The Next 100 Years

Ben Cary is a proud 2002 graduate of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. He has more than 20 years of hospitality experience with corporate, investment, and property teams. Mr. Cary is currently Vice President of Development for Accor, covering all brands in the United States. Prior to Accor, he was Senior Vice President at MEININGER Hotels, where he led all facets of the company’s expansion in North America, including devising and implementing the strategy for the region, leading the team, and overseeing the development of the first hotel in the United States. Prior to this role, Mr. Cary was Director of Development at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, where he was awarded Deal of the Year three times. Earlier in his career, Mr. Cary worked for the investment company Hotel Capital Advisers and on property at a luxury New York City hotel.

Chekitan Dev is an internationally renowned scholar and thought leader on marketing and branding in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industries. As an expert witness, he has testified in deposition, at trial, and at arbitration in numerous hospitality-related matters, both in the United States and internationally, including multiple cases involving hotel owner–brand relationships and the online travel industry.

Professor Dev has consulted on marketing and branding to major corporations. He has more than 40 years of experience analyzing an array of issues involving hotels, travel, and tourism. Professor Dev’s recent research has focused on how branding and rebranding affect both public perception and profitability in the hospitality industry. In particular, he has assessed key drivers of profitability and customer loyalty, including branding, digital marketing, and consumer service. Professor Dev has also evaluated brand portfolio strategy in the context of hotel mergers.

An award-winning author, Professor Dev wrote “Hospitality Branding” (Cornell University Press), as well as over 100 articles in leading academic and practitioner journals, including the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, and Harvard Business Review. He has coauthored multiple case studies for Harvard Business School and in 2019 received the overall winner award for best case study from the Case Centre at the Cranfield School of Management (UK). The American Marketing Association recognized Professor Dev and his coauthors as finalists for the Best Service Research Paper of the Year Award for their article “Return on Service Amenities” (Journal of Marketing Research, 2017).

Professor Dev is a sought-after commentator on hospitality trends. He has been interviewed numerous times in the mainstream media, and his research has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and the International Herald Tribune, among others. The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) has selected Professor Dev as one of the “Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality, Travel and Tourism Sales and Marketing.”

At Cornell’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration, Professor Dev teaches courses on brand and marketing management.

Halomi Sukhbaatar joined YOTEL in May 2022 to lead the customer journey and CRM optimization within the company. YOTEL is an innovative global hotel group created to challenge the status quo of the industry. Made up of three brands — YOTEL, YOTELAIR, and YOTELPAD — the group is connected by smart design, the world’s most exciting locations, and brilliant people. 

Ms. Sukhbaatar is responsible for optimizing the guest journey with personalization through data centralization in a relatively low-touch environment. She has 17 years of leadership experience in optimizing customer experience journey design, digitalization, and service delivery execution in CRM and customer services in real estate development, including hotel-branded residences such as Four Seasons Private Residences and The Residences at Mandarin Oriental.

With more than 13 years of experience at Accenture, Jonathan Fuentes leads the hospitality agenda in Europe within the Accenture Travel group and acts as a SME of hospitality globally. He has a technical background and has developed his career in the field of strategic technology consulting in more than 10 hotel management companies globally, in multiple functional areas, from hotel operations to revenue management, human resources, sales and marketing, meeting and events, or F&D. Mr. Fuentes is experienced in the digital transformation roadmap as well as in executing large and complex digital transformation plans, covering the end-to-end needs.

Katie Moro is a veteran of the hospitality industry and a pioneer in hospitality demand data. She joined Amadeus in 2011 and is responsible for the global expansion of Demand360®, the hospitality industry’s only and most comprehensive forward-looking data tool designed to help hotels maximize their revenue. Previously, Ms. Moro led a major accounts sales team at Rubicon, a provider of competitive market intelligence to the travel and hospitality industry, and held sales roles at Morgans Hotel Group and Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

Ms. Moro was named by Hotel Management Magazine as one of 2018’s Influential Women in Hospitality. In 2020, she joined the board of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI). Ms. Moro holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Georgia.

As Chief Evangelist and Development Officer for IDeaS, Klaus Kohlmayr’s role is to challenge existing thought processes, create stimulating conversations, and help bring to life the future of revenue management and pricing in hospitality and travel.

Mr. Kohlmayr has been working to challenge the status quo for more than 20 years. He rejoined IDeaS from TSA Solutions, where he led the company’s global commercial operations and strategic partnership initiatives. Previously with IDeaS, Mr. Kohlmayr started the company’s global consulting division and led teams that partnered with leading hotel companies to jointly develop the world’s first group price optimization and function space revenue management solutions as well as requirements for new pricing methodologies.

An advocate of lifelong learning, Mr. Kohlmayr holds a Bachelor of Science in Hotel Management and has studied business at Henley Management College, real estate investment and asset management at Cornell University’s Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration, and finance and strategy at the Singapore Management University.