VOILÀ Hotel Rewards Executives

Gabi Kool
Senior Vice President / Managing Director

Before joining VOILÀ, Gabi held the position of Executive Vice President with Carlson Marketing in Asia Pacific. During his six-year tenure, he was instrumental in Carlson Marketing’s entry into China, and also led Carlson’s large scale involvement in the Beijing 2008 Olympics and Shanghai World Expo 2010, supporting many of the world’s leading sponsor brands such as Kodak and UPS with their hospitality programs.

As Carlson’s Global Airline expert, Gabi was responsible for leading the agency’s global airline vertical, supporting ten of the world’s leading frequent flyer programs in the areas of strategy, data mining, marketing communications, operations and IT. As the leader in Asia Pacific for Carlson’s Strategic Account Management project, he also leveraged Carlson’s global leading position in the marketing (Carlson Marketing), travel (Carlson Wagonlit Travel), and hospitality industries (Regent hotels, Radisson hotels, Park Plaza among others) to the benefit of Carlson’s client base.

Before joining Carlson in 2002, Gabi was in charge of the development of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines’ frequent flyer programme, ‘Flying Dutchman’, while working for the Dutch airline in Amsterdam. He is a graduate of the Carlson School of Management Executive Leadership Program at the University of Minnesota, as well as an Alumnus from INSEAD University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

John Pihl
Europe / Middle East / Africa

John Pihl joined HMC in December 2003 as the Director of Business Development, North America, where he was originally based in Newport Beach, California at HMC’s Corporate Headquarters. In January 2005, John was transferred to London to manage Business Development efforts for Northern & Central Europe. With the launch of VOILÀ, John takes on the role of VOILÀ General Manager EMEA.

Prior to joining HMC, Pihl managed sales & marketing activities for Internet & Hospitality firms including JC Resorts in Southern California where he was Corporate Director of Marketing for three years.

Eric Liebman
Asia Pacific

Mr. Liebman, based in Singapore, pilots VOILÀ's efforts in Asia Pacific. Eric has been in the hotel industry for over 25 years – 16 of which have been in Asia Pacific. He has deep expertise in hospitality and brings significant expertise in the areas of CRM, Technology, Distribution and Ecommerce.

Prior to his joining VOILÀ , Eric held several senior roles with the major global hotel brands and was a senior consultant with IBM and IQ Asia, providing expertise to the major airlines and hotel groups in Asia Pacific. Eric holds a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics from the prestigious Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.

Valentina Tang
Americas

Valentina has extensive sales and marketing experience with 4 and 5 star hotels, under the brands of Meridien, Sheraton, as well as independents.  She has been instrumental in the financial turnaround of one property, and significant improvement in REVPAR and market penetration in the others.  Valentina was also opening general manager for a Sheraton hotel in Vancouver, which was awarded second place “Best in Brand” by J.D. Power and Associates amongst over 250 Sheraton hotels in North America in only 9 months of operation.

From 2000 to 2003, Valentina was Vice President and Area Director, The Americas, for Hospitality Marketing Concepts, a global provider of loyalty membership programs and database management services for the hospitality industry.  Her responsibilities included relocating and restructuring the Americas regional office, driving business development efforts, and establishing best practices for customer service and data management.

Valentina is a strong proponent of relationship marketing and has often sought partnership opportunities to create synergy, optimize return, and minimize costs.  Clients benefit from her comprehensive knowledge of CRM and e-Business, and her established network of associates throughout the hotel, airline and tourism organizations.

Peter Gorla
Vice President Program Strategy & E-Commerce

Peter joined HMC in May of 2004. Along with Mokhtar Ramadan, HMC’s CEO, Gorla founded and conceived the VOILÀ Hotel Rewards business unit. As the company’s senior marketing and product development executive, Peter focuses on bringing value to HMC’s hotel partners through the enhancement of our E-Commerce and CRM products. In addition, he is HMC’s Vice President of Marketing.

Prior to joining HMC, Peter was the Chief Marketing Officer for Taunovo Bay, a Fijian resort managed by Rosewood Hotels & Resorts. Before Taunovo Bay, Gorla co-founded the successful Internet start-up MUSICVIDEOS.com, which was acquired by LAUNCH.com (now Yahoo! Music) where he served as the Vice President of Product Development. Gorla received a Bachelor of the Arts from University of California at Santa Barbara.

