Kyle Bagwell is the Donald L. Lucas Endowed Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Center for International Development. He has published over fifty professional articles in a variety of areas in applied economic theory.  He has co-authored one book and edited or co-edited three other books. His recent research considers the economic analysis of advertising, theories of strategic pricing, and the law and economics of trade agreements.  He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and has served on editorial boards for a number of academic journals.

Kyle received his Ph.D. in Economics at Stanford University in 1986. He studied as an undergraduate at Southern Methodist University, where he received a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Economics in 1983.

Professional Experience

• Chief Data Officer, Groupon
• VP, Software Engineering, Netflix
• Baseball Analyst, St. Louis Cardinals
• Technical Yahoo, Yahoo!, Inc.
• Research Scientist, Stanford University
• Visiting Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Education
Princeton University PhD, Applied and Computational Mathematics 
Indiana University BS & MA, Computer Science & Mathematics

Bio coming soon.

Professional Experience

• Owner and Chief Scientific Officer, Remagine Technologies
• Research Engineer, Yahoo! Hungary Labs
• Head of Research, IndexTools
• Research Fellow, MTA-SZTAKI (The Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

Education
Technical University of Budapest PhD, Bioinformatics and Neurocomputing
University of Miskolc MS, Information Systems

Levente (Lev) is a leading expert in the mathemagical science of transforming data into effective business decisions. After his tenure at the renowned Hungarian research institute MTA-SZTAKI, Lev took the lead research position at IndexTools, an exceptionally strong web analytics company acquired by Yahoo! in 2008. Lev moved with IndexTools into the Yahoo! family, and there he continued his cutting- edge work on search engine and web site optimization. In the course of his career, Lev has repeatedly produced breakthrough models of consumer behavior, achieving unparalleled results. He now operates Remagine Technologies, an entrepreneurial venture focusing on sophisticated smart grid technologies for a better future.

Specialties: Revenue Management – Corporate Level Revenue Operations

Professional Experience

• SVP Revenue Management & Sr. Advisor, Live Nation Entertainment
• Sr. VP Revenue Management, Hilton Hotels Corporation
• VP Revenue Management & Marketing Systems, Hilton

Founded, developed and implemented Hilton’s revenue management discipline., Greg was responsible for all revenue management operations within Hilton’s full-service and limited-service brands under management in the Americas.

Paul Reeder is President Par Capital Management Inc. PAR Capital Management is a hedge fund with over $1.5 billion in managed capital. The firm balances its large holdings in publicly traded securities with related private equity stakes in travel and online media. PAR owns major stakes in United States airlines (i.e. American Airlines, US Airways), broadband access providers (i.e. Sabre Holdings), and large Internet portals (i.e. Orbitz, Priceline). Reeder started the hedge fund in 1990, five years after receiving a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

Specialties:  Authority on innovative brand marketing and creation of a luxury lifestyle image for the highest quality services and consumer products.

Professional Experience

• EVP & Chief Marketing Officer, Kerzner International
• SVP, Sales & Marketing, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
• SVP of Sales, Marriott International

Himelstein is a frequent guest speaker/lecturer on branding, sales and marketing and leadership. He has been profiled in Lodging Magazine’s “Who’s Who,” and has written op-ed articles for Selling 2.0, Hotel and Motel Management, and Marketing Management magazines. He is a past global chairman of HSMAI, which has 6,000 worldwide members. In 2006, he was named “One of the Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales and Marketing.” Most recently, The American Marketing Association presented the 2007 AMA-DC Hall of Fame to Himelstein, who also serves on the Luxury Institute Advisory Board.

Joe Humphry is the founder and CEO of Dallas-based Humphrey Services Corporation, which provides marketing consulting services to some of the travel industry’s most successful companies. Prior to starting his consulting practice, Joe served as the CEO of TravelWeb, the merchant model hotel distribution company founded by Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels, Marriott, Starwood Hotels and Pegasus Solutions. A 33-year veteran of the travel industry, Joe previously held leadership positions at American Airlines, Texas International Airlines/Texas Air Corporation, Travel Sales International and Trans World Airlines, Inc. In addition to his advisory role at SideStep, Joe sits on the Board of Governors, University of North Texas Hospitality Management School and the Board of Visitors, University of North Texas. Joe earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Manhattan College.

Mr. Michael W. McCormick is an accomplished senior executive who has successfully launched, funded, bought, sold, and led companies in the travel, search and media space. Recently, Mike formed Hudson Crossing where he is Managing Partner.

In Mike’s most recent corporate role, he served as Executive Vice President of Cendant’s Hospitality & Leisure Group, where as business unit leader, he was responsible for the strategic direction and execution of the global hospitality business for Cendant Travel Distribution Services (TDS), now operating under the name of Travelport and recently acquired by The Blackstone Group. With brands that included Orbitz, Cheaptickets and Galileo, Mike was instrumental in designing and implementing strategies which resulted in the development of an industry-leading merchant hotel database of over 30,000 hotels and top line revenues that grew to $3 billion. In addition, Mike was President of multiple brands including Lodging.com, THOR and TRUST International as part of an innovative “end-to-end” hospitality strategy. As part of that strategy, Mike initiated and led Cendant’s acquisition of TRUST International, which has now become the global leading reservation service for luxury hotel brands.

