Advisory Council | MMGY Global

Michael Dellar

Michael Dellar, with chef Bradley Ogden, opened The Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, California, in 1989, which eventually led to the creation of the 15-restaurant, $50 million Lark Creek Restaurant Group. Today he is the principal of San Francisco’s iconic One Market Restaurant, which is celebrating its 25th year. Michael’s restaurants have won James Beard Foundation awards and Michelin stars. He was named a James Beard Foundation “Outstanding Restaurateur” semifinalist. He holds a BA, magna cum laude, and an MBA from USC. Previously, he served as director of marketing for The Clorox Company’s restaurant operations division after managing marketing activities for new products, Clorox Bleach and other brands.

Michael has served as a trustee of The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts (COPIA); a member of the American Airlines Chefs’ Conclave; and a director of the California Restaurant Association, the USF Hospitality School, Visit Napa Valley, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Oakland Symphony and several other industry and charitable organizations. A founding director of OpenTable.com, Michael is currently a member of the Kitchen Cabinet for the Food Project at the Smithsonian Institution, a director of LightHouse for the Blind and a member of the Leadership Roundtable of food service industry CEOs. He maintains an active restaurant consulting and advisory practice. He and his wife, Leslye, live and grow grapes in Napa Valley, where their estate-grown cabernet sauvignon, Stardust, has received multiple awards and accolades.

Harry Hopper

Harry Hopper has been a venture capital partner, investor, founder, board member and M&A advisor in the communications, media and technology (CMT) sector for more than 28 years. At Columbia Capital, a CMT venture capital firm that he joined in 1994, Harry served as a managing partner for institutional venture funds (over $2 billion under his management).

Harry is very active and engaged in the consumer finance space where mobile functionality or enabling technologies are central. He is on the boards of Sixgill and LendPro and is an investor with Zebit, Global Analytics Holdings and Salt Technologies.

Harry has served as president of The Columbia Group, Inc. and executive vice president of Bachtel Cellular Liquidity, LP, a wireless investment fund. Prior to Bachtel, he founded Sky Broadcasting Corporation and AFSC Corporation. Harry received his Bachelor of Arts (Phi Beta Kappa) and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He is an avid cyclist and is chairman of the board of trustees of the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C.

Chris Jarnot

Chris Jarnot was appointed executive vice president, Mountain Division in December 2016, having previously served as chief operating officer of Vail Mountain, senior vice president of marketing and sales and vice president of marketing and sales. In his new role, Chris will bring his extensive resort experience to oversee the company’s four Colorado resorts: Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone, as well as provide continued oversight of the operations of Perisher in Australia, Afton Alps in Minnesota, Mt. Brighton in Michigan, and the company’s most recent urban ski area acquisition, Wilmot Mountain in Wisconsin.

Chris has held numerous other positions with the company since 1989, including director of advertising and direct marketing, director of reservations and vice president of marketing for Vail and Beaver Creek. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Vail Valley Foundation and of the Vail Valley Medical Center.

Karl LaPeer

Karl has over 25 years of private equity, investment banking, operating and consulting experience, spanning a wide range of industries and corporate settings. His diverse background allows him to assess both the financial and operational aspects of an investment opportunity.

Prior to joining Peninsula Capital Partners, Karl was an officer at First of Michigan Corporation, where he established and led its private equity practice. He has been involved in the underwriting of over $300 million in private placements and public offerings. Before First of Michigan Corp., Karl was with Harrell & Associates, a boutique consulting firm providing services to Fortune 500 companies including Westinghouse, Asea Brown Boveri and Aramark. He started his career with GMFanuc Robotics Corporation, where he held various management, engineering and operations roles in both the United States and Europe.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan. Karl is a licensed professional engineer, speaks fluent German and is a member of the CFA Institute. Karl is an active member in his church and frequently serves as a lay minister.

Flo Lugli

Flo Lugli is principal of Navesink Advisory Group, LLC and serves as the interim chief commercial officer for the Radisson Hotel Group, Americas. She is a well-known expert on travel industry distribution, travel technology and digital presence. Lugli has been recognized as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Travel” for seven years by Travel Agent Magazine and among the top 75 hotel executives and top 10 technology experts by Lodging Magazine. She was also recently recognized as one of the most influential women in hospitality technology by Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP).

In addition, Lugli is non-executive chairman of Global Hotel Alliance, the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands. She also serves as an advisor to Simplenight, a Global Experience PlatformTM (GEPTM) providing cloud-based distribution, inventory management, merchandising and technology solutions for the travel industry.

Lugli served as the executive vice president of marketing for Wyndham Hotel Group, where she led the global strategy for customer engagement and market positioning for the company. She joined after serving in senior executive positions with privately held Travelport Limited (and its predecessor Galileo International), one of the world’s largest global distribution system providers.

In her tenure at Travelport, she served in a variety of executive roles in the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) division, including senior vice president of Global Supplier Relations, managing director of airline solutions, and senior vice president of commercial. She was also responsible for overseeing Travelport’s Global Operations and Global Land and Sea businesses.