Richard Cawker
Vice President Finance

Richard Cawker joined HMC in October 1997 originally based at the Corporate Headquarters, California he later moved to Europe to help manage the rapid growth in the EMEA region. Prior to joining HMC Richard worked for Chantrey Vellacott, Chartered Accountants in London as a Senior Manager where HMC were amongst his client portfolio. Richard is an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. He also has a BSc Hons from Lancaster University.

Jeanette Kearney
Customer Services Director

Jeanette joined the VOILÀ Hotel Rewards Management Team with the specific goal of setting up superior worldwide customer services centres, fully supporting the VOILÀ members and participating hotels. Jeanette’s responsibilities are aimed at ensuring the operational teams deal with each member, and, hotel request - quickly, accurately and professionally.

Prior to joining VOILÀ, Jeanette has spent her career in senior operational management roles within the marketing arena in many different European locations and South East Asia. She has been responsible for developing and managing large customer service back office operations for loyalty programs of leading airlines, other travel organizations and various Fortune 500 companies. Furthermore Jeanette has spent many years as a Quality Manager implementing ISO9000 Quality Standard into large companies. She is a qualified auditor of quality systems, is also certified in Six Sigma methodologies and has been the recipient of one of the most prestigious awards in one of the previous marketing / travel companies she worked for when she received the ‘Excellent Manager Award’ based on the highest Gallup score in the company for her ability to lead and inspire her teams.

Khaled Aboudan
Chief Technology Officer

As part of HMC’s senior management team, Khaled Aboudan is responsible for the technical direction, software development and technical assets of HMC. Khaled has been with HMC for 7 years. During this time, he has built the company’s enterprise software foundation and moved the company to modern web-based application architectures. Today, HMC’s business relies on this foundation which is made up of core software business components in addition to sophisticated array of web, application and database servers.

Prior to joining HMC, Khaled had worked for several consulting firms and software development houses in North America and the Middle East. Khaled holds a master degree in Electrical Engineering and Digital Signal Processing from the California State University in Long Beach, CA and a bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California in Irvine, CA. Khaled is Sun Java Certified Programmer and Architect.

Abed Chawa
Chief Information Officer

Abed joined HMC in 1990. He was one of the key people who built HMC’s IT Department to what it is today. Over the years, the IT department has grown from 3 staff members to over 20 IT professionals around the world. Abed is an 18 year veteran who had his hand in all major projects and contracts including non IT initiatives. During his time at HMC, Abed has earned extensive experience in all diverse and extensive IT disciplines and has been highly regarded for his creativity, commitment, professionalism and leadership.

As part of HMC’s global management team, Abed Chawa is responsible for the IT Department infrastructure including hardware, software and personnel worldwide. In addition, he manages the company’s most important asset: the database.

Abed is a graduate of Northern Arizona University, USA in the field of Computer Information Systems. He had lived in the USA for 17 years and has travelled extensively around the world which gave him excellent international exposure to different cultures around the globe. He speaks and writes Arabic and English fluently. Now, and for the past 7 years, he is based in Dubai.

Hospitality Marketing Concepts' Executives

VOILÀ is operated by Hospitality Marketing Concepts (HMC), a company with established expertise in loyalty programmes for major hotel chains and independent properties since 1988. HMC’s offices span more than 50 countries in regions across the globe, including:

• North America
• Central/South America
• Europe
• Middle East
• Asia

Mokhtar Ramadan
President & Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Ramadan, co-founder, is responsible for the overall leadership, direction and development of the Company. Prior to founding HMC, Mr. Ramadan served as Regional Director of Sales and Marketing for Compaq Computer GmbH from 1987 to 1988. Mr. Ramadan received a degree in Business Administration & Electronic Engineering and an MBA.

Marwan Ramadan
Senior Vice President and President of EMEA

Mr. Ramadan, co-founder, has served as Senior Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa since 1997. From 1994 to 1996, Mr. Ramadan served as the Company’s Group Vice President, Americas. From 1988 to 1993, Mr. Ramadan led the Company’s international expansion efforts, initially targeting Canada and Europe. Mr. Ramadan holds a Masters of Economics.

Fadi Ramadan
Senior Vice President and President of Americas

Mr. Ramadan, co-founder, is responsible for the day-to-day management and strategic direction of the Company. Prior to his promotion to Senior Vice President in 2000, Mr. Ramadan served as the Group Vice President for the Americas (1997 to 2000), Group Vice President for EMEA (1992 to 1996), and Vice President of Operations (1988 to 1991). Prior to joining HMC, Mr. Ramadan worked for a predecessor company, serving as Manager of Sales and then as Director of Operations worldwide.