Thirayuth Chirathivat, Chief Executive Officer of Centara Hotels&Resorts, has announced the appointment of Markland Blaiklock as Chief Operating Officer.
Markland is a Canadian national and previous to joining Centara was Senior Vice President of Sofitel Asia Pacific, responsible for the operations of 54 Sofitel branded hotels and resorts in the region. Educated in England and in France, Markland began his career in Finance at Hilton International in Orly, France.
From there he joined Le Meridien as Assistant Financial Controller and progressed through hotels in Montreal, New York, where he was promoted to Financial Controller, Houston, San Francisco and Vancouver before in 1988 being appointed Resident Manager at Le Meridien Hotel in Vancouver.
In 1990, Markland was appointed Executive Assistant Manager at Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort in Sabah, East Malaysia, and two years later became Manager of Traders Hotel in Beijing. In 1993, Markland became General Manager of Shangri-La Beijing, and in 1996 was appointed Area Manager for the Philippines and General Manager of Makati Shangri-La Manila.
His next move was to Singapore in 2001, where he was Managing Director of Raffles City Hotels and Convention Centre. Two years later he became Managing Director of Raffles Hotels&Resorts, a position he held until 2005, when he became Executive Director of hotel operations at Wynn Macau.
Markland was appointed Chief Executive Officer at Grande Asset Hotels&Property, a publicly listed company majority owned by Lehman Brothers, in 2007, and then in late 2008 he joined Sofitel Asia Pacific, from where he joins Centara.
In his role as COO, Markland will report directly to the CEO, Thirayuth Chirathivat. He is primarily responsible for the performance of the 43 operating hotels and resorts and 31 properties under development.
