Raising the Stakes

Joyen Vakil is the Managing Director of Gensler’s Las Vegas office and serves as the firm’s Global Director of Hospitality. A recognized leader in hospitality and integrated resort development, he brings more than three decades of experience guiding the design, development, and delivery of transformative projects around the world.

Prior to joining Gensler, Joyen held executive leadership roles with Bally’s and MGM Resorts International, where he played a key role in some of the most significant developments in Las Vegas and beyond. His experience includes leading the effort to secure the only casino license in Downtown Chicago as well as major projects such as Bally’s Temporary and Permanent Casinos, Bally’s Las Vegas and A’s developments, CityCenter, ARIA, Crystals, Delano, The Park at T-Mobile Arena, and Fallen Oak Golf Course.

Throughout his career, Joyen has built a reputation for strategic leadership, deep technical expertise, and the ability to guide complex, high-profile developments from vision through execution. His longstanding collaboration with Gensler has contributed to the evolution of the modern Las Vegas experience and the advancement of guest-centered design. Today, Joyen’s leadership continues to strengthen Gensler’s global hospitality practice, bringing together innovative design, operational insight, and a deep understanding of the guest experience to shape the future of travel, entertainment, and integrated resort environments.

Mark Birtha is currently with Hard Rock International as President of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sacramento at Fire Mountain. As an executive with the iconic brand, Birtha is responsible for operations of Northern California’s premier gaming, dining, and entertainment destination, as well as its team members. He also manages the future expansion and development of the 900-acre sports and entertainment zone the property sits on.

Prior to this role, Birtha was President of the Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park, the #1 performing gaming property in Ohio, until its acquisition by MGM Growth Properties for $1 billion in 2018. Before joining HRI, he was Vice President and General Manager with Station Casinos, the leading provider of gaming and entertainment in the greater Las Vegas area. Prior to Station Casinos, Birtha served as President of Sol Casinos and the AVA Amphitheater in Tucson, AZ, where he focused on the strategic vision for the organization and held general management responsibilities for Casino Del Sol, Casino of the Sun, and the 5,000-seat AVA Amphitheater. He also oversaw the design, construction, and operations of Casino Del Sol’s $130M, 4-star/4-diamond hotel resort expansion.

A highly regarded gaming and hospitality executive with over 30 years of experience, Birtha’s career has spanned both operations and development at leading casino and hotel companies, including Mirage Resorts, Las Vegas Sands, Marriott International, and Starwood. He graduated from The Hotel School at Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science degree, as a Merrill Presidential Scholar. In 2011, he was appointed President of the national executive board of The Cornell Hotel Society, which represents 14,000 Hotel School graduates worldwide.

Birtha was recognized as one of the 2006 “Top 40 Under 40” business executives by In Business Las Vegas magazine, as well as one of the “Faces of Cleveland 2016” and the “Sacramento 100” most notable business leaders in 2021. He currently serves as an Honorary Commander with Beale Air Force Base in Northern California and sits on the boards of the Greater Sacramento Economic Development Council, the Yuba Sutter Chamber of Commerce, and the Yuba-Sutter Council of Economic Development. Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sacramento at Fire Mountain was selected as the “2020 Best Real Estate Project of the Year” by the Sacramento Business Journal.

Jason Spillerman is a principal and co-founder of Vibrant Development Group, the strategic advisory firm he launched, and of Vibrant Ventures, its boutique private equity arm, through which he has helped identify, develop, and finance 28 independent dining and entertainment concepts. He advises casino operators, developers, and Native American tribes on the retail, dining, and entertainment programs that define and anchor large-scale destination real estate projects.

With his partner Chuck Bragitikos, Jason leads RDE strategy across seven of Bally’s gaming properties, including the $1.7 billion Bally’s Chicago and the $4 billion Bally’s Bronx, which won one of three downstate New York gaming licenses. The two also created the concept and program for the Ocean Casino Resort (originally Revel) and The Quarter at Tropicana Atlantic City. Jason’s earlier work includes the dining and entertainment programming at the award-winning Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and creative programming for National Harbor, the $4.5 billion master-planned waterfront convention and entertainment destination anchored by The Gaylord National and the MGM National Harbor Hotel and Casino.

Jason is an advisory board member of Cornell’s Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Master’s degree from Drexel University.

Francisco de Asís Martínez-Jerez joined the Nolan School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University in July 2020, after spending seven years at the University of Notre Dame and almost 20 years at Harvard Business School. At the Nolan School, Asís teaches courses on strategy implementation, sports financial management, and managerial accounting. He is currently developing a course on casino strategy.

In his research and consulting activities, Asís focuses on the design of customer-centric organizations for performance. In current projects, he is exploring how firms may combine AI with employee wisdom to improve decision outcomes, how to design incentive systems to leverage the leadership style of middle managers, and how to promote initiatives that shape a company’s culture.

A native of Alicante, Spain, Asís earned his undergraduate degrees in Law and Business Administration at ICADE-Madrid, his MBA from Harvard Business School, and his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University. His professional experience includes working for La Suisse Assurances in Lausanne, Switzerland, and consulting for McKinsey & Co. in Europe and Latin America.

In 2005, Asís received the HBS-MBA Class Award for Teaching Excellence; the Jim Bulloch Award for Innovation in Management Accounting Education in 2010; the top teaching awards at the Mendoza College of Business in 2016, 2017, and 2020; teaching awards at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration in 2023; and the Notable Contribution Award to the Management Accounting Literature in 2019. Asís enjoys the company of his lovely wife, María José, and often escapes to New York City to visit his daughters, Victoria and Aitana.