People like Simon Turner. And he likes them back. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's new president of global development, British native Simon Turner, has built the reputation of an executive who stays calm under pressure; a 30-year veteran of the hotel industry who prizes relationships, and a consummate professional who can connect the dots between brand and development.

Turner, 47, joined Starwood in May 2008, after spending the last decade as a principal of Hotel Capital Advisers Inc., an investment consulting and asset management firm based in New York. During his tenure, he sat on the board of directors of Four Seasons Hotels and on the board of Fairmont Raffles Hotels International.

It is in this role that many of his peers remember Turner, as the primary representative of Kingdom Holding Co., the private investment firm of Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz. Included in Kingdom's gold-plated global portfolio are ritzy hotels like the Hotel George V in Paris; the Plaza in New York; and the Savoy in London. Turner was responsible for the acquisition, financing and repositioning of the George V.

“When Simon was brought onboard, I said to some of the other folks on the management team, ‘What a great hire,’” says Michael Levy, managing director in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley. “Because Starwood is growing its business through relationships with the real estate community, it is critical if you're not going to own real estate on balance sheet to have deep, long and broad relationships within the real estate community.”

Turner characterizes his work history as international. “I've focused on hotel investments both in North America and in Europe, and elsewhere in the world,” he says. It is on this stage that the executive gained experience in global hotel development and investment management, corporate and asset joint ventures, renovations, financing and asset-management.

In the process, he has carefully nurtured and expanded his global real estate Rolodex, which could prove useful given that 60% of Starwood's current pipeline of more than 400 hotels is located outside of the United States.

As of Dec. 31, Starwood owned 69 hotels, managed 436 and franchised 437 properties scattered across 100 countries and nine brands, including St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, W Hotels, Sheraton, Westin, Le Méridien, Element, aloft and Four Points by Sheraton.

And all weapons in Turner's arsenal are likely to be needed. Like its major competitors, Starwood Resorts & Hotels (NYSE: HOT) has felt Wall Street's pain. The company's stock price closed at $12.25 per share on Feb. 17, well below its 52-week high of $56.

Indeed, economic pain has been felt keenly among hotels across the nation. The average occupancy rate among the top 25 U.S. markets was 58.7% in the fourth quarter, down from 63.7% in the same period of 2007, reports Smith Travel Research. Revenue per available room (RevPAR), a closely watched industry performance metric, fell by 10.7% in the top markets during the same period.

Against this daunting backdrop, Turner faces the task of helping Starwood meet its goal of opening about 100 new hotels this year and in building his company's reputation as the “most developer friendly of the hotel brands.”

“One of the challenges for Simon and for Starwood is how to continue to monetize those assets in this market at a price that makes sense in the world we're in, where real estate finance is extremely challenged,” says Levy. “He's got to convince those people he's been doing business with his whole career to do business with Starwood versus Marriott or InterContinental or Hyatt.”

Brand management plays a big part in Starwood's strategy, adds Paul Wischermann, president of Wischermann Partners Inc., a Minneapolis-based development consultant that completed eight projects with Starwood and has six more in the pipeline. All are Westin or aloft brands.

“[Turner] is one who can connect the dots between brand management and real estate,” Wischermann says.