Prior to his tenure at Cendant, Mike was the Chief Operating Officer of PhoCusWright, the premier online travel industry research and advisory firm where he led the effort to increase overall company sales by 85% as well as exceeding all performance targets for client retention. Prior to this role, Mike was President of Biztravel.com, whose investors included Comcast and Hummer Winblad, and led a successful effort to sell the assets of Biztravel.com to Rosenbluth International, one of the world’s largest travel agencies at the time. Rosenbluth was also Mike’s first employer where he was responsible for building a global Supplier Relations organization and establishing a global alliance of agencies. Rosenbluth was subsequently acquired by American Express.

Mike holds a Bachelors of Administration in Finance from University of Notre Dame.

More Information;
http://www.hudsoncrossing.com/about-team-mike_mccormick.php

Cameron is a seasoned executive in the online travel and media industries. Cameron was founding Vice President, Partner Marketing at Cendant Corp NYSE:CD. Cameron was responsible for establishing and building Partner Marketing into one of the world’s premier online media networks.

Prior to his tenure at Cendant, Cameron spent six years building start-ups and managing high growth businesses in the media and travel arena. He has a further 5 years experience as a commercial attorney. Cameron held the position of Executive Vice President of Viator Inc. www.viator.com a company he established and built in the USA. Viator is the pioneer of ‘experience’ space and is the leading global provider of bookable destination products to the online travel industry.

Cameron is a member of the Advanced Technology Advisory Committee for the Queensland (Australia) State Government a body that advises the Premier and his ministers on issues relating to Australian businesses entering the US marketplace.

Cameron holds a Bachelor of Laws and Masters of Business Administration -Queensland University of Technology and including one year of MBA at McGill University, Montreal.

Cameron is Australian and long time permanent resident of the United States. When he isn’t working he enjoys sailing, keeping fit, reading and spending time with his family.

More Information:
http://www.cameronyuill.com/

Des Cahill brings extensive executive-level experience in marketing, sales and operations from some of America's best-known technology companies – Apple Computer, America Online and Netscape - and from some successful startups - Autonomy, BridgeSpan, eFax.com and Habeas.

Cahill was most recently President and CEO of Habeas, an email deliverabity services firm, where he was responsible for all company operations and Chairman of the board of directors.  Over five years, Cahill grew Habeas from zero to over 400 customers, raised three rounds of funding and established a leading firm in email marketing and delivery.  Habeas was selected as a Red Herring 100 top technology start-up in 2006 and earned a prestigious Stevie Award in 2007 as America’s “Most Innovative Company Under 100 Employees”.  In 2008 Cahill sold the firm to market leader Return Path where he continues to serve as an advisory board member.  He is a noted industry expert on email delivery, online reputation and interactive marketing issues who speaks regularly at leading industry events hosted by organizations such as Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Marketing Sherpa, OTA, eec and the FTC.

Cahill was recently selected by CRM magazine as one of its 2008 Influential Leader award winners, presented to the top eight thinkers and visionaries shaping the CRM industry.  Cahill holds steering committee positions with the Online Trust Association (OTA) and Email Insider Summit conference.  He also serves on the advisory board of Austin, Texas based AdRevolution and Santa Monica, California based AdPickles and consults with several other start-ups in the interactive marketing space.

Immediately prior to joining Habeas, Cahill was Chief Marketing Officer at BridgeSpan, a Benchmark-Sequoia backed real estate services firm, where he was in charge of all marketing, business development and corporate development activities.  Cahill was the U.S. co-founder of Autonomy, a leading player in enterprise search NASDAQ: AUTN.  Cahill spent nine years at Apple Computer in a variety of roles including managing Apple's global relationship with AOL and running Apple.com.

Cahill currently provides advisory and interim CEO services to startups in the interactive marketing and business-to-business services areas through his consultancy Element Group.

Cahill received his MBA from Apple University/San Jose University and his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from Union College in Schenectady, New York.

Element Group, Los Altos, CA – Principal Present

Habeas, Inc., Mountain View, CA – CEO 2003-2008

BridgeSpan Inc., Mountain View, CA 1999-2003

• Chief Marketing Officer 2002-2003
• Vice President of Marketing 1999-2001

Element Group, Founder and Principal 1998-1999

• Netscape Netcenter
• eFax.com
• Microsoft/WebTV

Autonomy Inc, Palo Alto, CA 1997-1998
Vice President of Marketing and U.S. General Manager

Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA 1998-1996

• General Manager, www.apple.com
• Sr. Business Development Manager, AOL Partnership
• Senior Marketing and Business Development Manager, Apple USA
• Sr. Financial Manager, Apple Corporate

 

Mickey Lutz graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.S. and George Washington University with an M.S. Mickey worked in Federal government roles for the first 7 years of his career with NASA, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Social Security Administration and Logistics Management Institute (a Washington, D. C. think-tank).

Mickey has had senior technology roles in private industry in the banking, manufacturing, automotive, leasing, rental car and travel industries. He spent 14 years as a technology executive at Cendant business units, with the last 4 years as the CIO and Senior Vice President of Cendant Travel Distribution Services. His role in the acquisitions and integration of Galileo International, Cheaptickets.com, Lodging.com, Highwire, HotelClub.com, Orbitz.com, and other travel industry companies, earned his company the top 100 IT awards in Information Week. Industry-leading initiatives that enabled Cendant TDS to cut their cost-per-transaction by over 50% using state-of-the-art open source technologies awarded TDS the Computerworld Honors award. Mickey joined Nor1 as President from September 2005 through September 2006.

Mickey Lutz is now the Chairman and CEO of Vista Partners, LLC, a go-to-market-stage health information software company based in Denver, Colorado.

He is also on the board of Adventure Central, a Colorado-based adventure travel software and distribution company.