David Miskit

David Miskit was educated at Northwestern University, where he received a Bachelor of Science. In 1981, David was hired by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager as a senior member of their management team for nightclubs and hotels. From 1981 to 1988, David served as general manager of New York’s most successful nightclubs, Studio 54 and The Palladium. In 1988, he transitioned into hotel management, becoming the opening managing director of the Royalton Hotel NYC (1988–90), Paramount Hotel (1990–94) and Delano South Beach (1994–98). These hotels were the first of their kind and created the roadmap for what eventually became known in the industry as boutique hotels. With their innovative modern designs, gracious and eager young staff, inventive food and beverage concepts, and many other transformations of the accepted status quo within the hotel industry, a new segment of savvy travelers found a refreshing and new hotel genre of choice. David also had multiproperty portfolio management oversight during his tenure with Ian Schrager Hotels of Morgans, Royalton, and Paramount Hotels, Mondrian LA., and Delano South Beach.

David retired from his role as director of KenMont KenWood in 2012, and in 2013, he founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit project called Small World Symphony. The mission of this project was to find common ground between teenagers from regions of conflict around the world through the power of music and the internet. Most recently, David reunited with Ian Schrager – this time to cultivate Ian’s new PUBLIC Hotel brand at the first of its kind: PUBLIC Hotel Chicago.

Don Montague

As the original founder of MMGY Global, Don spent 30 years combining his passion for travel with his love for marketing ideas and innovation. He has worked around the world in travel with brands such as Disney, Hertz, MGM Resorts and Westin Hotels, and the bedrock of the firm has been his work on the ground level with individual hotels and tourism entities across marketing, operations and sales. In 1997, Don created the Summit at Vail, an event that continues today as an annual gathering of travel thought leaders, and he remains involved with MMGY’s industry advocacy, marketing advancement and community leadership. Along with Peter Yesawich, Don formed the foundation of what is today the largest travel marketing firm in the world.

Bernard Muir

Bernard Muir was named Stanford’s Jaquish & Kenninger Director of Athletics on July 27, 2012.Through six academic years under Muir’s leadership, Stanford has extended two of the most recognizable streaks in college athletics. In 2017-18, the Cardinal captured its 24th consecutive Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup, presented to the most successful intercollegiate athletic department in the nation. Stanford has also won at least one NCAA team championship in each of the last 42 academic seasons, the longest such streak in the nation.

The 2017-18 campaign was especially memorable, with Stanford also finishing first in both the men’s and women’s standings of the Capital One Cup, which had previously never featured a dual champion in its eight-year existence recognizing cumulative top-10 finishes in both NCAA championships and final coaches’ polls.

In 2017-18, Stanford claimed four NCAA titles and five national championships for the second consecutive year. During Muir’s tenure, Stanford has won 14 NCAA championships and 21 national titles overall. Meanwhile, at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Stanford-affiliated athletes earned 27 medals, more than those from any other school.

Tim Porter

Tim is a principal at Audax Private Equity, a middle-market PE firm based in Boston that manages over $3 billion in assets with over $3 billion of assets under management. Tim focuses on evaluating and executing leveraged buyouts and assisting portfolio companies with strategic initiatives and add-on acquisitions. Prior to Audax, Tim worked at L.E.K. Consulting. He received a Bachelor of Arts in history from Duke University. He lives in Boston with his wife, Liz, and daughter, Isabel.

Geof Rochester

Geof Rochester is currently managing director, in essence acting as chief visibility officer and spokesperson, for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). TNC’s mission is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. Prior to this new role, he had functioned as TNC’s chief marketing officer since 2010. As CMO, he was responsible for steering the organization’s marketing, membership and brand strategies. Since coming to TNC, Geof has pushed the organization to broaden support for the environment by going after mega brand partners and unusual collaborations. Some of these have included Macy’s, Subway, Harley-Davidson, Univision and Globo. TNC has been recognized for its marketing prowess, winning several awards over the years, including the DMA Nonprofit Organization’s Nonprofit of the Year Award (2012), a Shorty Award for Charity in Social Media (2013 – finalist) and also Harris Poll EquiTrend Environmental Non-Profit Brand of the Year (2013).

Davyeon Ross

An innovative technology leader and widely recognized entrepreneur, Davyeon Ross has more than 15 years of experience in the technology space. Davyeon is co-founder and chief operations officer of DDSports Inc., a team sports performance platform fueled by wearable and smart equipment data. DDSports’ first product is ShotTracker, which is wearable tech for basketball that automatically tracks a basketball player’s shot attempts, makes, misses and location on the court while providing real-time statistics and data. Prior to launching Digital Sports Ventures, Davyeon served as lead technical and management consultant for eVergance Partners (acquired in 2007), managing projects across the United States, Europe and Canada for clients including Research In Motion Limited (now BlackBerry), T-Online, Business Objects, SaskTel, Mattel, Siemens Healthineers, Nortel Networks Inc. and others.

