Innovating for a Post-Pandemic Future

Bill Patterson is Executive Vice President and General Manager of CRM Applications at Salesforce, where he leads product innovation, growth, and customer success for Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Salesforce Essentials. Most recently, Bill led development of Salesforce’s work.com, a set of new technology solutions to help business and community leaders around the world reopen safely, re-skill employees, and respond efficiently on the heels of COVID-19. A former software engineer and enterprise solutions architect, Bill joined Salesforce in 2017 after a 14-year career at Microsoft, where he held various leadership roles across product strategy, product management, product marketing, and software engineering.

Entrepreneur Ian Schrager is the founder and chairman of Ian Schrager Company. Since the 1970s, when he and his late business partner, Steve Rubell, created the legendary Studio 54 and Palladium nightclubs, Ian has achieved international recognition for concepts that have revolutionized the entertainment, residential, and hospitality industries. He is currently working on two new hotel brands. The first brand, PUBLIC, is a new genre of hotel offering great value, great service, and great style that will set a new industry standard. The second, EDITION Hotels, is Ian’s partnership with Marriott International and marks the next chapter in the lifestyle hotel story. This brand combines the personal, intimate, individualized, and unique lodging experience that Ian is known for with the global reach, operational expertise, and scale of Marriott.

Kate Walsh is Dean of the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration and E. M. Statler Professor. A professor of management, Dean Walsh has been a member of the Hotel School’s faculty since 2000. She received her Ph.D. from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and her MPS degree from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Fairfield University.

Dean Walsh’s primary research is in identity, leadership, and career development. She also conducts research examining the impact of strategic human capital investments. In addition to contributing to numerous books, Dean Walsh’s articles have appeared in such outlets as Journal of Management, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Human Resource Management Review, Organization Science, Career Development International, The Service Industries Journal, Trends in Organizational Behavior, Research in Management Consulting, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, The Learning Organization, International Journal of Hospitality Management, and The Cornell Hospitality Quarterly.

Dean Walsh has extensive industry experience. She is the former director of training and development for Nikko Hotels International, corporate training manager for the former Bristol Hotels, and senior auditor for Loews Corporation. Dean Walsh is also a former New York State Certified Public Accountant.

Dean Walsh began her second term as dean on July 2, 2021. Since the beginning of her administration, she has focused on positioning Nolan for the future of hospitality business education as well as contributing to the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. This includes undertaking a comprehensive renewal of the graduate and undergraduate curricula, developing Nolan’s online global presence, launching two new graduate degree programs, and providing thought leadership for the hospitality industry, most notably through the creation of industry-based webinars to guide the industry during the pandemic as well as supporting extensive outreach and engagement through Nolan’s six centers and institutes.

Dean Walsh serves on the boards of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, including serving on its Educational Foundation’s DE&I committee, and Yonsei University’s School of Business.

Pasquale DeMaio is the General Manager of Amazon Connect, which is Amazon Web Service’s self-service, cloud-based contact center based on the same technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world to power millions of customer conversations. Pasquale led the effort to bring Amazon Connect from an Amazon-wide customer service tool to a publicly available service. He has 20 years of experience in delivering world-class B2B and B2C products. Prior to Amazon Connect, Pasquale worked on machine learning and augmented reality, maps, and mobile. His specialties include operating SaaS at scale, delivering great customer experiences, and UX and technology innovation.