USC Marshall School of Business

Senior Director at Publicis Sapient

Publicis Sapient

Senior Director, Travel & Hospitality 

Cognizant

Sales Director - Travel & Hospitality Practice

** Transitioned to  NTT Data Services LLC after NTT DATA Inc. acquired Dell Services from Dell NOV 2, 2016.

Dell

Sr.  Business Development Consultant  – Travel and Hospitality - Dell Services (Later NTT Data Inc.)

Unique business and IT driven role to prioritize and streamline delivery of a lagging feature/functionality roadmap for Choice’s insourced, cloud-based property management and revenue management systems used by nearly 6,000+ Choice branded hotels/franchisees.

Choice Hotels International

Director, Property Systems/Hotel Technology

Tata Consultancy Services

Business Development Director - Travel Industry N. America

Recruited to join IBM’s T&T Industry Team to lead/grow the +$600M+ Travel Related Services (TRS) Segment. (Hospitality, GDS, OTAs, Tour, Wholesale, Car Rental, Cruise, Casino/Gaming,). 

• Set TRS industry development, thought leadership priorities, strategy/direction. Ensure IBM addresses critical TRS industry/client specific pain points via segment solution development, ISV partner management and go to market enablement.

• Helped to drive big TRS client plays in coordination with local client/development/delivery teams across 4 IBM brands (Consulting, Outsourcing Services, Software and Hardware).  

• Drove a “partnership exploration effort” with teams from both IBM Procurement and a major GDS to transform and integrate the GDS’s corporate booking tool with IBM’s Global Expense Reporting System (GERS). The potential integrated NG solution would be used by IBM and offered to the NBTA community. 

• Key contributor to “Travel 2020” and “Hotel 2020” IBM white papers focusing on the future of travel distribution.

Global Segment Leader - Travel Industry (TRS)

Directed a team of Pegasus’ most experienced technology sales directors (6) responsible to generate $50M+ in travel distribution technology products/CRS services to the largest strategic hotel/chain customers in the Americas. Also maintained strategic ownership of Pegasus GDS relationships.

•  With industry recession-related declines of -25%, 2009 Americas technology sales team revenues declined less than --3% due to creative “bundle” negotiations, emphasis on alternative distribution (ADS) channel growth.

• In an effort to defend Pegasus $40M GDS related revenue stream, worked to improve the relationship between Pegasus and each GDS.  Re-established trust between companies who viewed each other more as competitors than customers through win-win re-negotiations and effective implementation of complex agreements. 

• Was instrumental in creating and launching the “The Pegasus View;” a new thought leadership initiative designed to provide the travel industry/media with visibility to critical booking/rate trends with data provided by the Pegs Switch.

Pegasus Solutions

VP, Strategic Sales & Account Management, Americas; Global GDS Relationships

Reporting directly to the CEO, directed all global activities relevant to a newly created $40M+ Pegasus “Distribution Services” business unit (SBU).  Assembled a team of 19 (global sales team, product development team, and service delivery team) Maintained P & L ownership for the business unit. 

• The Distribution SBU was Pegs fastest growing SBU in 2007 & 2008 due to our team’s ability to position the Pegasus UltraSwitch as a high value, low cost, cutting edge alternative distribution channel used to connect strategic hotel chains directly to major OTA’s, as well as to new ADS channels (TMCs, Meetings, Groups, Tour, Wholesale)

• To establish Pegasus as a hotel industry standard for distribution, initiated interviews with travel media, launched frequent press releases reflecting Pegasus success in distribution, and participated on trade show panels such as Eye for Travel and HEDNA to discuss the future of travel distribution. 

•   Created, presented and implemented a comprehensive 5-year Distribution Services business plan which projected annual double-digit revenue and EBITDA growth for the SBU over the span of five years.

Vice President, Distribution Services

Led an Americas-based sales team of 16 staff responsible to grow Pegasus distribution technology, commission processing and hotel representation (Utell) service revenues specifically from demand-related travel agency/TMC/OTA customers (hundreds) for the entire Americas region ($16M budget).  

•  Using non-traditional methods, overcame the tremendous challenge of managing a reorganized cross-functional sales team responsible to negotiate deals across three very different services (distribution technology, financial/commissions and hotel representation) with a broad customer base of demand customers including TMC’s such as CWT, BCD, as well as OTA’s such as Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Hotwire & Priceline.  

•  Personally recognized with the Pegasus Solutions Sales Leadership Award in 2006.

Director, Americas Demand Sales Team

Opened a regional sales/support office in Chicago for IER (a French-owned global leader in airline/airport technology) to grow IER’s share of technology products from airlines, other transportation customers based in North America.  (Business was severely impacted by 9-11 Attacks.)

IER Inc.

Regional Director, Northern Americas

Recruited by Chicago-based Butler from United to coordinate an international distribution strategy with their new Osaka-based parent, Sunstar, (the largest oral care company in Japan). Recruited and managed a network of international distributors for both Butler and Sunstar brands across Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. 

•  Generated $4M annual revenue growth (+33%/year) by expanding, adding or replacing distributors in markets across Asia and the Middle East who best fit the mix of consumer products from Japan together with traditional Butler professional products from the U.S.

•  Trained domestic oriented Sunstar Japan-based staff on how to grow and manage a network of international distributors; eventually relinquished territory ownership to the Osaka-based parent.

•  Played an important role in integrating executives from Japanese parent and Chicago subsidiary, helping each to better understand the other’s business culture.

Sunstar America

Manager - International Sales & Distribution

Promoted to lead the HDQ based Pacific Sales Planning team of five Sr. Staff Planners to develop and implement Asia-focused sales plans used by United’s sales forces across 16 Asian and seven U.S. sales regions to achieve $3B in Pacific-focused revenues.

•  Created the “Pacific Scorecard,” an internal report translating priorities from United’s executive team into simple achievable periodic goals to be met by United sales teams across Pacific markets/products.

•  Developed and presented an international sales training program employed by United’s corporate training team with new and current sales staff enhancing their frontline international sales effectiveness.

United Airlines

Manager, International Sales Planning - Asia Pacific (Chicago HDQ)

Led a project team across United departments to design, develop and implement a new “Global Corporate Volume Agreement Program” to be launched with United's targeted Global 100 multi-national corporations. 

•  Designed, built and launched the new program in six-months allowing United to leverage multi-national corporations to provide above average market share in weak United markets by giving them access to otherwise rare incentives/inventory/rebates in high-demand United markets. The program helped to increase high-yield global revenues from targeted  Fortune 100 multi-national corporations, Wall Street Investment Banks, etc.

Manager, International Business Markets

Selected to join United’s elite HDQ Pacific Sales Planning team formed after acquisition of PanAm’s Pacific routes.  Supporting three countries at a time, acted as primary headquarters “Market Champion” between sales/marketing teams based in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Chicago HDQ stakeholders revenue management, finance, legal, pricing, inventory, product, scheduling, marketing/advertising.

Sr. Staff Planner – ASPAC Markets

* Chosen to lead a small sales team responsible for growing revenues/market share from agency and corporate accounts across the state of Florida representing over $80 million in United sales.

Agency Sales Manager – Florida

* Successfully negotiated complex 5-year Apollo computer reservations system contract with largest leisure travel agency in southeast providing UA/Galileo with $50 million in annual air bookings.

Account Executive - Western Florida (Tampa)

* Negotiated over 44 Apollo computer reservations system contracts compared to peer average of 5.

* Finished first among 20 trainees in comprehensive seven week consultative sales training program located in United’s Chicago World Headquarters.

Tore Wick