Kevin Shrier

As SVP of Investments at Reterro, Kevin is responsible for identifying attractive real estate investment opportunities and managing the execution of both acquisition and disposition transactions throughout the United States.

Reterro has a patented process to clean contaminated soil on-site, in an efficient manner that is environmentally friendly. The company has been in existence for a few years and has performed clean-up services to developers and companies on a fee basis. We are now building a real estate acquisition team around the technology to acquire property and benefit from the arbitrage between a contaminated site and a clean site.

Prior to joining Reterro, Kevin was President and chief executive officer of The Parking Spot (TPS), the nation’s leading near-airport parking company. Kevin was co-founder of TPS and was intimately involved in acquiring all 39 properties that comprise the company’s parking portfolio. Kevin was responsible for all strategic and operating elements of the business that includes nearly 2,000 employees reporting up through regional and general managers.

Prior to his work at The Parking Spot, Kevin was an Equity Partner and Senior Vice President with Jones, Lang, LaSalle (JLL), formerly LaSalle Partners, a worldwide real estate investment management and services firm. While at JLL, Kevin specialized in executing land and under-utilized property transactions. He was also responsible for raising capital for a variety of real estate vehicles.

Kevin founded the Near Airport Parking Industry Trade Association (NAPITA), the industry’s first and only trade association, in 2015 and was Chairman of the Board from 2015 through 2018. Kevin is also an active member of the Urban Land Institute and the Chicago Economic Club.

Kevin holds a Master of Management degree in Finance and Marketing from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Management from Albion College in Albion, Michigan.

Jayme L. Silverstone

In her role as global managing director of corporate and executive communications at Accenture, Jayme is responsible for developing and managing communications strategies to tell the Accenture story and elevate the company’s brand. She oversees executive communications, financial communications, corporate content development and crisis communications, and she is a communications advisor to Accenture Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Pierre Nanterme. In addition, she serves as chief of staff to Accenture’s chief marketing officer, with a focus on marketing strategy, operations and measurement. She is a member of Accenture’s global marketing and communications leadership team.

Michael Stacy

Michael Stacy is CEO of ID90 Travel, whose web-based SaaS platform fully automates airline employee space-available travel for carriers across the globe. ID90 Travel is the first company in the space to provide airline employees the ability to easily purchase discounted hotels, rental cars and cruises online or via their industry-leading mobile application. During his tenure at ID90 Travel, Michael has raised venture capital financing and brought the company to first-time profitability. In 2018, Michael was recognized as a Southwest Region finalist in the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for his contributions at ID90 Travel.

Michael has been a leader in online technology since the late 90s, when he was hired in a marketing role in the very early stages of the development of Travelocity.com. He rose to become SVP of Marketing while helping the company go public and through its purchase by Sabre Holdings. He also served as President of Cheaptickets.com, where he led the company to first-time profitability and helped parent company Cendant complete the acquisition of Orbitz.com and the consolidation of Cheaptickets.com into the Orbitz family of brands. Prior to that, he was SVP of Marketing at Clear Channel Entertainment (now called Live Nation). Before joining ID90, Michael served as CEO of Groople.com, an online startup company devoted to group travel.

Michael has also served on the board of the nonprofit African Food and Peace Foundation, a trailblazing philanthropic community investing in groundbreaking education for women and girls in Uganda.

Thomas W. Storey

Thomas has worked in the hospitality industry for more than 25 years and is currently the chairman of the board for Summit Hotel Properties. He was formerly the president for SONIFI, a hotel industry technology company, and prior to that was the executive vice president business strategy for Fairmont Raffles Hotels International (FRHI), a leading global hotel company with over 100 hotels worldwide under the Fairmont, Raffles and Swissôtel brands. Having helped launch FRHI as a publicly traded company and assisted with its subsequent privatization, Tom was responsible for strategic planning and helping to identify new opportunities for FRHI that capitalized on improving business fundamentals. Tom held a series of progressive leadership positions with FRHI, including executive vice president development and executive vice president business strategy, as well as president of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. Tom has been a member of various hospitality industry organizations, including the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the Travel Industry Association of America and PCMA. Tom received a BA in economics from Bates College and an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University.

Peter Yesawich

Peter is regarded as one of the most respected and insightful sources on the habits and preferences of American travelers. He is a frequent commentator on travel trends in such publications as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek and Business Week. He has also appeared on the CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and BBC World television networks and is frequently heard on National Public Radio. Listed in Who’s Who in America, Peter is the recipient of the World Travel Award from the American Association of Travel Editors, the Albert E. Koehl Award from the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), the Silver Medal from the American Advertising Federation and the Spirit of Hospitality Award from Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI). He was named one of the “25 Most Extraordinary Marketing Minds” by HSMAI and is a former member of the board of directors of the Travel Industry Association of America. He is also the coauthor of Marketing Leadership in Hospitality and Tourism, published by Prentice Hall.