Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson Dies at Age 62

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The $13 billion acquisition of Starwood created a colossus with 30 brands—including Ritz-Carlton, Courtyard, W Hotels, Westin and Sheraton—and operations in more than 110 countries. Marriott prevailed over rival bidders including Hyatt Hotels Corp. and China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co.

Marriott coveted Starwood partly to gain more leverage with online travel agents and persuade them to take a smaller cut when customers choose a Marriott brand. Adding more brand choices might also induce more customers to go directly to Marriott’s website, cutting out the middlemen. “We think there are real advantages to size,” Mr. Sorenson told The Wall Street Journal when the purchase was completed.

Marriott said Tuesday that Stephanie Linnartz, the group president for consumer operations, technology and emerging businesses, and Tony Capuano, the group president for global development, design and operations services, will share responsibility for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the company. The two had assumed those duties when Mr. Sorenson stepped back earlier in the month.

In a 2019 interview with Chief Executive magazine, he said he had discouraged colleagues from immediately declaring the acquisition a triumph. He recalled advising Marriott executives that “we have not done anything to be congratulated for. We paid more for Starwood than anybody else would pay for it. That is not victory. Victory is what we do with this deal, and that work is just starting.”

The acquisition led to one big embarrassment: In 2018, Marriott disclosed a security breach in the Starwood reservations database that exposed about 383 million guest records, including passports and credit-card information. Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office concluded Marriott “should also have done more to secure its systems.”

Like other hotel operators, Marriott has struggled with the rise of Airbnb Inc. and other home-sharing companies. In 2019, Marriott launched its own fledgling rental service, featuring high-end homes in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Mr. Sorenson told Barron’s Marriott would provide “a quality promise behind it so that people know they’ll be taken care of appropriately.”

Over the past year, the coronavirus pandemic has caused a drop in hotel bookings and prompted Marriott to close hotels and furlough thousands. “I have never had a more difficult moment than this one,” Mr. Sorenson said in a company video last March in which he choked up as he announced layoffs.

At the time of the video, chemotherapy treatments had left him totally bald. “Some of my team said I’m not sure we should put you out there on a video because you’re going to look like a cancer patient,” he recalled at The Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Future of Everything event in September.

He decided to go ahead. “To deliver bad news particularly, the more it can be done face to face and personally, with an explanation of what’s behind it, to me is essential,” he said. “We’re being honest with each other, we’re not hiding behind the difficulties of communication.”

Mr. Sorenson also expressed confidence in the travel industry’s ability to rebound after the pandemic.

“You wouldn’t expect anything different from a travel exec, but I think the forces that drove the growth in international travel before the pandemic are forces which are still very much alive. We want experiences more than we want stuff,” Mr. Sorenson said in September. “I think when it’s safe people will get right back to it.”

He gave a nod to front-line staffers. “The housekeepers are my heroes. These are people that are often unsung in terms of the importance of the work they do, and they have stepped up—because they want to be safe too.”

Arne Morris Sorenson was born Oct. 13, 1958, in Tokyo, where his father was a Lutheran missionary. The family moved to the U.S. when Arne was about 7, and he grew up in St. Paul, Minn.

He studied religion and business at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and graduated in 1980. While studying there, he met Ruth Christenson, who was working for her family’s ice cream shop in Decorah. They married in 1984.

He earned a law degree at the University of Minnesota after deciding that would give him more career options.

Mr. Sorenson joined the law firm Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., and became a partner. Among his clients was Marriott, and he impressed J.W. “Bill” Marriott Jr., the CEO and son of the company founder, J. Willard Marriott.

Bill Marriott persuaded Mr. Sorenson to join the hotel company in 1996 as associate general counsel. He rose to senior vice president for business development and then chief financial officer before becoming CEO in 2012.

Mr. Sorenson believed his religious upbringing and stable family life helped create a bond with the Marriotts. “I think the faith thing, it was comforting to the Marriott family that we were traditional in that sense,” he told Chief Executive magazine.

At The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council in December, Mr. Sorenson spoke about the need for companies to be community leaders. “It is crystal clear to companies that have been around a long time that it is in our selfish and pecuniary interests to be good community citizens. Because it’s good for our brand. It’s good for motivating our people. It’s good for creating economic opportunity, which also enhances our customers and causes them to be that much more loyal to us,” he said.

Mr. Sorenson served on the board of Microsoft Corp. and was a trustee at the Brookings Institution. He also was a Special Olympics board member.

He is survived by his wife, Ruth, and four adult children.

Mr. Sorenson saw a link between his faith and humility. “I think there is a bit about [religious] faith that keeps us in our place, which prevents us somehow from thinking that we are uniquely gifted, that we deserve credit for so many things that happen,” he said.

Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com