at Cornell, Austrich was a member of the women’s rowing team and her passion for rowing has stayed with her. She is a member of the competitive team at the Lincoln Park Boat Club, and was previously a competitive rower and board member of the Dallas Rowing Club.  Most recently, she won several titles at the 2024 USRowing RowFest National Championships. In addition to rowing, she enjoys reading and planning her next trip when she has leisure time.

Her favorite quote is one that many Hotelies know by heart and comes from the school’s founding benefactor, E. M. Statler: “Life is service—the one who progresses is the one who gives his fellow men a little more—a little better service.”

Learn more about Austrich in this Q&A.

A passion for the hospitality industry

What drives your commitment and focus in your professional career?

Austrich: My first hotel job was as at the front desk of a Hampton Inn. Ever since I worked that first shift, I have been gripped with a passion for this industry and driven to make a positive impact in it.

I engage in mindfulness and self-reflection to maintain my passion and better understand my motivators and most impactful ways of working. I recognize that I am most effective when I see a project’s big picture and understand the impact it will have on team members and/or guests. Secondly, I know I do my best work by scheduling blocks of time to fully immerse in meaty projects while tackling the smaller tasks during shorter windows. It isn’t always possible to execute these strategies, so understanding and respecting myself is an effective shield against burnout and keeps me engaged in and excited by my work. I am thankful to work on a team of dedicated hoteliers who inspire me and also value wellness. The way in which we care for ourselves and for each other fuels us to do our best work.

Driven to positively impact women in hospitality

An active advocate for gender equality in the hospitality sector, Austrich serves on the development and education committee for Women@Hyatt. At Aimbridge Hospitality, she was a founding member and vice chair of corporate development for Aimbridge Women Excelling and an industry impact leader on the No Room for Trafficking committee. She is also an American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) Castell@College panel speaker and a ForWard Ambassador who is passionate about mentoring hospitality students.

What inspires you to dedicate your time and energy to this community service? What impact do you want to have in the world?

Austrich: Our industry is evolving to be more inclusive, environmentally responsible, and conscious of our impacts on communities. I am eager to play an active role in these positive changes. I am especially passionate about promoting women leaders in hospitality. While gender diversity in our industry has improved, the top of organizational hierarchies still has significant imbalances.

How can we build more diverse talent pools and equitably nurture talent as individuals grow their careers? Through my work with Women@Hyatt, my involvement in various industry initiatives, and by mentoring hospitality students, I aspire to equip my fellow hoteliers with the best tactics to achieve their career goals while combating any unjust obstacles they may face.

A lifelong Hotelie and Cornellian

Austrich actively mentors and recruits Nolan Hotel School students and comes back to campus as a guest lecturer. She led the Northern Texas Chapter of the Cornell Hotel Society, she seeks out Cornell gatherings and activities at industry events, and she stays informed about Cornell initiatives.

What drives your continued engagement with and contribution to the Cornell community?

Austrich: There is something deeply special about the Hotelie alumni community. I have never reached out to a fellow Hotelie for a phone call or coffee chat and received “no” for an answer. The strength of the alumni network and familial culture shined through during the pandemic, when Hotelies built a platform to connect each other with jobs and actively worked to help those furloughed or laid off find another role.

I am immensely thankful to be part of this community, and seek opportunities to say “yes,” whether to guest lecturing, student mentoring, or college recruiting. I think about all the people who have taken a chance on me, starting with Brad Walp [executive director of enrollment management], who was my interviewer at Cornell, and Punit Shah, CEO of Liberty Group, who gave me my first hotel job. I think about my mentors at Aimbridge and Hyatt—Nan Feng, Dayna Kully, Michael Hirschler, and Noah Hoppe—whose guidance and confidence in me has been invaluable and unwavering. I am honored by the time others have taken to invest in and support me, and I am grateful for every opportunity to pass that support on to the next generation of Hotelies.

What does being selected for the 10 Under 10 Notable Alumni list mean to you?

Austrich: I am deeply humbled and thankful to be a part of this group. The ambition, thoughtfulness, and drive that my classmates demonstrate is a continual source of inspiration. For me, the highlight of attending industry events and conferences is reconnecting with friends, mentors, and other colleagues who love their roles and excel in their career paths. I see my peers from school out in their desired fields, shaping their industries with innovation and compassion. It is a true honor to be recognized among this outstanding group of people.

What are the most valuable things you learned at Cornell that have helped you in your career?

Austrich: The curriculum at the Nolan Hotel School exposed me to many facets of the hospitality industry and built a framework for me to understand the hotel business. Most hotels have multiple stakeholders: owner, operator, franchisor, developer. My coursework provided the foundation for me to understand the relationships between all the individuals and entities involved, the levers they can pull, and the goals they are striving to meet. This understanding greatly accelerated my career. I graduated with a fundamental understanding of a plethora of operations roles and immense respect and admiration for the hardworking individuals who hold them. Their passion, humility, and resilience inspire me every day.

Did any particular faculty or staff member(s) influence you on your chosen career path?

Austrich: I truly had wonderful professors at the Nolan Hotel School. Given limited space here to thank them all, I am particularly grateful for Mary MacAusland [professor practice of accounting] and Amy Newman [senior lecturer emerita of management communication]. Mary MacAusland’s financial accounting class is where I discovered my love for finance, which sparked a huge pivot in my college trajectory from focusing on operations to exploring the intersection with finance. Professor MacAusland’s passion for the material and insight on how to follow my interests through to real career opportunities was essential for the evolution of my career goals.

I was also fortunate enough to take both management communications core classes with Amy Newman, who challenged me to become a stronger presenter, both verbally and in writing. Professor Newman taught me the importance of communication for every leader as a key driver of culture and connection in organizations. When I had the opportunity to speak at graduation as the Hotelie for Life, she generously coached me in preparing the speech and delivery. Both of these women have been essential to helping me develop my career goals and equipping me with the tools to reach them.

Describe a challenge you encountered as you built your career and how you overcame it.

Austrich: Less than a year after I graduated, the pandemic struck. The resort I was working at closed and I was furloughed indefinitely. Like many Hotelies, my career suddenly came to an unexpected, screeching halt. I was determined to stay engaged in the industry however possible, so I promptly called mentors, professors, and local businesses to ask how I could contribute to their work. I did projects for former professors, published articles on a hospitality consulting site, and did ad hoc analytics work for hospitality companies. I applied to jobs while also studying for the GMAT and preparing graduate school applications, determined to get my life back on track as the pandemic continued to stifle hiring.

This time was wildly uncomfortable. I am a fairly structured person, particularly as a former student athlete, and I suddenly had no schedule, no deadlines, no work or class or practice times. I learned to embrace ambiguity, lean into the discomfort of not having a concrete plan for everything, and give myself grace for doing my best in a difficult situation.

Helping others achieve their goals

What is the proudest moment of your career or of your personal life?

Austrich: From my rowing mates to my work colleagues, caring for my team and supporting others in pursuit of their goals is a huge motivator for me. It is incredibly important to me that I understand what individuals’ goals are so I can invest wholeheartedly in helping achieve them.

In my role as an accounting manager, I had three direct reports. At the outset, I asked what each envisioned for their careers, short term and long term. I learned that two were working towards the next promotion and one was happy in his role but wanted to sharpen his skills. I built out training plans for all three and did biweekly, 15-minute task-based trainings with each. I helped them refine skills required in their current roles and trained them in journal entries, reconciliations, and reporting reviews I conducted as a manager.

When I was promoted out of accounting, my senior and staff accountants entered a large, competitive applicant pool to backfill my role. My senior accountant filled my manager spot, and the staff accountant filled the senior accountant vacancy. To this day, my proudest accomplishment is how I was able to provide them with the tools to become the best candidates for those roles. I provided the training and material, but they put in the work to make it happen.

What do you do to recharge?

Austrich: I row! It’s hard to imagine now just how awkward an oar must have felt in my hands the first time I rowed, the stroke so clumsy and fragmented, a complete novice. Twelve years later, I can’t imagine myself or my life without rowing. The boat is my place to recharge, to clear my head, and to take care of myself. Perhaps it is ironic that I am describing a painful, intense endurance sport as my means of recharge, but the boat is the place I feel the most myself.

Much like in my career, I am always striving for growth. Every row I work to perfect my art, refining my technique further, pulling my hardest so I can get faster, syncing up with my boatmates so we can achieve that desired glide between strokes. I will never be done. It is a lifelong love that fuels my drive and energy in every other facet of my day. I am deeply thankful to train and race with my partner, Hagan, and my beloved teammates, including my dear friends Lindsey Cusack, Bryan Burnett, and Emily McCombs.

Chase continual learning

What do you wish you’d known as a current student and what advice would you give to students today?

Austrich: One of the most valuable things I’ve learned since graduation is how rewarding and educational it can be to make pivots in your career. There is so much pressure, likely on all young adults and particularly in a university environment, to have it all figured out. Worse, it can often feel like everyone else has their perfect, laminated 10-year plan while you are still contemplating what internships to pursue for the upcoming summer.

In the five years since I graduated, I have worked in property finance at a resort, central accounting for a large portfolio of hotels, business analytics for a management company, and now transactions and portfolio growth strategy for a brand. I have loved learning these different areas of the hospitality business, and I am thankful I have those prior experiences to inform decisions in my current role.

I challenge myself and students I meet to stay in the discomfort zone. Chase continual learning and say yes to opportunities to work on projects outside of your expertise.