CIO+plus

Sure, there's a tendency toward wordiness when it comes to describing positions at the hotelier. Look at the nameplate on Ric Leutwyler's door: Senior Vice President of Brand Quality and Member Service.

But the extra ink required to print Gibson's latest batch of business cards goes beyond verbosity. The 47-year-old technology executive, who joined the company in 2005 as CIO and senior vice president of distribution, last summer added a third title: senior vice president of strategic services. That means Gibson heads up the IT organization and the call center operations team, where he oversees all methods of distribution from call centers to travel agents to online travel sites, and he is in charge of corporate strategic planning.

(For the record, that makes him CIO and Senior Vice President, Distribution and Strategic Services.)

While that drawn-out descriptor may make him unique among his Best Western ...