The programme of the HospitalityInside Think Tank 2023 is still in progress.
More speakers will be announced soon…

Speakers 2023 at a Glance

Tim Davis established PACE Dimensions in 2010 as a new breed of advisory and research consultancy for the travel, leisure and hospitality sectors. In an age of changing patterns of demand, digital revolution and need for businesses and humanity to become more sustainable, he saw an opportunity to guide businesses through intense change and develop the resilience to overcome future disruption. Today, PACE Dimensions’ investment in research supports clients in addressing the new challenges and opportunities facing the travel and hospitality industry, which have only become compounded by the impact of the COVID crisis creating a more dynamic and less predictable world.

At PACE Dimensions, Davis helps global companies improve their performance and competitive edge by developing winning insight-based strategies and transforming business processes in order to build distinctive and valuable brands.

An expert in strategic change management, business architecture, strategy and brand development, Davis also leads comprehensive research programmes using proprietary studies exclusive to PACE Dimensions. The consultancy also boasts partnerships with several of the travel and hospitality industry’s leading data specialists to further inform advisory work.

Key achievements of the PACE Dimensions business under Davis’ leadership include the development of a corporate growth strategy to create a top five global hotel group; redesigning global distribution and property management systems to boost profitability to record levels; and operating as a lead advisor on multiple successful mergers and acquisitions.

With over 20 years of international management experience, Davis has worked with a number of high-profile brands including spending 12 years as senior executive and member of the management board at Hilton. He was responsible for the creation and delivery of Hilton’s eCommerce capabilities across their major markets, taking online sales to US$3.5bn worldwide in five years. Prior to Hilton, Davis has held senior management roles with Hughes Olivetti Telecom and Galileo.

Davis has a wealth of experience as a keynote speaker and moderator at global industry events such as ITB Berlin, HITT, Hotelschool The Hague Research Symposium, The Hotel Revenue Forum and Eye for Travel.

Dr Crispian Tarrant is a highly experienced customer insight professional with a well-established reputation for pinpointing the business implications of research findings. An advocate of evidence-based decision-making, he provides advice that is sought at CEO and Board level by many leading organisations, especially those operating in travel, hotels and hospitality.

Cris founded BDRC, a specialist market research consultancy, in 1991 and the firm has grown to become a highly respected insights provider with a deep level of specialisation in several service industry verticals.

Since 2018 the business has been part of the Paris-based BVA Group, a worldwide top 20 research group, which has over 700 staff across more than a dozen global offices.

The BVA-BDRC hotels and hospitality practice produces the Hotel Guest Survey, regarded as the industry bible for the monitoring of hotel brand perceptions in multiple global markets, the Venue Verdict suite of operational performance tools for the MICE sector, and Brand Margin® the unique methodology for determining the perceived added value that a hotel brand delivers.

Consumer demand – or expectation – is one of the key drivers of the ESG agenda. Cris and his team are actively engaged in understanding the nature of this demand in the travel sector, how the market segments and how consumer behaviours can be ‘nudged’ to achieve better ESG outcomes.

Cris qualified as a social scientist, with a BSc from Durham University and a PhD from Manchester University. He is a Fellow of the UK Market Research Society and twice a winner of MRS national awards for research effectiveness. He is also a Fellow of the UK Tourism Society and the UK Institute of Directors.

An accomplished speaker and panel chairman, Cris has spoken at international conferences in Europe, USA, Asia, Middle East and Africa and he has lectured on service performance measurement at the Warwick University MBA course and been an invited speaker at the School of Hotel Management at Oxford Brookes University.

Malin founded Ethos 2007 – a management consultancy specialized in sustainability – where she is now the CEO and Senior Advisor. Malin holds more than 20 years of experience in the sustainability field, with expertise in sustainable supply chains, reporting, strategy development and organizational implementation.

The range of businesses, sectors and countries is wide, from inspections in 200 different countries to engaging in the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as well as corporate consulting within different sectors. Malin is a member of the GRI stakeholder council.

Willem van der Zee embodies innovative and personalized hospitality. He has helped numerous leading global hospitality, lifestyle, and travel companies streamline and optimize their vital business aspects like Operations Management, Asset Management, and People Management.

