Sandra Smith, dean of Brown University’s School of Professional Studies and Master’s Programs, welcomed Ariane Gorin, Expedia Group’s chief executive officer, for the “Professional Perspectives with the Dean” speaker series kickoff. The series brings influential leaders from across industries together with students to discuss leadership, innovation and the opportunities and challenges shaping today’s professional world.
In this conversation, Dean Smith invited Gorin to reflect on her career across consulting, technology, sales, marketing and travel, and share her perspective on leading through change.
Drawing on Gorin’s experience at the helm of one of the world’s largest travel companies, the discussion explored broader questions, from taking career risks and building strong teams to navigating AI and preparing professionals for an evolving workforce.
About Ariane Gorin, CEO of Expedia Group
Ariane Gorin became CEO of Expedia Group in 2024, following more than a decade in senior executive roles at the company.
Before joining Expedia Group, she spent 10 years at Microsoft in sales, marketing and distribution roles. She began her career at Boston Consulting Group in San Francisco, where she worked alongside Sandra Smith, before moving to Paris and spending more than two decades in Europe.
Gorin holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Finding opportunities to grow
Q: “What experiences have influenced your leadership style and how has it evolved as you’ve taken on greater responsibility?”
Gorin shared that one experience that shaped her leadership approach came early in her career when she had the opportunity to try sales at Microsoft. She was encouraged to make this shift as a means of understanding what it takes to “own the business.” The transition pushed her outside her comfort zone and forced her to think differently about what it means to lead authentically.
She carried that willingness to take on unfamiliar challenges into her work at Expedia Group, where she was asked to lead the Expedia Affiliate Network, which was important to the company but struggling to grow.
“Go do things that are important and that are not working because you’ll be able to take more risks, try more new things,” Gorin shared.
For Dean Smith, that willingness to step into unfamiliar territory is an important part of professional growth.
“Some of the most valuable experiences in a career are the ones that challenge you to learn something new,” Dean Smith said. “You don’t always know exactly where an experience will lead, but it can expand your perspective and prepare you for what comes next.”
Knowing where to focus
Q: “As CEO of Expedia Group, what do you see as the biggest opportunities for the business over the next several years?”
Gorin sees opportunity in travel’s continued growth and in creating better experiences for travelers. But for her, the industry’s significance goes beyond business. Gorin recalled her first town hall at Expedia Group.
“I shared a story about what the purpose of our company is, which is to help travelers explore the world one journey at a time. To me, working in travel is meaningful because people make memories in travel,” Gorin said. “At the end of the year, when you look at people's end-of-year cards, one of the top three things is pictures of their travels.”
That perspective shapes how Gorin thinks about Expedia Group’s future: using technology and AI to make travel more personalized, accessible and seamless, while keeping the traveler at the center of the experience.
It’s an approach grounded in a simple idea: technology should ultimately help people have better experiences.
Adapting to an AI-driven future
Q: “When you think about your strategy, what do you see as the biggest opportunities ahead, and how are you thinking about incorporating AI into that strategy?”
AI emerged as a central part of the conversation about how industries are changing and how leaders should respond.
For Expedia Group, AI presents opportunities to transform how people search for, plan and experience travel.
Gorin shared, “When I think about AI for Expedia Group, there's really three main buckets. One is how we can better serve our travelers with AI by improving the personalization in our products. The second is adapting to where travelers are starting to plan their travel on new platforms like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. The third is how we’re using AI internally to increase our throughput. As a tech company, one of the most important things for us is how effectively our teams can build products.”
Gorin emphasized the importance of creating clarity around how organizations approach AI rather than allowing teams to pursue disconnected experiments.
“There’s so much hype around AI that teams can easily go in different directions. But if you can identify the outcomes that matter most to your organization when it comes to AI, you can experiment within each area and track your progress. Even just putting that kind of framework in place focuses people or focuses organizations,” she said.
Dean Smith connected Gorin’s approach to higher education, where AI is similarly changing how people learn, discover information and work. “Universities are navigating many of the same questions around personalization, reaching learners in new ways and using AI to operate more effectively while maintaining a focus on human-centered learning that combines academic rigor with real-world application," she said.
Culture in action
Q: “How do you foster a culture that encourages innovation while keeping employees connected around a common purpose?”
Gorin emphasized that culture begins with purpose. At Expedia Group, she has worked to connect employees to the company’s purpose while establishing clear behaviors that define how teams work together.
“Connect people to the why and the purpose,” Gorin said, describing one of the most important responsibilities leaders have when building culture.
She also emphasized the importance of being “brilliant at the basics,” focusing on fundamentals such as customer experience, site speed and reliability while continuing to innovate. “There is always an opportunity to get better,” she said. “I think that mix between what is innovation versus what is just constant day-to-day improvement on some of the basics” is essential.
For Dean Smith, that balance between innovation, accountability and purpose is an increasingly important leadership skill.
“Leadership today is less about having all the answers and more about asking the right questions, creating clarity and bringing people together around a shared purpose,” Dean Smith said.
Leadership beyond business
Q: “How do you think about shaping culture in your organization? What do you intentionally do each day to help bring that culture to life?”
“We’re here for travelers,” Gorin shared, emphasizing the importance of building trust by consistently delivering a strong customer experience. She described this as more than a stated value; it requires leaders to actively listen to customers and make decisions based on what they hear.
“I believe it's more about what you do than what you say. So, for example, one of our behaviors is to put the customer first," Gorin said. "Twice a year, I listen to calls in our call center and last week I did just that. I spent a day listening to calls from our customers and our partners,” she continued. “I then had an all-hands meeting where I shared what I learned. As a leader, people will pay attention to where you're spending your time, and so show based on where you're spending your time what matters to you.”
That perspective reflects how a leader's decisions have an impact on employees, customers, communities and the industries they serve.
For Dean Smith, understanding those connections is an important part of preparing professionals to lead with purpose.
“Centering the students is what is really important to me personally,” Dean Smith said. “As a leader, I think listening is one of the most important skills we can cultivate. Sessions like these where we’re getting to speak to students is one way to engage and open up the opportunity to listen. Many of the questions we are discussing today came from them.”
Building a career that evolves
Q: “If you could go back and give advice to yourself at the beginning of your career, what would it be?”
Gorin’s advice to emerging professionals returned to many of the themes that shaped the conversation: stay open, take risks and build relationships.
“One of the things I really believe in is building your network,” Gorin said, emphasizing the value of having people around you who can offer advice, perspective and support throughout your career.
She also encouraged professionals to take on opportunities that may not initially seem like an obvious next step. Her own career illustrates that approach. Moving across functions and industries gave Gorin experiences that ultimately prepared her for increasingly complex leadership roles.
“The goal is not to prepare someone for one particular job,” Dean Smith said. “It’s to help them build the confidence, capabilities and perspective to continue learning and leading as their careers evolve.”
Across the conversation, Gorin and Smith returned to a common idea: the future of leadership is not about having a fixed set of answers. It is about remaining curious, adapting to change, understanding people and having the confidence to step into unfamiliar territory.
Continue to follow this series to hear from leaders about the experiences, decisions and lessons that shape their work, and consider how those lessons might inform your own path.