Following the appointment of Jack Blaha as CEO, Cendyn announces the appointment of a Chief Financial Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Product Officer and the promotion of long-standing Chief Marketing Officer to President & Chief Marketing Officer
Cendyn, a catalyst for digital transformation in the hospitality industry, today announced the appointment of four new executives to its management team, as well as one significant promotion. The new personnel include Chief Financial Officer (CFO) B Papadakis, Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Alifya Curtin, Chief Product Officer (CPO) Chris Egan, and Chief Operations Officer (COO) Alan Rudolph. Long-standing Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Michael Bennett was also promoted to President and Chief Marketing Officer, taking on further responsibilities within the company.
Michael Bennett brings more than 25 years of international hospitality management experience to the twofold roles of Chief Marketing Officer and President at Cendyn, having previously worked with companies such as KSL Capital, White Lodging and The Nature Conservancy International. His specialties lie in global marketing, eCommerce, and digital implementations with an emphasis on profitable growth through an increase in customer lifetime value. Michael is based in San Diego where he resides with his wife and two daughters.
B Papadakis, the company’s new CFO, brings a wealth of experience to the role, having previously served in top-level financial positions with organizations (such as Precisely, Eze Software and Velcro Group) across the global professional landscape. As a Masters in Taxation graduate of The D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, she is set to bring an unrivaled skill set and peerless attention to detail to bear on Cendyn’s continued rise. Her background in PE-backed growth and acquisitions, advanced multinational tax, debt and treasury management and facility with core professional tools is set to put Cendyn in its strongest fiscal position yet. When she isn’t helping Cendyn expand its reach, B enjoys running, restoring antique furniture, and spending time with her husband and daughters at their home in New Hampshire.
Alifya Curtin, Cendyn’s newly appointed CLO, brings over 20 years of legal experience to Cendyn, including experience in commercial law, M&A, intellectual property, data protection and privacy, employment law, corporate governance, and litigation. Cendyn is the fourth company at which Alifya has led the legal department, having previously filled the role at car2go, Khoros, and ICON. Before taking her acumen in-house, Alifya was a litigator in both New York and Texas, where she focused on cases involving securities law, commercial law, and product liability. Born and raised in London, England, she now lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Josh and two daughters. Alifya loves dessert, traveling, and running (in that order).
Cendyn’s new CPO Chris Egan will be responsible for product management and the company’s product strategy. He brings extensive experience in enterprise software to Cendyn after having filled the role of Chief Strategy Officer at Lone Wolf Technologies. During his time at Lone Wolf, Chris was responsible for Product, UI/UX, and Corporate Development/M&A. Prior to that, he has served in varying capacities for organizations such as PeopleAdmin, Monitor Deloitte, and NASA. Chris resides in Austin, Texas, and is a graduate of Baylor University. Outside of work, he enjoys powerlifting, travel, and golf.
Alan Rudolph, Cendyn’s recent COO appointment, has more than 25 years of experience across B2B enterprise SaaS, cloud computing, technology applications, and professional/managed services. His expertise is focused on aligning customer services, customer success, and operations, with an emphasis on product/offerings adoption, time to value, and customer satisfaction. Prior to joining Cendyn, Alan was Global Client Success Leader for Rimini Street, a $400 million publicly traded company focused on third party Enterprise Support and Services for IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and SAP products, with savings of up to 90% on the total cost of Support. Additionally, Alan served as COO at Mitratech, an enterprise SaaS company focused on legal, risk, and compliance, as well as in executive roles at Apttus (now Conga), Sungard Availability Services, Polycom, ACS Xerox, IBM Corio, Hackett Answerthink, and Oracle. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Accounting from Franklin & Marshall College, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Drexel University.
These appointments come on the heels of the recent naming of Cendyn CEO Jack Blaha. As a graduate of West Point Military Academy and the University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business, Jack is an astute leader who brings extensive CEO and executive-level experience to Cendyn thanks to previous roles at several industry-leading technology companies (including Khoros, Lone Wolf Technologies, PeopleAdmin, and Aptean).
“In many ways, 2023 is shaping up to be our strongest year ever as a company,” said Jack Blaha. “I’m tremendously confident that the newest members of our executive team will offer strong leadership to the company as we navigate a course toward even greater levels of success.”
Cendyn has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years following mergers with NextGuest and Pegasus in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The company also added digitalhotelier to its family of products in 2022. Additionally, Cendyn has made significant inroads into the Indian and Asian Pacific markets as of late and has taken home honors for “World’s Best Data Driven Marketing Agency” and “World’s Best Hotel Sales Proposal Solution” at the 2nd Annual World Travel Tech Awards in 2022. Additionally, the company’s Central Reservations System has ranked #1 with Hotel Tech Report for six years running.
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