Since September 2022, he has been responsible for the activities in Belgium as Director of Operations for Pandox; he also holds the position of General Manager of The Hotel Brussels. His responsibilities also include the topic of sustainability. Pandox’ Board of Directors and Executive Management Group are committed to reach the CO2 emissions goals to the Paris Agreement pathway.

Willem’s career started at Hilton and PPHE Hotel Group in the F&B segment and climbed the career ladder at Radisson from 1998 onwards – from F&B manager to GM role to Area Vice President Central Europe Radisson Blu – Park Inn. In 2015, he immersed himself in the world of private equity with Lapithus and was later responsible for over 85 hotels in Europe as COO at Event Hotels. At the end of 2020, he founded his company “Willem & Too” focusing scaling in operations.

Xenia zu Hohenlohe is a Founding Partner/Director with the Considerate Group, a change-making company that helps hospitality businesses operate responsibly.
Xenia began her career in the hotel industry 24 years ago, speaks 6 languages and worked for international hotel groups such as Mandarin Oriental Hotels, Oberoi Hotels and spent various years within sales as well as operations with Aman across the globe.

She joined forces with her business partner Benedetta Cassinelli to create Considerate Hoteliers Ltd in 2012 in order to offer the hospitality sector a platform with hands-on services and innovative technologies for responsible business solutions.

Now in 2021 Considerate Group is at the forefront of creating tailor-made methodologies for the successful integration of sustainability strategies for hotels and tourism companies around the world with their highly skilled team of 12 experts. Their focus is very much on driving companies to perform better financially, have a solid ESG strategy, data transparency and achieving a positive impact for the sector of a whole.

An ecologist by profession, and passionate conservationist and educator, Anthony has developed tourism destinations and commercially successful luxury resorts and lodges across Southern Africa, Australia, UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

He has been recognised for his conservation-based and sustainable approach, receiving National Geographics’ World Legacy Award, the Aga Khan Award, and was recognised by the World Travel & Tourism Council for contributions to Conservation and Sustainable Development Goals. He has worked with the UNWTO, IUCN, UNESCO and The World Bank in developing tourism destinations.

An advocate of Sustainability and ESG principles, he has led the formation of two major Wildlife Reserves in the ME, each successfully balancing tourism development and Protected Area management.

Recently joining Buro Happold Engineering in Riyadh, he is focussing on Sustainable and ESG-based destination development strategy, currently working with the Saudi Ministry of Tourism as Program Director.

As founder of sustainable development consultancy Destination-360, he conducts pro-bono advisory services to destinations on tourism development, conservation and biodiversity protection.

Glenn Mandziuk is an award-winning and internationally recognised chief executive with 25+ years of leadership experience in advancing sustainable practices in tourism, hospitality and economic development. This experience includes engaging with all levels of industry and government on social, environmental, and business issues to establish strategies and programmes that inspire responsible growth. Glenn’s proven track record of fostering collaborative, action-oriented environments allow organisations he has led to thrive and innovate ensuring they remain relevant, influential and an engaging place to work.

Glenn is the new Chief Executive Officer of the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance headquartered in London, UK whose members consist of 17 world-leading hotel companies with a combined reach of over 35,000 properties and 5.5 million rooms – 30% of the global industry by rooms. Prior to joining the Alliance, his forward-thinking leadership approach resulted in organisations he headed in Canada to be acknowledged as global champions of excellence and innovation in sustainable destination management and responsible industry development practices.

He was recently recognised by the International Hospitality Institute as a Top 30 Champion of Environmental Sustainability in Hospitality and Tourism and has been a part of numerous honours from several organizations including the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, World Travel and Tourism Council, World Travel Awards, and Responsible Tourism Institute’s Biosphere Gold Certification (a first in the Americas).

Glenn is currently a director on the Board of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council and the Responsible Tourism Institute and has delivered keynote presentations advocating for sustainable destination management practices in nearly 20 countries covering 6 continents. He has 10 years experience directly in the hospitality industry in family owned and operated hotels and resorts and holds a Master of Environmental Design degree majoring in sustainable tourism planning and is a Registered Professional Planner with the Canadian Institute of Planners.

The speakers of the past years
can be found in the corresponding PDF: