NJPAC - Bravo Program Book

Paying it forward
Women@NJPAC president Faith Taylor,
an executive with a mission, on building on
the Arts Center’s legacy
For Women@NJPAC’s president, Faith
Taylor, one thing has a way of turning
into another — transforming a spark of
an idea into a positive force for good.
Over the course of a career that has
taken her to the top of companies
ranging from Avon cosmetics to
Wyndham hotels to Tesla to Kyndryl,
Taylor has consistently found ways to
take her impulse to do good and build
it into programs and products that
help companies succeed and change
the world for the better.
“It’s always been about creating
brands, creating programs, taking
ideas from a piece of paper and
turning them into something you can
give to the customer,” says Taylor, of
West Orange.
Women@NJPAC’s president, Faith Taylor
Case in point: After stints at cosmetics
giant Avon, working on one of Cory
Booker’s campaigns and launching
an urban internet company with
Sean Combs — all while raising two
children with her husband, Gary
Taylor, COO of Ready Capital — Taylor
led the rebranding of Ramada Hotels,
spending two years reviving the hotel
chain in the early 2000s.
In wrapping up that work, she had a
meeting with the company’s chairman,
Stephen Holmes, and took the
opportunity to pitch him on the idea
of making the hotel chain greener
and more environmentally friendly.
“I knew our customers were thinking
about this. My son, he was a junior in
high school at the time, had shared
with me the movie An Inconvenient
Truth, and it just clicked for me: This
is going to be so strategic, for every
company in the world,” she remembers.
Her passion and her business
savvy impressed Holmes, and he gave
her the chance to remake the brand
in a sustainable model — if she could
do it herself.
“He comes back to me four weeks
later and says: ‘Okay, I’m going to
have you start this — but I can’t give
you any resources.’”
Nothing daunted, Taylor — now
in the role of Wyndham’s vice
president of innovation and product
development — scoured the company
for other people who were as
passionate about protecting the
environment as she was. In a year,
they came up with a strategic plan to
remake the globe-spanning company
as an innovator in green business
practices. Holmes gave Taylor a team
of one dedicated employee — and a
green light to execute her plan.
“Over the next 12 years,
we became the world’s hospitality
leader in sustainability,” she says,
as Wyndham under her leadership
introduced one social impact program
after another, from introducing
uniforms made of recycled plastic
bottles, to offering shade-grown
coffee at all the chain’s properties.
“And let me be clear: We were
delivering bottom-line savings too.
But our brand’s reputation is what
really grew, people were being
recruited to the company because
of what we now stood for.”
“I’ve focused in
my first year
as president of
Women@NJPAC
on what I call the
three c’s: Delivering
positive impact
for the community,
focusing on the
connections we’re
building between
women of all ages
and backgrounds,
and continuity,
serving the legacy
of this organization
and making
sure what we do
here lasts.”
– Faith Taylor
So she made a donation of $1,000
in honor of Brown, earmarked for
scholarship assistance for
students of the Arts Center’s arts
education programs.
“It was just a simple act, a little
way of saying thank you to Marcia,”
Taylor remembers.
“But then, all these other Trustees
of Women@NJPAC stepped up
and matched that donation. And in
no time, we raised $35,000 for the
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