Leadership Team
Our team is composed of successful start-up veterans with extensive experience in the hospitality, travel, real estate, technology, and commodities trading space.
Lyon Hardgrave
Co-Founder & CEO
Lyon Hardgrave lately held the position of Chief Product Officer for Atomyze, a blockchain startup. He previously was a founder of VAKT, the largest blockchain startup in the energy space. He led fundraising with 14 companies, including Shell, Saudi Aramco, and Reliance, raising a total over $35mm at a valuation near $100mm. Prior to that, Lyon was a Director at Glencore, overseeing trading risk and data. Lyon authored commodities regulation for the NY Federal Reserve. He also spent a decade as a commodity derivatives trader with UBS, SocGen, and Hartree. He has been a featured speaker at many conferences, including OPEC’s Technology Conference in 2019 & 2020. Lyon has a BS in engineering from Rice University and an MBA from Wharton.read more
Rana Basu
Chief Product Officer
Rana is an emerging technology seeker, a commodities trading risk management and systems expert and a blockchain evangelist for the trading and logistics space. He orchestrated the first oil and gas consortium based out of Geneva to work on reducing the friction in oil logistics using blockchain. He is now working on engaging the benefits of emerging technologies such as blockchain and IIoTs (sensors or devices) in the hospitality, social influencer and logistics sector and an organizational readiness toolkit to enable enterprise adoption of these technologies in the Americas, APAC and Arab Gulf areas. Rana shares a vision with many, to pragmatically combine blockchain and other emerging technologies to improve efficiencies in industrial use cases. Rana has a bachelors in Power Engineering from Jadavpur University and a Masters in HR from the Fisher college of business, Ohio State University.read more
Darden Bateau
CFO
Darden has a proven track record of getting businesses organized –from reengineering business process to implementing systems and organizing legal, tax and compliance functions. Darden was the CFO of the privately-held $7B revenue Astra Oil Company and he was the Chief Risk Officer of the $20B Transcor Astra Group. More recently, Darden has worked with RunSure Partners, a closely-held venture group organized to inject capital and management expertise into early stage companies. As Finance Partner, his primary responsibility has been to organize funding and setup legal, finance, accounting, tax, HR, banking and insurance. Previously, Darden was Senior Manager with Deloitte & Touche in its Global Energy Risk Management practice covering North America and Europe. He also held management positions with the Principal Financial Group and Bank of America. Darden graduated Cum Laude with a degree in Accounting from the University of Texas at Dallas.read more
Ilana Grossman
CMO
Ilana is the founder and CEO of B2BOTH, a boutique marketing strategy consultancy based in NY. Ilana’s career has been focused on the intersection of Strategy and Marketing with emphasis in digital channels and innovation. Ilana is an alumnus of The Boston Consulting Group and has held senior positions in leading agencies such as Digitas and Organic. Ilana made the transition to the tech/startup world in 2010, holding positions such as Chief Marketing Officer of Gust, the leading online platform for start-up financing by angel investors worldwide, and Artsy—the leading global online art marketplace. Through B2BOTH she has designed and implemented comprehensive marketing strategies for both high growth and large, established companies. Select clients include Voxy, Faith Popcorn’s Brain Reserve, and most recently, EY. Born and raised in Brazil, Ilana holds a BBA from Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV), in Sao Paulo, and a Masters in Business Admread more
Rama Pakala
Chief Technology Officer
Rama brings over 25 years of experience in building trading systems with a primary focus on hydrocarbons trading. He has played key roles in managing Product design, developing and implementing comprehensive ETRM systems and laying out Product Strategy. He has advised on technology selection, IT stack, ERP/ETRM interfacing, Data warehousing and consolidated reporting among other technology initiatives. Rama is the product manager for our various offerings and the architect responsible for Custom IT Solutions development for various clients (applications for iOS, Android Platforms, Azure Cloud, AWS hosted and self-hosted applications on Windows Platform) and blockchain initiatives. Rama holds a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Houston.read more
Advisory Board
Our advisors are seasoned thought leaders in the hospitality, travel, real estate, technology, investment banking, asset management, market making and crypto trading space.
