Ownership, management and hiring question

My good friend, Kristen works for a management company. They essentially run the day to day operations of an asset (think hotel). The asset is owned by another company.

Kristen (management company) interviewed a number of candidates. She narrowed her selection down to two candidates that she really liked, Chaunda and Meagan. Both presented very well over the phone, in person when meeting with Kristen and to ownership when she moved them forward to be interviewed (by phone only - ownership did not see them in person due to travel schedule).

Kristen and her management company's senior executive team wants to hire Chaunda. Ownership, however, while saying "I'm not telling you who to hire" but throughout the conversation said, this is who I would hire and this is my preference wants to hire Meagan.

If you were Kristen, how would you approach this? Hire your person and take all the success and failures that come along with it, defying ownership? Or hire ownership's person, become a puppet and still be held accountable if ownership's person doesn't work out.

One caveat. There are potentially other deals in the works between said hotel management company and ownership, if this project goes successfully. If not, or if movement (revenue) is slow, there's the potential for next business partnership to completely become non-existent.

WWYD?