Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & External Affairs
Simone Wu serves as Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & External Affairs for Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH), one of the largest and most successful lodging franchisors in the world. In this role, Ms. Wu leads the company’s legal, government affairs, public policy and risk management functions and serves as the primary legal advisor to the company’s senior management team and board of directors.
Ms. Wu joined Choice Hotels in 2012, bringing wide-ranging legal, regulatory, and executive experience and expertise. Earlier in her career, Ms. Wu served as executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary for XO Communications, where she led the legal, public policy, and human resources departments. She has held leadership roles at MCI and AOL, and practiced corporate transactional and communications law at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Throughout her career, Ms. Wu has been an outspoken proponent of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. She has been recognized for her work in this area as well as more broadly as a business and legal leader, including Corporate Counsel Women of Color (Diamond Award 2021), the Financial Times (The FT Global General Counsel Report 2020) and the Washington Business Journal (Women Who Mean Business 2019).
Ms. Wu earned a degree in political science from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Columbia University. She currently serves on the boards of directors of Alarm.com (NASDAQ: ALRM) and the American Hotel & Lodging Association and is a past board member of the International Franchise Association and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.