Charlene Carter on the Velvet Standard: How to Hold People to a High Bar Without Making Them Feel Small

The Inspired Stories Podcast · Aug 5, 2026 · 1h 6m

Charlene Carter, Chief Development Officer and partner at the Carver Companies, grew up as the daughter of a domestic worker in Savannah’s public housing, learned to taste caviar at nine, and had her career trajectory changed by a movie director who told her he couldn’t see her completing a mouth. She spent eleven years mastering every level of hotel operations across IHG, Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham, and Hyatt before launching two consulting firms of her own, going through a bowel obstruction and COVID in consecutive months, and emerging as the revenue engine behind one of the fastest-growing…