With more than 25 active hotel developments and many more in its pipeline, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International has announced the appointment of Wayne Taylor as executive vice president, global development.

FRHI is the parent company of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Raffles Hotels & Resorts, and Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts.

“We are looking to aggressively grow our three distinctive hotel brands and are very excited to have Wayne overseeing our expansion activity,” said William Fatt, chairman and chief executive officer, FRHI.

“In addition to his extensive background in hotel development and history of achieving results, he is someone who has a firm understanding of our global growth platform as well as strong relationships within the development community, with hotel ownership groups, and our key strategic partners.”

In the senior management role, Taylor will be responsible for the growth objectives of the company, a mandate that includes signing new hotel management agreements, successfully opening new builds, transitioning and re-flagging acquisitions, and strengthening the company’s overall position as a global leader in the hotel marketplace.

He’ll also look to build on the company’s 2012 momentum, which has already seen FRHI sign, open or acquire a number of hotels including the Swissôtel Resort Phuket; Swissôtel Grand Mumbai; Swissôtel Dresden Am Schlos; Swissôtel Chengdu; Swissôtel Jadaf Dubai; Fairmont Austin, Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa; Fairmont Ajman; Fairmont Jaipur; Fairmont Grand Hotel Kyiv; and Fairmont Heritage Place, El Corazon.

“FRHI is poised for great things and I’m very excited to be taking over this role at such an opportune time,” said Taylor.

“We have three leading hotel brands and a number of unrivalled hotel assets, a savvy and regionally deployed development team, and an exciting expansion strategy that places greater emphasis on acquiring, repositioning, and securing long-term management contracts.”

Most recently, Taylor served as the company’s senior vice president for hotel transactions.

Prior to this, he was the vice president of development at Delta Hotels & Resorts and also held a number of operational and senior management positions with the Canadian-based hotel group.