marie-louise ek

Marie-Louise Ek leads Hilton’s human resources function and drives the company’s award-winning people and culture strategy across the Middle East & Africa, where Hilton currently employs close to 30,000 Team Members across its over 120 hotels in the region.

A graduate of Lund University in her native Sweden, Marie-Louise has more than 20 years’ experience in the human capital space, and prior to joining Hilton in September 2022, has worked with several Fortune 500 companies in multiple industries across four continents.

Her career to date includes a range of senior management roles, including a decade with Swedish technology group and HR transformation pioneers Sandvik. In over 15 years spent working in the Middle East and Africa, Marie-Louise has led human resources for global logistics giant Maersk, overseen cultural transformation at Bridgestone, led workforce optimization for emerging markets at Coty Professional Beauty (now Wella Company), and drove the HR strategy for the franchise business arm of PepsiCo.

In addition to a B.S.c in social sciences, Ek is a Certified Executive Coach (University of Reading).

In her free time, Marie-Louise enjoys cooking, running, gardening and reading. She lives in Dubai with her husband, Dragan, and daughter, Anabella.