Terry Jones
Founder, Travelocity; Chairman, Kayak
Best known for founding Travelocity.com and serving as founding Chairman of Kayak.com, Terry Jones has become a powerful voice in the world of entrepreneurship through his numerous speaking engagements and the publication of his books, ON Innovation and Disruption OFF. His career path has established him as a thought leader on innovation in our post covid and increasingly digital world. A graduate of Denison University in Granville, Ohio, Jones, began his career as a travel agent, spent 24 years at American Airlines in marketing and information technology, capping his career as Chief Information Officer of its SABRE division. While at SABRE he led a team of six working on a project that became Travelocity.com. Jones served as CEO of Travelocity for seven years transforming it to a public company with three billion dollars in travel sales. He left Travelocity when the company was taken private and became part of the founding team at Kayak.com, a company that yet agairead more
Gary Beasley
Co-founder + CEO, Roofstock
Gary is co-founder and CEO of Roofstock,an award-winningtechnology-enabled marketplace and investment platform for the $4 trillion Single-Family Rental (SFR) sector. Previously he was co-CEO of publicly-traded Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust (now part of Invitation Homes), and is known as a pioneer in the development of the SFR sector as an institutional asset class. Gary also served as CEO of boutique hotel company Joie de Vivre Hospitality and award-winning solar technology start-up Greenvolts. Between 2001 and 2007 Gary was CFO ofZipRealty, where he led the innovative Internet-based residential brokerage through its IPO before eventually being named its President. Gary also spent six years with KKR-backed KSL Resorts where he was instrumental in acquiring and integrating over $800 MM of resort properties. Earlier in his career, Gary worked for leading real estate industry firms LaSalle Partners (now part of Jones Lang LaSalle)and Security Capital Group. Garread more
Ronald Homsy
Co-Founder
Ronald Homsy is a successful serial entrepreneur and business consultant in the hospitality, leisure and travel technology space. As CEO, Ronald co-founded the Utopian Hotel Collection, a hotel brand and consortia platform. He led the teams that designed and architected the consortia technology platform and launched the collection with a go-to-market comprising 45 luxury properties in Europe. For this, he productively raised a total of $4MM at a valuation of $11MM. In his earlier career, Ronald founded and led Forte Holding, an international, multi-unit, 800 employee-strong, hospitality management and consulting holding company, where he held the position of CEO for 15 years. During this time, he profitably conceptualized, developed and managed a multitude of hospitality brands and venues in the EMEA region to reach a $70MM yearly turnover. To allow for the sustained business growth, Ronald co-orchestrated the set-up of Dream, a $20MM private equity fund, which wasread more
Hubert Viriot
CEO, Yotel
Hubert Viriot joined YOTEL in May 2014 to roll out an aggressive growth strategy targeting key city centres and international airports in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. Prior to his appointment as the CEO of YOTEL, Hubert was CEO of Raimon Land PLC, a leading real estate developer listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). During his four-year tenure in Thailand, Hubert orchestrated the successful turnaround of Raimon Land and increased the company’s development portfolio from USD200M to USD1.1Bn. Raimon Land's stock was one of the top 5 performing stocks on the SET and incorporated in the SET 100 Index. Previously, Hubert spent four years as Vice President of Investments & Acquisitions with IFA Hotels & Resorts, YOTEL’s parent company, and five years with HVS, a global consulting firm focused on the hospitality, tourism and real estate industries. Hubert has a BS degree in International Management from the University of Wales and a BS degree read more
Sean Brecker
Chief Financial Officer, Headspace
Sean Brecker is Chief Financial Officer of Headspace, a global leader in meditation and mindfulness with over 65 million users across 190 countries. After joining the company in early 2014 with a strong economic and business background, Brecker’s initial months at Headspace were pivotal in raising the company’s first round of funding in 2015, led by investor The Chernin Group. In 2017, Headspace raised an additional $37M in a Series B round led by Spectrum Equity, bringing its total funding to $75M. Other Headspace investors include Advancit Capital, Allen & Company, Breyer Capital, Jessica Alba, Jared Leto, Ryan Seacrest, Jeff Weiner, and more. In 2020, Headspace raised a total of $93 million in its Series C funding round. The round was led by blisce/, with participation from Waverley Capital and Times Bridge. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Sean is the driving force behind all financial and commercial matters, overseeing the growread more
John Cavalieri
Executive Vice President, PIMCO
Mr. Cavalieri is an executive vice president and asset allocation strategist at PIMCO, based in the firm’s Newport Beach, CA headquarters. In this capacity, he oversees a $19 billion multi-asset product suite. He also serves in a leadership capacity in PIMCO’s firm-wide product governance processes and committees. Previously, he served as an inflation solutions strategist and also was a member of the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index Advisory Committee. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2003, Mr. Cavalieri worked a software start-up, xSides Corporation, as the director of finance. Before that he worked in the investment banking division at Credit Suisse First Boston. He has 23 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.read more
Richard Haddad
CEO, Jannah Hotels and Resorts
With over two decades of experience in the hospitality industry, Richard spearheads the vision of the company from A-Z, driving the company’s growth strategy, increasing operational efficiency and overseeing the next phase of development ensuring that every step from well-devised strategies through to detailed operational management initiatives are delivered professionally and efficiently. He is also leading the development of the upcoming projects and hotels. Haddad previously held managerial positions across various hotel groups in the Middle East including Monroe Hotels and Vision Hotels, as well as Director of Product Development in Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority. With a keen and balanced focus on staff development and guest experience, Haddad is dedicated on creating a positive environment for the staff, which in turn contributes to the enhancement of the group performance and development.read more
Michael McCartan
Chief Growth Officer, Atomize
Michael McCartan is a travel technology professional and advisor. In his 20-year career he has held roles in software product management, business development, solution engineering, professional services and project management. Michael has also held executive positions at eRevMax, RateGain and Duetto (where he spearheaded the SaaS start-up’s launch and expansion in EMEA). He has extensive experience in developing customer engagement models bringing internal operational rigour and clarity to cross functional teams to deliver customer value and grow revenues. He is a frequent speaker and panellist at travel industry events on revenue optimisation and distribution.read more
Edouard Hindi
CIO and Founding partner, Tyr Capital
After successfully completing his McGill Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering in Canada and his INSEAD MBA in France at the age of 24, Edouard was one of the handful of students accepted in the banking industry in 2002. Between 2002 and 2008 Edouard rose from the prestigious Deutsche Bank graduate program to head out the Bank’s energy proprietary trading desk. He left the banking world in 2008 to join Geneva Energy Markets(GEM) at ground zero taking it from a relative unknown to the biggest market maker, liquidity provider and proprietary trader in the energy space in less than two years. In 2011 he left GEM to establish the Hartree Partners’ energy arbitrage and market making business that ended up being among the most profitable desks two years in a row. In 2013 Edouard decided to expand his arbitrage and market making strategy into other commodities together with Nick Norris launched an over the counter trading business, Oak OTC. In 2018 Edouard, Nick Norris and Niread more