Summary
- Accomplished business and technology leader, driving customer focused, human-centered product design and development, leveraging agile frameworks and design thinking methodologies.
- Demonstrated success in managing and implementing large, complex global projects leveraging direct, matrixed, and external resources.
- Self-motivated and talented leader that collaborates across all levels of an organization to build partnerships, develop strategy, and deliver results.
- Successfully synthesizes insights and analyzes data to provide information needed to make informed business decisions and drive successful results.
- Highly skilled and practiced in the design and implementation of friction-less guest experiences, such as access control systems and touch-less guest services.
Key Accomplishments
- Successfully transformed the digital travel experience with the design and implementation of products such as Mobile Check-in, Mobile Key and Mobile Chat with a global deployment to over 7,000 hotels.
- Founded Marriott Hotel Labs – a design thinking influenced agile framework for co-creation, rapid prototyping, and user testing directly with hotels.
- Managed the development of cloud-based platforms to support product testing and development (Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, iOS/SWIFT).
- Led the vision, design, development, and deployment of Airport Shuttle Tracker product; created Go-to-Market and change management strategies.
- Implemented a mobile messaging and marketing orchestration platform. Deployed 7,000+ beacons to 500+ hotels, creating an omni-channel location services infrastructure and machine learning road map. Identified and resolved GDPR/data privacy concerns.
- Program manager for redesign and platform migration of enterprise content management system (CMS). Migrated 50K+ pages, delivered new UX, taxonomy, information architecture, and enhanced search experience. Deployed globally with SAML based Single Sign On (SSO).
Work Experience
DIRECTOR, DIGITAL PRODUCT | Jan 2021 – Present |
Sentral
- Responsible for omni-channel consumer digital experiences – web, mobile and on-prem. Oversee new product discovery, development, and strategic partner selection across B2C and B2B Markets.
PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT | Nov 2019 – Jan 2021 |
Wanderlust Labs
- Develop business cases, refine Go-to-Market strategies.
- Manage multiple email/collaboration/web/social and merchandising platforms.
SENIOR DIRECTOR, PRODUCT MANAGER | 2018-2019 |
Marriott International
Responsible for strategy, product design, development, deployment, execution, and training across multiple digital channels, with a focus on the Marriott Bonvoy mobile app.
- Managed roadmap, prioritized backlog, drove strategic alignment, and launched new products globally.
- Developed strategic partnerships to support new product features.
- Grew product from initial POC at 10 hotels to over 7,000 hotels across 140+ countries, 120M members and over 45M service interactions.
- Increased member sign-ups, app downloads, and stickiness.
- Drove and increased performance execution metrics at hotels.
- Consistent, year over year global increase in member usage metrics.
- Improved ITR/NPS at participating hotels (Net Promoter Score).
- Solved complex integration issues and removed impediments for global deployment of Marriott Mobile Key.
- Tested beacon and biometric guest arrival experiences.
DIRECTOR, MOBILE GUEST SERVICES | 2013-2018 |
Marriott International
- Deployed mobile check-in, check-out, chat, and service request services to over 4,000 hotels. Managed large, multidisciplinary matrixed teams.
- Operational lead for Marriott Mobile Key. Accountable for removing a variety of complex obstacles such as parking and elevator integrations.
- Led the vision, design, development, and deployment of a 3D scanning tool for hotel rooms. Scanned over 1500 rooms across the globe.
- Integrated multiple high value features into business applications (on-prem and cloud based), including lock/access management and Salesforce CRM systems.
- Oversaw the design of Business Intelligence dashboards to monitor KPI’s, make informed market decisions, track deployment progress, etc.
- Developed and executed harmonization strategy for merging Starwood Preferred Guest, Marriott, and Ritz Carlton Rewards programs into single mobile app.
- Mentored associates on technology, design thinking, and scaling innovation.
SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT, ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE | 2013-2018 |
Marriott International
- Architected enterprise technology solutions. Drove alignment/adoption on technology standards and governance processes with senior leaders.
- Defined web services standard for new Mobile Guest Services application architecture.
- Solutioned multiple Single-Sign-On (SSO) integrations, allowing single ID to be leveraged across platforms/environments.
- Solutions Architect for migration of corporate extranet to modern, Alfresco based Content Management System.
- Tech lead on Microsoft Sharepoint Service enterprise cloud migration.
PROGRAM MANAGER | 2008-2011 |
Marriott International
- Delivered complex multi-year projects utilizing a variety of SDLC methodologies, including waterfall and agile. Managed PM’s & Dev leads.
- Created project timelines, deliverables, and oversaw output from dev team leads, designer, implementation lead and support team.
- Program manager for redesign and platform migration of enterprise content management system (CMS). Migrated 50K+ pages, delivered new UX, taxonomy, information architecture, and enhanced search experience. Deployed globally with SAML based Single Sign On (SSO).
- Platform-wide integration with Adobe Analytics (Omniture) with role and geographic reporting.
- Managed ongoing relationships with technology vendors.
SENIOR SYSTEMS ANALYST | 1999-2008 |
Marriott International
Manager of Developers
- Led team of 8 developers and engineers.
- Managed development teams building Java and .NET web-based applications.
- Managed lifecycle of Content Management System features and enhancements
Developer
- Corporate Intranet webmaster. Managed Information Architecture, Taxonomy, and built custom subsites to meet business needs.
- Built and developed search connector to extract content from internal enterprise systems. Earned technical brilliance award for contributions around scaling of ACL (Access control lists) within enterprise search security module.
- Developed Marriott Standards application. Leveraged UCD (User Centered Design) principles to design user experience. First custom .NET application deployed within Marriott infrastructure.
Additional Experience
Virginia Hospitality Group, Founder
Designed and branded a collection of upscale vacation rental experiences, inclusive of marketing, operational and local area knowledge programs.
VOSolutions, Principal Consultant
Designed, built, and managed online reservation system for a startup OTA. Business model based on highly localized city knowledge and experiences. Within 3 years, grew bookings from $500K to over $5M and expanded from 1 to 3 markets.
Volunteer/Professional
Workgroup lead (former) for Intelligent Guest Room – Hotel Technology Next Generation | Technology consulting to Parent Encouragement Program | Industry Mentor for Hackathon events | Guest speaker and lecturer on hospitality, technology, and innovation topics
Awards and Publications
Wall Street Journal (Aug 2019) Airport Shuttle Tracker
Fast Company (June 2019) Innovation Lab
Patent Mobile Room Key Printer
Technical Brilliance Microsoft Enterprise Search
Education
Bachelor’s Science, Computer Science
James Madison University (1995 — 1999)
Certified SCRUM Product Owner (CSPO)
Design Thinking for Innovation; University of Virginia, Darden School of Business