INTERNATIONAL REPORT—Whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, receiving an award, earning a certification, debuting a new product or expanding the business, hotel companies and vendors achieve new milestones on a daily basis. Here’s a look at recent accomplishments:
Herington Named New PureStar CEO
PureStar has appointed Brian Herington as CEO and to the company’s board of directors, effective immediately. Herington has more than 30 years of industrial and commercial experience leading complex, technology-driven businesses both regionally and globally, according to the company.
Herington most recently served as SVP/CCO of Univar Solutions, a publicly traded, global distributor of chemicals and ingredients, following Univar’s acquisition of Nexeo Solutions, where he served as EVP of chemicals from 2016 to 2019. Prior to that, he was a region division head, Americas, at ABB and a president at Thomas & Betts.
During his time at Univar and Nexeo Solutions, Herington was instrumental in driving EBITDA growth and enhancing profitability while placing a consistent focus on improving the customer experience by emphasizing best-in-class quality and service, according to PureStar. Together with the Univar leadership team, he also collaborated to develop the mission, vision and values of the combined company, and implemented cultural and change management plans across the new organization.
Duetto Appoints Chavez, Lim to Leadership Roles
Duetto has added two senior executives in its product and engineering teams. Cheryl Chavez joins as chief product officer, where she will lead the strategy, execution and innovation of Duetto’s full suite of revenue strategy solutions, including GameChanger for open pricing, ScoreBoard for intelligent reporting and BlockBuster for contracted-business optimization. James Lim was named SVP, engineering, where he will be responsible for scaling Duetto’s revenue strategy platform.
Chavez has more than 20 years of experience in product management and scaling SaaS businesses. Prior to joining Duetto, Chavez was chief product officer at Engagio, a B2B marketing engagement software provider. Before that, she spent eight years at Marketo, where she led product management and user experience.
Lim brings more than 20 years of experience building products at scale, including enterprise software, big-data platforms and mobile-consumer solutions. Before joining Duetto, Lim was the SVP of product development at Syapse and led the effort to scale its precision medicine big-data platform, used by the FDA and leading biopharma and healthcare customers. Before Syapse, he was EVP of product and engineering at Enlighted (acquired by Siemens), building and delivering an enterprise internet of things (IoT) real-time data platform and SaaS offerings.
Oracle Hospitality Joins AHLA as Platinum Partner
Oracle Hospitality has become an AHLA Platinum Partner, and is looking forward to enhancing its efforts to drive innovation and accelerate industry recovery. In recent months, Oracle hosted Innovation Week, a digital event designed to transform the best ideas for hospitality solutions into reality, and created the Oracle Hospitality Resource Center, which serves as a global information hub to help industry members with their recovery efforts. It also commissioned a major global study, “A Data-Driven Look at Hospitality’s Recovery,” which surveyed hotel executives and consumers worldwide to gauge how their expectations and actions during the pandemic are shaping the new hospitality landscape.
In addition, Oracle Hospitality released the “Technology Guide for a Touchless Guest Journey,” a comprehensive playbook that converts the research findings into an actionable plan. It provides guidance for executing a contactless strategy, covering topics such as integration challenges, technology budgeting and advice to differentiate offerings with emerging technology.
Mandarin Oriental, Santiago Adopts Assa Abloy Solutions
Assa Abloy Global Solutions has implemented a range of advanced security access platforms at Mandarin Oriental, Santiago in Chile. The hotel’s decision to implement VingCard Signature RFID locks alongside VingCard elevator controllers, panic bars and Elsafe Sentinel advance safes ensures that guests and their belongings are fully protected with the latest security standards while maintaining a seamless and hassle-free hotel environment. With the additional implementation of Polarbar minibars, guests staying at the property can further experience enhanced convenience with a range of F&B options now instantly available in each guestroom.
With the implementation of VingCard Signature RFID on the property’s 310 guestroom doors as well as for several doors within public areas, Mandarin Oriental, Santiago is able to leverage advanced security encryption protocols throughout the premises that protect against the threat of unauthorized keycard cloning. The presence of Signature RFID on both guestroom and common area doors also works to maximize guest and staff convenience by providing the ability to use only one RFID keycard to gain authorized access to multiple on-site locations.
With each of the security access solutions integrated with the Visionline access management system, hotel staff are also able to enhance guest safety with the ability to instantly deactivate keycards that are reported lost or are suspected of being stolen. Visionline can further update staff to potential security threats in real time with the issuing of alerts for issues such as a wandering intruder attempting to use a keycard on multiple doors or when a door has been left ajar.
Agilysys, Adyen Team Up to Extend Hospitality Payment Acceptance
Agilysys Inc. and Adyen, a global payments platform, have formed a new partnership to extend Agilysys customers’ access to frictionless global payments.
Adyen is a unified payments platform that enables merchants to consolidate their payments across stores, markets and channels into one system. Adyen connects directly to Visa, Mastercard and all key payment methods globally, enabling businesses to accept payments online, in-app and in store across regions.
Through Adyen’s integration with the entire suite of Agilysys Hospitality solutions, guests will benefit from an omni-channel experience, from booking reservations to check-in to paying for their meals. Restaurant diners benefit from pay-at-table functionality, including the ability to print the bill, split the bill, and add custom tips—without wait staff needing to leave the table.