Board of Directors

Stephen Joyce Chief Executive Officer Rezgo OpenTravel Board, Chair

Stephen Joyce has been working as a travel & tourism technology consultant since 1995. He is a graduate of Capilano University, holds a certificate in IT Management, and is a certified commercial pilot. 

In 2005, Mr. Joyce and his company, Sentias Software Corp. began development of Rezgo.com, a cloud based software as a service tour and activity booking engine for in-destination tour operators. 

Mr. Joyce is also very active in fostering tourism technology and is the founding President of the North American Chapter of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT North America).

Mr. Joyce is the publisher of the Tips from the T-List books, a ground-breaking book that brings together travel industry bloggers from around the World and is also a contributing author for Tnooz.com, a leading travel technology media site.

Gianni Cataldo Vice President and General Manager Americas Datalex OpenTravel Board, Vice-Chair

Gianni Cataldo is Vice President and General Manager Americas for Datalex.  With 20 years experience in travel distribution product development, Mr. Cataldo is now focused on developing the Americas region for Datalex.

Datalex is a leading Irish software product development company, focused exclusively on the travel vertical.  Datalex enables travel suppliers to own and control their direct channels of distribution.  The Datalex Travel Distribution Platform (TDP) powers airlines including United, Frontier, Aer Lingus, South African, SAS and leading agencies such as STA.

Mr. Cataldo’s current focus is the enablement of travel merchandizing capabilities. He is a strong believer that travel suppliers do not just need to own direct distribution, but evolve into travel retailers.

He has worked exclusively within the Travel IT field, initially for a major UK leisure travel agency group and subsequently as VP Product Development with Worldspan.  Joining Datalex in 2005, Mr. Cataldo has been actively involved within industry standards bodies, including OpenTravel and ATPCO. 

Andrew Rubinacci Vice President, Distribution & Intermediary Sales InterContinental Hotels Group OpenTravel Board, Treasurer

Andrew Rubinacci is Vice President, Distribution & Intermediary Sales, for InterContinental Hotels Group PLC of the United Kingdom (LON: IHG; NYSE: IHG [ADRs]).  InterContinental is one of the world’s largest hotel groups.  In this role, Mr. Rubinacci is responsible for all Third Party Internet, Luxury Travel and Traditional Travel Agency strategy and distribution for InterContinental Hotels Group’s family of brands.

Mr. Rubinacci is a 20-year veteran of the hospitality industry, with extensive experience spanning sales, revenue management, guest services, hotel operations and e-commerce. Most recently, he served as Vice President, Distribution Marketing, responsible for all facets of IHG’s reservations & distribution for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Rubinacci started with IHG in the managed hotel side of the company in 1991 in the management training program at the Holiday Inn Select in Nashville, Tenn. After that, he continued to serve in management roles at multiple properties, before moving into corporate roles in revenue management, ecommerce and distribution.  Mr. Rubinacci has held roles of increasing responsibility with InterContinental Hotels Group, Bristol Hotels & Resorts, and Meristar Hotels & Resorts.

Buddy Altus Director Electronic Distribution, Online Marketing Group Avis Budget Group OpenTravel Board, Member

Buddy Altus is Director of Electronic Distribution in the Online Marketing Group at the Avis Budget Group.  Mr. Altus’ responsibilities include managing product development and business from third party e-commerce applications and services.  This includes ABG’s XML interface, the private label booking engine used by airlines, corporate accounts, and travel agencies, ABG mobile sites, and Global Distribution Systems.

Mr. Altus' experience prior to ABG includes e-commerce companies in music and content protection and another in group buying.  Additionally, he spent 10 years at American Express where he was part of the team that developed AXI, American Express’ first corporate booking tool.  Before Mr. Altus moved to travel and e-commerce he developed programming language software at Intermetrics.

