Resume
SUMMARY
Senior management and technology professional with over 20 years in industry and a proven track record in innovation, project delivery and business management. Strong technical, business strategy, M&A, Franchise relations, consulting, project management and analytical skills built through increasingly senior management roles and managing all facets of a technology group as a buyer and seller and projects including company acquisition, legacy system replacement, global IT deployment, strategy, application development, data center management, budget management and eLearning product development. Excellent leadership, communication and organizational skills demonstrated through building highly motivated teams and delivering results. A self-starter dedicated to management excellence, business planning, problem resolution, change management, functional excellence and innovation.
EXPERIENCE
Current - The Duck LLC Ridgefield, CT
President
- The Duck LLC is a business strategy, marketing, and technology firm for travel industry companies and technology companies that specialize in the travel and tourism industry. The company has a flexible business model, which brings together best-of-class project-focused teams; 20+ years of corporate strategy expertise; and a rich network of professionals seasoned in a wide variety of disciplines. The Duck LLC is committed to helping clients become long-term smart as they evolve new products and business directions to protect their future profitability.
- Clients include Trump International Hotels, The Compass Group, Portaga, Hotel Booking Solutions and Folio Exchange
Mar 2004 - Oct 2005 LibGo Travel Inc. Ramsey, NJ
Chief Information Officer
LibGo Travel Inc. is one of the largest privately held leisure travel companies in North America with over 200 retail and 45 wholesale offices. Its distribution channels include Liberty Travel (retail) and GOGO Worldwide Vacations (wholesale) as well as web channels. The company is building a new reservation system based on Oracle and Java over Unix/Linux and best of breed third party components.
- Managed a team of 170 people running the existing technology infrastructure and building out the company's next generation solutions. Upgraded 35% of the organization repurposed key contributors and built an effective, delivery and business focused team.
- Identified opportunities for improving eCommerce presence (both B to B and B to C) resulting in a 150% improvement in wholesale agent sales and a 50% improvement in retail internet sales.
- Delivered Oracle Financials including A/R, A/P, G/L and Project Accounting.
- Implemented the Oracle eBusiness Suite as the foundational technology underneath the company's next generation travel initiative.
- Built the project plan and delivered the first phases of the company's new travel system utilizing Oracle, Java and an extensive EAI layer running on Unix and Linux servers.
- Renegotiated voice and data contracts for headquarters, stores and branches saving over $1MM.
- Renegotiated legacy system (Unisys) contracts saving $1.2MM over 15 months
- Initiated redesign project for www.LibertyTravel.com with Avenue A/Razorfish, delivered brand treatment, design standards, wireframes and high level design documents.
- Managed relationships and contracts with third party partners including offshore development in Ireland, Austria and Canada.
- Re-engineered the company's transition plan from the legacy system to the new system to ensure business continuity and to limit risk to the business.
July 2003 - Feb 2004 The Duck LLC
President
- Clients included Newmarket International, BudgeTools.com, Introplus and Skytech Solutions.
Dec 2001 - June 2003 Newmarket International Inc, Portsmouth, NH
Vice President, Business Development and Strategy
Vice President, Sales and Marketing
- Built three year business plan for company
- Provided technical and strategy due diligence for acquisition opportunities resulting in one company division acquisition (less than $10MM) and several product alliances.
- Created and staffed a Product Strategy organization
- Built the product strategy for the organization
- Key contributor to the Executive team
- Exceeded sales quota for North American operations by $1.8m in 2002
- Created, implemented and managed business alliance program generating strong industry alliances and a sales referral network
- Reorganized sales force for more effective selling and lower cost of sales
- Solution sales to large global corporations including Fairmont Hotels and Resorts and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel company
- Built marketing plan and sales plan for the organization
1998 - 2001 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, White Plains, NY
Vice President, Distributed Systems
- Managed the headquarters technology relationship with the International Franchise Council.
- Built and managed the hotel based technology strategy for the company.
- Led the distributed technology component of a new next generation technology steering committee resulting in formation of a technology roadmap defining future end-state and convergence of existing environments that received senior executive approval to build.
