APRIL 29, 2026
Meet the Speaker: Laura Ferrari
Co-founder, SHIFT Collective · Brand & Social Media Strategy Former Director of Social Media, Hyatt EAME
The woman who built Hyatt's social identity — and IWC's digital voice before most luxury brands had one.
Laura is a brand and social media strategist with nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of luxury, fashion, and hospitality. Her career has been shaped by a deep belief in the power of storytelling, and a conviction that the most enduring brands are those that know how to express who they truly are.
From luxury
goods to luxury hospitality
Laura built her foundations in PR and brand communication at agencies in Milan, then moved into brand-side roles where she developed a rare ability to work at both the strategic and creative levels simultaneously.
As Global Social Media Manager at IWC Schaffhausen, she led campaigns and content strategies across 20 markets worldwide, translating a storied watchmaking heritage into content that resonated with contemporary audiences.
She then brought that same sensibility to hospitality at Hyatt International, where as Director of Social Media for the EMEA region she guided marketing and communications teams across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Her work combined social listening, audience insight, and brand clarity, and included building a regional training programme that empowered senior hotel leaders to elevate their brand presence on social media.
Brands Laura shaped:
Selected work
At Hyatt, Laura's teams produced campaigns that set the standard for hospitality social at the global level.
The World of Hyatt
TikTok Brand Discovery
A loyalty ecosystem reimagined for the next generation of travellers.
Positioned TikTok as a high-impact discovery channel for World of Hyatt, elevating brand awareness and emotional engagement with a mobile-first audience. The campaign combined short-form storytelling with a dual-creator-colleague strategy, transforming hotel teams into credible brand ambassadors and selected TikTok creators as visual narrators of the Hyatt experience.
By aligning platform-native fluency with Hyatt's hospitality DNA, we built lasting familiarity and trust across Gen Z and Millennial travellers in key feeder markets.
Park Hyatt Fashion
Week activation
Design-led travel meets cultural immersion in three fashion capitals.
Positioned Park Hyatt at the intersection of culture, design, and travel by embedding the brand into the creative pulse of Fashion Week in Milan, Paris, and London. Through curated insider perspectives and city-led storytelling, each activation transformed the hotel into a gateway to local style and substance.
The result was a multi-market campaign that deepened cultural relevance and affirmed Park Hyatt’s role as the starting point for design-forward journeys.
Andaz brand campaign
Unscripted stories of self-expression, told through the lens of place.
A campaign designed to bring Andaz’s philosophy to life by positioning each hotel as a space for individuality and transformation. Through a creator-first approach, we captured unscripted stories rooted in local culture.
The result is flexible, emotionally resonant content library that elevated Andaz’s appeal to culturally curious, design-conscious travelers.
IWC Watches × Santoni -
Brand Partnership
Where Swiss precision meets Italian artistry.
Brought the IWC × Santoni partnership to life through a refined social-first storytelling concept rooted in shared values of craftsmanship, design, and detail. Visuals paired IWC’s timepieces with handcrafted Santoni shoes, highlighting the elegance of engineering and the richness of Italian leatherwork.
The content reinforced the emotional and material value of the collaboration, positioning both brands as timeless, detail-obsessed, and culturally aligned across digital and editorial platforms
Why this summit
"Hospitality is one of the most globally connected industries there is, yet there's almost no dedicated space where social media professionals in this field can come together, share what's actually working, and learn from each other. That gap is exactly what drew me to this summit."
Laura’s lab: Winning Hearts Worldwide
"Having led social media across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, I've lived the daily tension of adapting messaging to very different cultures, platforms, and audiences while keeping the brand voice consistent and recognisable. It's one of the hardest things to get right, and one of the least talked about."
Why you can't miss Laura's session
Laura is one of the few people in hospitality who has done this work at true international scale - 20 markets at IWC, then an entire region spanning Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at Hyatt. She hasn't just theorised about adapting brand storytelling across cultures and platforms. She has built the training programmes, led the teams, and produced the campaigns that prove it works.
Her lab addresses something most hospitality social media events ignore entirely: the reality that your guests come from everywhere, but your content strategy was probably built for one market. Laura's session gives you the frameworks to fix that - with a focused plan, real channel and partner choices, and a measurable path to bookings you can take back to your team.
SHIFT Collective
Today, Laura is co-founder of SHIFT Collective, a boutique agency rooted in Italy's culture of craft and shaped by international experience across Milan, London, and Zurich. She leads brand strategy and social storytelling, helping heritage brands translate identity into lasting modern relevance. The agency works with founder-led businesses in boutique hospitality and lifestyle - brands with real heritage and international ambition.
Laura blends strategic precision with creative curiosity, bringing structure and clarity to brand positioning while never losing sight of the human stories that make brands compelling.
She has served as a jury member for The Drum Awards and regularly lectures on social media and hospitality marketing. She is based in Zurich and works across borders.
If your brand has international ambition but your social strategy still feels local, this is the session that closes the gap.
The Hospitality Social Media Summit takes place September 3–4, 2026 in London
Places are limited to ensure every attendee receives personalised strategy attention.
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