EVENUES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Hospitality Marketing
Audrey is a 18 year hospitality industry veteran and Seattle legend having worked on the front-lines selling and marketing several well-know Seattle hotel properties, in addition to leadership roles with many industry associations. She helped open Seattle's The Paramount Hotel as Director of Sales & Marketing, later moving to The Elliott as Director of Group Sales and continuing through the merger and transition into the Grand Hyatt Seattle. Audrey was National Account Director for the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau (SCVB) where she focused on bringing large corporate events to the city. Most recently, Audrey worked as a professional meeting and event planner. She is an active member of Meeting Professionals International (MPI) serving on many leadership positions, notably President for MPI Washington State Chapter 2000 - 2001.
Brian is former VP of IT/Operations for Expedia where he worked for 12 years and led strategic architectural design, implementation, and support of 145 Web properties including: Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Egencia.com, related white label websites, and 23,000 ExpediaConnect merchant hotel properties during Expedia's growth from $40 million to $2.9 billion. Prior to Expedia, Smith worked in various development and test roles at Microsoft, SAFECO, and Market Trends. Brian earned a BA in economics from the University of Washington and an MBA in Technology & Innovation from UW.
David is a seasoned software and internet entrepreneur with two decades of sales, marketing, business planning and product management experience. He co-founded Yodio 2005 and advises several early stage start-ups. David spent fifteen years at Microsoft where he led product planning initiatives for various early-stage Microsoft® Windows® and Microsoft® Office™ projects, including Microsoft® Speech.NET and Microsoft® .NET Services; he also spent three years as a software design program manager. During his career, he helped bring 16 different product and programs to life. Prior to Microsoft, David was a marketing representative at IBM and a former legislative intern for Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR). David received a BA from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo.
Job Titles:
- Leader
- VP Technology at QuoteWizard
Ian is current VP Technology at QuoteWizard in Seattle. Ian is a skilled leader and innovator who focuses on solving problems and getting results. Since 2006 he has been a key driver for QuoteWizard.com doing everything from building out the initial lead generation platform to recruiting and leading a technical team to achieve new levels of scale. In 2011 Ian accepted a new role allowing him to spend time evangelizing new business partners and driving internal processes and tools to allow the company to become more data driven and to pivot rapidly. Ian is a skilled writer and speaker having presented at JSConf in 2009 and LeadsCon in 2012. Ian is a veteran in the Lead Generation space and is the creator of Joe's Goals and TaffyDB.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Chief Executive Officer of LMA
Larry is the founder and chief executive officer of LMA, an award-winning creative agency specializing in the hospitality and tourism industries based in Toronto. Larry is one of the most highly published writers in the field of hospitality marketing and management, syndicated weekly in six leading industry publications. He serves as a contributing editor to Canadian Lodging News, HotelNewsNow, Hotel Executive, eHotelier and Hotels Magazine. He is an associate of G7 Hospitality and a member of both Cayuga Hospitality Advisors and Laguna Strategic Advisors. LMA served as strategic creative director for Preferred Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. In addition, LMA works with hotel clients in North America, Asia and Europe, in addition to handling Canadian tourism for several worldwide governmental agencies. Prior to LMA, Larry spent several years as managing director at Bozell Canada, creating their hospitality division, which served Four Season Hotels, Howard Johnson, and American Airlines. Larry began his career at Procter & Gamble as brand manager for Crest, Scope, Secret, and Pampers , and later as category manager for Frito-Lay (PepsiCo). Larry holds a Honors Bachelor of Engineering degree from Concordia University (Montreal), a Masters of Business Administration from McMaster University (Hamilton), and is a registered Professional Engineering accredited in the Province of Ontario.
Nic's entrepreneurial leanings had inspired but humble origins: in his garage, where he started an e-commerce business selling electronics. Within two years, Nic traded in radios for romance and founded the dating website, MeetMeFree.com. In 2006, he joined Seattle-based education company, DiscoverU, where he spearheaded new Internet content and ventures. While there, he met David Jennings and the pair began brainstorming the concept for eVenues. Once a pre-med student, Nic received a B.S. from the University of Minnesota. Nic is also a licensed Real Estate broker.
Lee is a serial entrepreneur who has developed and sold seven businesses over the past 30 years. He founded Kiss.com, one of the first dating websites. Kiss.com grew to become one of the most dominant subscription communities on the Internet, totaling over 3.5 million members with $12 million in annualized revenue. In 2000, Kiss.com was named one of the Top 10 Fastest Growing Companies in Washington State. Lee sold the company to Barry Diller and InterActiveCorp. in 2003 for $160 million. Lee received a B.S. in Finance from St. Cloud State University after serving four years with the U.S. Navy, including a tour of duty in Viet Nam with the Marine Corps.