- Provided technology due diligence during M&A activities which resulted in both successful acquisitions and recommendations against acquisition, aggregate value of companies researched $100+ million.
- Identified an opportunity to introduce electronic learning methods into call centers (1,700 employees in 6 offices) which resulted in reduced time per course for each employee from an average 43 minutes to 7.
- Established benchmarks for a software call center/help desk operation using six sigma methodologies which resulted in higher customer satisfaction, increased employee morale and lowering costs by 10%.
- Managed the acquisition and integration of a software company (62 people) resulting in 100% retention of key staff and meeting the transition budget.
- Managed the operations of the newly acquired software company and exceeded forecast for the first six months of operation resulting in a projection of ending the year 30% ahead of EBITDA.
- Developed the two-year business plan for a Hotel Software company and created the business road-map for the company.
- Developed the new identity, image, name and branding of the newly acquired software company by working with internal creative services and external industry consultants resulting in the successful re-launch of the company 10 weeks after acquisition.
- Managed the operation of a technology deployment business unit that resulted in delivering all projects on schedule and meeting budget for the business unit.
- Conducted extensive industry research to profile the Hotel vertical software industry, technology positioning of hotel companies and opportunities for leadership resulting in detailed background information to support the business initiatives of the company.
- Created and implemented an advertising plan by understanding the goals of the organization, brand and competitive positioning resulting in better industry awareness of the company and articles in industry magazines.
- Investigated opportunities for usage of new or different technologies in the business including wireless & broadband (in production), voice communications/IVR & digital television (pilots planned), touch-screen and kiosks resulting in usage and/or white paper recommendations.
- Designed and created a wireless technology pilot project that used in-building wireless to bring functionality to a PDA style device for hotel check-in and out resulting in a successful pilot that demonstrated the capabilities of this technology and generated significant industry press.
- Became an industry contributor by developing relationships with media, technology committees and advisory boards and through public speaking increasing the public profile of the company?s technology initiatives and creating an awareness of the company in the travel manager forum.
1990 - 1998 ITT Sheraton Braintree, MA
Director of Property Technology
- Defined and implemented global technology strategy for the Hotel company that resulted in development and deployment of common technology standards across 600+ Hotels enabling generation of 3%-10% incremental revenue per hotel.
- Managed the deployment of technology to hotels with a team of 35, mostly remote, project managers over a multi-year timetable, including creation and hiring of the team, which resulted in the project meeting company goals and staying within the (multi-million dollar) budget.
- Negotiated national contract for PC and desktop equipment purchases saving the Corporate office $300,000 per year.
- Implemented a Vendor Management/Vendor Quality program that defined quality standards and service metrics, measured against the standards resulting in raising the quality of service, levels of contract compliance and support that the company received from external vendors.
- Developed a user focus/steering committee for technology that managed input and directional needs for software from the user community resulting in a clear product direction and better standardization and acceptance of technology with the managed hotel and franchise community.
- Developed standards and contingency planning requirements for data centers and implemented these standards in hotels internationally and domestically resulting in increased security over data and better stability of existing systems.
- Negotiated technology contracts for local, national and global vendors including business terms, legal and pricing resulting in ?Most Favored Nation? contracts in most cases.
- Designed and implemented technology complexes that utilized a single technology center to run multiple buildings in the region resulting in operational savings of up to $1m per year per complex.
- Defined and implemented a Middle-ware technology solution to integrate a legacy central system with remote software/inventory engines.
- Created/presented public speaking sessions on technology futures, wireless, property management systems and high speed internet with high ratings from the attendees.
Prior Postings:
1988 - 1990 Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Tokyo, Japan
1984 - 1988 Sheraton Pacific Hotels Sydney, Australia
1982 - 1984 Hilton International Australia
EDUCATION
1979 - 1982 B.A., Electronic Data Processing, Chisolm Institute, Melbourne, Australia
OTHER
2005 - Current
Member of the Board of Advisors for Hotel Booking Solutions, Inc.
Member of the Board of Advisors for Folio Exchange
PO Box 663 • Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877
• H: • W:203-894-8651
