Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/704649
H ospitality was not the field Julie Coker Graham originally envi- sioned for herself as a young girl growing up and moving toward her formative years. One of her sisters went into nursing; the other became a physician. But for herself, she envisioned being an attorney. "With them going into medicine, I felt like I needed to do something big, but medicine wasn't really for me. So I thought I would eventually go down the path of being an attorney," said Coker Graham, president/CEO of the Philadelphia Convention & Tourism Bureau, who assumed the post in January 2016. "However, in high school I started working in a restaurant and that really carved out my excitement for hospitality. I liked the art of servitude and working with and in the public. So I worked with my guidance coun- selor who steered me to Johnson & Wales University, which has an outstanding hospitality program. That's really when the hospitality bug got me." Coker Graham is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI, where she received a bachelor of science in Hospitality Management and graduated Magna Cum Laude. A 21-year Hyatt veteran, Coker Graham began her career there in 1989 as a corporate management trainee at Hyatt Regency Columbus and held various positions at the hotel until 1992. She also held full-time positions, including assistant front office manager, front office manager, hotel assistant manager and assis- tant executive housekeeper at Hyatt Regency O'Hare. In 1994, she was promoted to her first room executive position at Hyatt Deerfield (Chicago) and held the same position at Hyatt Regency Cincinnati before being appointed to join the opening team and lead the rooms divi- sion at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in March 1998. In 1998, at the age of 30, she was promoted to general manager at Hyatt on Printer's Row in downtown Chicago. "That is pretty young for Hyatt, and at that point I had been with them for eight, going into my ninth year," she said, adding that from there she was promoted to general manager at The Lodge, a Hyatt property in Oak Brook, a suburb of Chicago. "In fact, the last eight to 10 years of my career with Hyatt, I was a general manager at three different properties – two of them in Chicago and in Philadelphia beginning in June 2007." At that time Coker Graham joined the board of the PHLCVB and worked simultaneously with the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association. "Through that relationship I became much more familiar with the work that the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau did, and eventu- ally ended up on the Search Committee for Jack Ferguson's replacement," Coker Graham noted. "After my interview to tell them what stakehold- ers were looking for they asked me to actually interview for the position myself." So she came off of the search committee, and joined the Bureau in 2010 as a senior vice-presi- dent overseeing the sales and services division. In June 2014 she was promoted to executive vice- president, still overseeing sales and services, but also having responsibility for other departments within the CVB. She has marketed the city as an attractive des- tination for major convention groups, convinc- ing them to book Philadelphia for their annual meetings. These bookings result in millions of dollars in economic impact coming into the city and state. Some of the more recent bookings that she worked as part of a team in securing included this past summer's Papal visit and the upcoming 2016 National Democratic Convention – both of which have or will put Philadelphia on the world stage. B M & T ••• March/April 2016 ••• www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 19 JULIE COKER GRAHAM: TURNING SERVITUDE INTO SUCCESS BY MATTHEW THOMAS "Through that relationship I became much more famil- iar with the work that the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau did, and eventually ended up on the Search Committee for Jack Ferguson's replacement," Coker Graham noted. "After my interview to tell them what stakeholders were looking for they asked me to actually interview for the position myself."