People on the move at Commonwealth, Island Hospitality

Executives in the hospitality industry have taken new roles. Here’s a look:

Commonwealth Hotels appoints Mark Aftanski as VP, operations
Mark Aftanski has joined Commonwealth Hotels as VP, operations, where he oversees a group of diverse assets, providing leadership to achieve hotel performance, guest satisfaction, associate engagement and owners’ investment goals.

He brings more than 25 years of brand and multi-unit experience to his new role; he most recently was COO for ChrisBro Hospitality. Prior to that position, he served as VP, operations with White Lodging, where he was responsible for suburban and urban properties encompassing Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Starwood and IHG brands.

Island Hospitality Management names Abou-Ghannam to IT post
Island Hospitality Management, a third-party management company for select-service and upscale extended-stay hotels in the U.S., has appointed John Abou-Ghannam as SVP, corporate IT ops & business intelligence.

Abou-Ghannam joined Island Hospitality Management in 2004 as a financial analyst and has worked his way up the ranks and has successfully implemented initiatives that further its business goals, according to the company. Additional accomplishments include developing an Enterprise Windows application to streamline complex processes related to hotels and corporate operations and spearheading the cloud migration of the company’s IT infrastructures and technology platforms.

In his new role, he is responsible for building a responsive business intelligence team that delivers results through aligning technology initiatives with business goals, with substantial improvement to solutions delivery, standardization, business and processes performance.