Vicki Bias Sr. Manager, Technology United Airlines OpenTravel Board, Member

Vicki Bias has spent 27 plus years with Continental Airlines; 15 of those years were in the field.  Ms. Bias entered Continental’s Technology department as a subject matter expert having done everything but fly a plane, fix a plane or be a flight attendant.  She considers herself a translator as she speaks “airport”, “airport systems” and “technology” and can assist the business groups and development teams more efficiently communicate. 

Ms. Bias began participating on the OpenTravel Air Work Group as a representative of Continental Airlines in 2003.  She was co-chair of the Air Work Group and Air Representative on the Interoperability Board from 2006-2010 while simultaneously representing her company on the IATA XMLWG.

Ms. Bias works as a Project Manager on assorted technology efforts, some design and development initiatives as well as SME to most any development project. 

Harold Dibler Managing Director, IS Client Services & IS Development Best Western International OpenTravel Board, Member

Mr. Dibler has over 25 years of application development and systems integration experience in the education, manufacturing, financial and hospitality industries and is currently responsible for software architecture, development and integration for Best Western International, Inc. - The World’s Largest Hotel Chain®. Best Western is comprised of over 4,000 properties in over 80 countries. His customers consist of Best Western member hotels, international affiliate offices worldwide and corporate staff.   

As part of Best Western International’s technology strategy, Mr. Dibler has been instrumental in the adoption and implementation of several mission critical business services utilizing XML and OpenTravel standards.  Best Western has been a member of OpenTravel since 2000.

	Cindy Falschlehner Global Product Executive, Passenger Service Solution Hewlett-Packard Company OpenTravel Board, Member

Cindy Falschlehner is the product executive responsible for the development and maintenance of the reservations and departure control suite of products across HP’s global current client base.

Ms. Falschlehner has 20 years of experience in the information services industry supporting travel and transportation clients with a career focus on client management, sales and financial discipline as both an account executive and product manager.  Since transitioning to her current position in June 2009, Ms. Falschlehner has been responsible for driving the strategy, finances and operation of the reservations and departure control product suite;  managing client pursuits and renewals including the transition strategy to the modernized HP passenger services solution;  managing community governance including user groups, architects councils and working committees across six major airlines and the extended community;  and managing the client engagement model and facilitation of joint funding collaboration among members of the community. 

Ms. Falschlehner previously spent 18 years with EDS, most recently as the account executive responsible for managing the client relationship, delivery, finances and growth of the airline, car, hotel, cruise, and distribution segment of 70+ global clients.

Lisa Fues Director of Reservations, Inventory and Distribution Marriott International, Inc. OpenTravel Board, Member

Lisa Fues is Marriott's Director of Reservations, Inventory and Distribution.  Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE:MAR) is a leading lodging company with more than 3,600 lodging properties in 71 countries and territories. It is ranked by FORTUNE as the lodging industry’s most admired company and one of the best companies to work for.

Ms. Fues is responsible for providing electronic distribution perspective and business requirements, project management, and best practices support to strategic Marriott initiatives in the areas of reservations and distribution systems.  She is a 25 year Marriott associate and has had various roles in eCommerce, leading internal and external systems development projects, product rollouts, and marketing to support electronic sales through marriott.com, GDS, and eChannels.

As part of Marriott's eCommerce organization, Ms. Fues was the business project manager for Marriott’s first Direct Connect interface using the OpenTravel specification.  She has participated in subsequent internal and external Marriott implementations of OpenTravel messages since becoming active in OpenTravel in 2001.

Lew Harasymiw, Esq. Director of Interface Solutions Sabre Hospitality Solutions OpenTravel Board, Member

Lew J. Harasymiw is the Director of Interface Solutions for Sabre Hospitality Solutions, the industry leader in distribution technology and services.  Mr. Harasymiw has been working in technology since graduating from Boston College Law School in 1996.  After working for nearly four years as a consultant, Mr. Harasymiw entered the hospitality industry and in 2000, became one of the founding members of hubX Inc.  At hubX he designed and developed all aspects of the application architecture including PMS integration, booking engines, call center applications, and administration and content management tools.  After hubX was acquired by SynXis in 2004, Mr. Harasymiw continued in his role and was instrumental in the transition to SynXis's RedX platform. 

