Numbers have always been a passion for Joan Bottarini, ’93, who is CFO for Hyatt Hotels Corporation. This year, she is being awarded the 2023 NIU College of Business’s Distinguished Alumna Award.
From the time she was a child, Bottarini liked solving puzzles and working with math to find solutions for problems.
“One of my first jobs as a teenager in high school was working at the local bank encoding checks and processing the mail every day after class,” Bottarini said. “During my summers, I spent time working in an office for a CPA who owned a small local business. It was there that I fell in love with spreadsheets and the rest was history.”
After high school, Bottarini chose to attend NIU because of its excellent reputation as a business school with a well-regarded accountancy program.
“NIU’s average pass rate for the CPA exam was one of the top three in the country at the time as well. Of course, passing the CPA exam is the ultimate goal for most aspiring accounting students. Knowing many past pupils of the program had success passing on the first try attracted me to the school and gave me confidence that I would be able to accomplish the same with NIU’s support. Looking back, my experience prepared me for my first job at KPMG even more so than my fellow colleagues who had attended other universities.”
Bottarini remains proud to have earned her accountancy degree from renowned professors.
“Don Kieso was one of my professors, and he wrote the most influential book of the curriculum, “Financial Accounting.” His love for the subject was infectious, and he made complex topics simple for all of us to understand. I was fortunate enough to have passed the exam on my first sitting.”
Bottarini noted that the preparation she received at NIU for her first job in public accounting was exceptional.
“I felt confident and frankly more prepared than my peers to take on the challenge of the role,” she said. “I also learned at NIU how to balance working hard while also developing key business relationship skills in my advanced classes. The students that I met were driven and
down-to-earth, and I’m happy to share that two members of my team are also NIU alumni. We have a shared admiration for the experiences that prepared us for future success.”
After earning her degree, Bottarini started her career working for KPMG and stayed there for five years in both Chicago and San Francisco before going to work for one of her clients in San Francisco. In 2000, she and her husband moved back to Chicago when she joined Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
“At Hyatt, I have been given the opportunity to move across different functions in the company and afforded the chance to continuously learn and grow,” she said. “About 10 years ago, I accepted the opportunity to move my family to Hong Kong to oversee our Asia Pacific hotel finance function. Being immersed in a variety of different cultures through the lens of the hotel business was an extraordinary experience and taught me a new level of humility as a leader in terms of just how much I had to learn. It opened my eyes to how the power of empathy can improve outcomes for the business by closely listening to other stakeholders – especially our colleagues, guests and owners.”
During the last 23 years with Hyatt, Bottarini has embraced the company’s purpose to “care for people so they can be their best.”
“Caring for others requires an understanding of their individual needs and then taking actions informed by listening,” she said. “If every part of the organization is practicing our purpose, we make better decisions that excite our stakeholders to want to do more with us. People want to join our teams, guests want to stay more at our hotels and owners want to build more of our brands. Our purpose of care includes prioritizing the holistic well-being of our colleagues. If our colleagues are well, they can better care for our guests, members, customers and each other. It’s an environment our leadership team is proud to continue to cultivate.”
Bottarini is also a leader outside her Hyatt role. She supports NIU by serving as the co-chair for the dean’s board of executive advisors. She is also the co-chair of the No Room for Trafficking Council as part of the American Hotel and Lodging Association Foundation. In addition, she is an active advisory board member of Salt and Light Coalition in Chicago, which is a nonprofit organization that offers workforce development programs to help empower survivors of trauma to thrive.
As Hyatt’s CFO, Bottarini has experienced many important milestones with the company, and she strives to help other employees reach new heights.
“Our remarkable performance as a company – posting our fifth consecutive quarter of record results – demonstrates our unique positioning and continued momentum driven by the focus of our almost 190,000 colleagues around the world,” she said. “The global finance leadership team is passionate about supporting our broader teams to deliver these results and further the development of our talent. The gift of leadership is the ability to help others reach their potential in their careers.”
Reflecting on her years of success, Bottarini credits NIU’s College of Business for launching her success.
“The college is committed to excellence and has evolved with the needs of the very dynamic marketplace in which we currently operate,” she said. “Innovation in the curriculum is essential and recognition of students who are experimenting is a great way to continue to inspire this mindset in future generations.”
Joan Bottarini and all the 2023 College of Business award winners will be honored at a celebration dinner on Oct. 20. To learn more or to register, go to go.niu.edu/COBAwards23.
