What’s Next For Salamander Collection CEO Sheila Johnson

12.02.2024 - 13:29 / forbes.com / Sheila Johnson / Forbes V (V) / Star Awards

Last week, we revealed our 2024 Forbes Travel Guide Star Awards. Click here to see the list of winners.

Calling Sheila Johnson one in a million is unfair. One in a trillion feels more accurate, but we aren’t even sure that’s fitting. Johnson is the cofounder of Black Entertainment Television (BET) and the first female Black billionaire. With a stake in the Washington Capitals, Wizards and Mystics, Johnson is also the first Black woman to have principal share in three professional sports teams. As if that weren’t impressive enough, Johnson’s Salamander Middleburg recently earned Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star honors for its resort, spa and signature restaurant, becoming only the 15th property in the world with the triple distinction.

But there’s another side to this trailblazer, a side filled with tragedy and tears. Johnson didn’t let many people know this part of her success story until the release of Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Triumph last September. In the book, Johnson bravely opens up about all the disappointment and heartbreak she’s experienced from those she thought were in her corner. “I had put up with so much,” she says in chapter seven, “but when would it be too much?”

Be it personal trauma or professional, Johnson never gave up. And today, she leads a hospitality brand, Salamander Collection, that has stellar properties that stretch from Colorado to the Caribbean. Forbes Travel Guide recently chatted with the one-in-a-trillion CEO to talk about today’s hotel industry, the secret to earning stars and underrated D.C. attractions.

Congratulations on yet another year of Star Ratings success for Salamander Collection. I know there are a million factors to running a Five-Star hotel, but if you had to highlight a few essentials, what would they be?

Operating a Five-Star property can certainly be complex, but undoubtedly, the most important aspect is our people. Retention is critical because, if you can keep your employees, and keep them happy, you have consistency, experience and excellence.

This year, Salamander Middleburg accomplishes the rare feat of a triple Five-Star honor, having a Five-Star hotel, restaurant and spa. How does it feel to be a part of such an exclusive club?

To receive one Forbes Five-Star award is an honor, to receive two is a privilege, but to receive three is simply humbling. We are extremely grateful and excited.

I first interviewed you in 2019. Tell me a few of the biggest ways that the hospitality industry has changed in those five years.

In between our conversations, we have all obviously endured the trauma of the pandemic. I’m proud of how the hospitality industry pivoted during that period and reinvented so many of our procedures and