Sixteen months after the merger of management companies PM Hotel Group and Sightline Hospitality, former Sightline President Kirk Pederson has been appointed chief operating officer of the now-unified PM Hotel Group. In his new role, Pederson will oversee hotel operations and commercial strategy across the entire PM Hotel Group portfolio.
The promotion began to take shape once the merger was finalized, Pederson told Hotel Management. For the first year following the deal, the consolidated team focused on making sure the transition went smoothly and creating new management opportunities for the company. “They got to know me a little bit, and I got to know them a little bit and then [we could] see where that went over time,” he recalled. “And clearly, the relationship blossomed.”
In a statement announcing the appointment, PM Hotel Group President Joseph Bojanowski said that Pederson “brings a rare combination of institutional ownership experience and on-the-ground operational leadership,” and that “having a leader who understands both capital expectations and day-to-day performance will be critical to maintaining the level of discipline and accountability our owners expect.”
A Range of Roles
Pederson became interested in hospitality as a child when he watched a GM walk through the lobby of the Hyatt Regency in Honolulu along with the property’s sales team. His curiosity piqued, he studied hospitality administration and management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with a degree in hospitality administration and management and a minor in finance. He also studied international hospitality and food and wine at École Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland.
After graduating, Pederson was recruited to work at American General Hospitality, where he was in the management-training program. “Coming out of management training, they wanted me to work as an [assistant general manager] in a hotel, and then ultimately go and be a GM,” he recalled. That first property, however, was adjacent to the management company’s corporate offices, and he was able to meet and form relationships with the executives. “When it came time for them to hire somebody as an acquisitions or investment analyst, they came to me,” he recalled.
Interested in learning more about the industry, Pederson went on to hold senior roles in acquisitions and asset management at institutional and private equity funds, including MeriStar and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds. Working for private equity and the institutional side of the business “solidified a real understanding” of why people invest in hospitality, how it works and why it works that way, he said. “It really gave me a true lens into the hotel ownership perspective and profile and what works and what doesn't work. And I think in order to be a good operator, you truly have to understand the ownership objectives.” To execute an owner's business plan, an operator needs to understand “why their debt service is what it is, what the cash trap means to them, how they're going to be influenced by interest rates going up or going down because of the floating rate that they've got,” among other factors, he said.
From there, Pederson became chief investment officer and chief operating officer for Chartres Lodging Group, an investment and asset-management platform. Chartres had a management company—Kokua Hospitality—and Pederson became its president in 2016. Three years later, Kokua merged with Filament Hospitality to become Sightline Hospitality.
“The goal in forming Sightline was to create an independent, lifestyle-focused … experiential third-party management company,” Pederson recalled. “We saw an opening in that space, primarily on the West Coast.” Many other independent-third party operators in that space had been acquired or consolidated by larger institutional management companies. With that in mind, he looked to grow Sightline and then merge with another company with similar values to keep expanding. “We actually were under a letter of intent with two different companies, but at the end of the day, those deals didn't just work out.”
The Merger
When team members from CapStar Advisors suggested PM Hotel Group as a potential partner, the logistics made sense. Sightline was based in San Francisco while PM is based in Washington, D.C., so they had not been stepping on each other’s toes as they grew. And while Sightline was focused on experiential and lifestyle hotels—both independent and soft-branded—PM’s portfolio was largely focused on premium select-service and full-service assets. PM did, however, have a dedicated lifestyle division following its 2022 acquisition of Modus Hotels, and was looking to expand that part of the company. The two companies started their due diligence at the 2024 NYU IHIF conference and the deal was announced the following November. “In terms of how other deals have come together, I would say that it was a pretty tight timeframe,” he said.
Both companies “saw the value in bringing the platforms together,” Pederson continued. Bringing Sightline and PM together enabled Sightline to continue growing and PM to expand its Modus division and “make a real conscious effort to be leaders in the lifestyle and unconventional hospitality space.”
Since the merger was completed, the PM team has focused not only on bringing the portfolios together, but helping teams collaborate. Having worked through other mergers, Pederson is familiar with the process and has been able to work with team members and owners alike to make the transition as smooth as possible. “When you grow through an acquisition or merger, you bring together teams, processes, procedures [and] silos,” he said. As such, different people will have different ideas about the best way to do things going forward, which can create some friction. This is where Pederson believes his experience can be especially useful.
“Working for public companies, real estate investment trusts and then on the asset-management side and on the investing side and on the ownership side, I've seen all of the various sides of our business,” he said. “In this role, I look forward to taking advantage of all those different perspectives and … experiences to come together and set the standard form of operating procedures for PM Hotel Group.” These procedures, he added, will both cater to ownership needs and make the united company more efficient.
“No matter what the issue is, no matter where you came from, we just work through issues—and we do it together,” Pederson said. After all these years holding a range of positions in a range of different facets of the business, he believes that team members not only need to be in the same boat, but need to be “rowing in the same direction.”