John Willard "Bill" Marriott Jr. (born March 25, 1932) is an American billionaire businessman who is the executive chairman of Marriott International, of which he owns 11.28%.[1]
In 1954, Marriott earned a BS in finance from the University of Utah, where he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. There, he met his wife, the daughter of a professor.[4]
Marriott joined Marriott Corporation in 1956. He pushed his father, who was wary of taking on debt after experiencing the Great Depression, to expand from the restaurant business into the hotel business.[4]
Effective March 31, 2012, Marriott assumed the role of executive chairman of the company and relinquished the role of chief executive officer to Arne Sorenson.[7]
Awards
In 2001, Marriott was recognized as The Industry Leader of The Year by Broad College of Business, Michigan State University.[8]
In 2010, Marriott received the Foreign Language Advocacy Award from the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in recognition of programs that provided language instruction to both non-English speaking and English speaking employees.[12]
On November 19, 2016, Ernst & Young named Marriott the National/Overall Entrepreneur of the Year.[13]
Marriott was married 70 years to Donna Garff, who passed away on December 30, 2025. They had four children—all of whom work for Marriott International—fifteen grandchildren, and twenty great-grandchildren.[15] They raised their kids in a brick ranch-style house in Bethesda, Maryland.[16]
In 2018, Bill's son John Marriott III sued both him and his uncle, Richard Marriott, for allegedly cutting John out of the family fortune, in part for divorcing his wife without approval of his father. The lawsuit was settled out of court.[16]
Marriott is actively involved in various boards and councils including, the U.S. Travel and Tourism Promotional Advisory Board, the executive committee of the World Travel and Tourism Council, the National Business Council, the board of trustees of the National Urban League, a director of the National Geographic Society, and a director of the Naval Academy Endowment Trust. He serves as chairman of the President's Export Council, a group that advises the president on matters relating to export trade, and serves as chairman of the Leadership Council of the Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries.