Shortly after Sabre Holdings acquired SynXis in 2005, Mr. Harasymiw's focus became centered on interfaces.  He is now responsible for the planning and implementation of strategic partnerships and automation with the industry's leading booking sites and property system.  To further those partnerships and industry standardization in general, he is responsible for Sabre Hospitality Solutions's Technology Partner Program and is very actively involved in both the OpenTravel Alliance (Board member, former chair Hospitality Workgroup) and Hotel Technology Next Generation – HTNG (former chair Governance Council, former chair Product Distribution Workgroup).

Vincent Lextrait leads Amadeus IT Group's Travel Services and Leisure software development division, which focuses on developing applications for the Hotel, Rail, Car, Cruise, Insurance and Ferry reservation and IT industries. His division is the most active on the OpenTravel front. He reports to Jean-Paul Hamon, EVP Development.

Mr. Lextrait joined Amadeus in 1997 as Project Manager of the "Unix Project" and soon after he founded the Middleware department. He was appointed Director in 2000, with responsibilities spanning Airline IT Altéa Inventory, Middleware (encompassing front-end and security), and Amadeus API.  An early enthusiastic pioneer of XML, he delivered Amadeus XML API, the first GDS XML API on the market.  During recent years Mr. Lextrait has spent a great deal of his time creating Hotel and Rail IT product portfolios. 

Prior to Amadeus, Mr. Lextrait worked in the professional software business for Compagnie Générale d'Informatique (now IBM Global Services), Matra Marconi Space (Astrium), and ILOG (acquired by IBM in 2009).

Stuart Waldron is currently working as a lead architect at Amtrak for ResNG on their next generation reservation effort. He is leading internal and external (OpenTravel) efforts to define a rail common service model for commodity reservation functions.

Prior to this, Mr. Waldron was the architect for global Travel and Transportation in the IBM Distribution Industry business unit. He was the overall technical lead for IBM solutions, relative to the travel and transportation industry, including a travel industry framework and a recently announced rail offering. He was responsible for coordinating the various technical and product teams in IBM, as well as IBM strategic partners. Mr. Waldron left IBM after 23 years as a Senior Technical Staff Member and was a member of the Enterprise Software Architecture Board and other technical forums.

Mr. Waldron has over 30 years experience in the T&T industry, starting in 1977. He has been deeply involved in every major upgrade of reservation and departure control systems for the North American airlines and active with many international carriers as well. Mr. Waldron has worked for Eastern, United and American airlines.

James White is Director, Global Automation Marketing for the Hertz Corporation, the world's largest car rental company. In this role, Mr. White is responsible for the development and execution of Hertz' global electronic distribution strategy, product development and the management of commercial relationships with GDS and other electronic distribution companies.

Prior to joining the Hertz Corporation in 1997, Mr. White began his travel industry career in 1984 with Budget Rent a Car as a reservations agent. Having held management positions at Budget in operations, marketing and product development, Mr. White became the Director, Global Automation Services in 1990.

Valyn Perini is an experienced travel professional with more than fifteen years in hospitality and travel operations, sales and marketing, systems, consulting, and software development. As CEO of OpenTravel, Ms. Perini oversees the operations of the organization, including developing and executing strategies to reach the goal of standardizing electronic distribution of traveler information in the travel industry.

Her hotel career with InterContinental, Westin and Swissotel spanned sales, catering, operations and systems from the property to the international corporate office. As a hospitality technology consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, she worked for cruise lines, hotel companies, technology vendors and the federal government. As the director of product strategy for Newmarket International, a software development firm that creates applications for the hotel industry, she oversaw product management and new product development.