Hospitality's Next Wave

Leland Pillsbury ’69 is a venture capitalist focused on the hospitality industry. He serves as managing director of Thayer Ventures, an early-stage venture fund investing in hospitality and travel technology companies. Pillsbury is also founder and co-chairman of Thayer Lodging Group, where he served as CEO until the company’s sale in 2014.

Named Cornell University’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016, Pillsbury has led over 40 mergers and acquisitions, and founded or co-founded over 15 companies since leaving Marriott International, where he served for 20 years, becoming Marriott’s youngest executive vice president and corporate officer. At Marriott, Pillsbury headed strategic planning for the lodging business, participated in the acquisition of the time-sharing business, led the venture team that created Fairfield Inns, acquired the Residence Inn company, and created the industry’s first revenue management system and first successful frequent guest program.

Pillsbury serves on the Executive Committee of the Cornell University Board of Trustees, co-chairs the Buildings and Properties Committee, and is a member and former vice chairman of the Investment Committee overseeing the university endowment. He is also a member of the Finance, Development, and Governance committees and chairs his class’s major gifts committee. From 2010 to 2012, Pillsbury served as the Frank Rhodes Visiting Professor, lecturing across Cornell’s undergraduate and graduate divisions. He and his wife Mary have been named Foremost Benefactors by the university.

A graduate of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, where he is a Pete Henderson Society member and recipient of the 2009 Schaffner Award, Pillsbury served on the Dean’s Advisory Board for many years. He is a guest lecturer at Kellogg and a visiting professor at Penn State, and lectures at Florida International University and Florida State. Pillsbury has also lectured at the University of Beijing, Fudan University in Shanghai, and Nanyang Technical Institute in Singapore.

Christina McDowell, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer of Management Communication at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and Director of Cornell’s Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship. An award-winning educator, Professor McDowell teaches courses in corporate communication, persuasive communication, management presentations, and business writing, as well as advising community-engaged learning projects.

Professor McDowell’s research interests start with communicative engagement and emphasize actively investigating social, civic, economic, and moral problems in corporate communication, integrated marketing communication, communication ethics, and communication illustrated by religious leaders. She is the co-author of “Corporate Communication and Integrated Marketing Communication: Audience Beyond Stakeholders in a Technological Age” (2023) and co-editor and contributing author of “The Civically Engaged Woman: The Rhetoric and Activism of the Silenced Voice” (2025).

Professor McDowell holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric, concentrating in interpersonal and organizational communication and communication ethics; an M.A. in corporate communication; and a B.A. in communication from Duquesne University.