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Ryan Bifulco – President
Ryan is an Internet and travel pioneer with over 15 years of travel and new media experience. An expert on interactive travel, destination marketing, and tourism, Ryan has been featured on Business Talk Radio's Travel Show, ABC Radio, NY Times, and USA Today. He launched the first ever luxury travel podcast in January of 2006 called journeyPod. He founded and leads Travel Spike, an interactive company offering custom marketing and technology solutions exclusively to the travel sector. Ryan and the team at Travel Spike provide digital strategy, dynamic packaging booking engines, and online travel marketing to over 300 travel clients. Ryan regularly speaks at top industry shows like PhoCusWright, Travel Industry Association, Destination Marketing Association International, and Hospitality Sales and Marketing International. Prior to Travel Spike, Ryan was at LastMinuteTravel.com as VP Strategic Alliances and VP Operations. As a member of the AirTran management team, he established and ran the revenue management, pricing, distribution planning, tour, and e-commerce departments. Ryan launched airtran.com in 1998 and guided it to become the number one airline website according to Salomon Smith Barney. He worked for US Airways in international revenue management. Ryan was promoted three times in three years and was responsible for over $675 million in revenue per year. He received his degree in Economics from Wake Forest University.
Howard Koval - Executive Vice President, Business Development
Howard is a new media pioneer with extensive travel industry experience – spanning all facets of content, technology, marketing and business development. He has spent his entire 25-year career at the crossroads of entertainment, media and technology with the last 10 years focused on revolutionizing the travel industry through innovative digital applications and technologies. Howard has successfully implemented and managed many high level partnerships with companies ranging from AOL to Yahoo. Before Travel Spike, Howard was the founder and CEO of iPace, Inc., a venture-backed online personalization and recommendation platform optimized for leisure travel purposes. Prior to that, Howard was Executive Vice President and member of the founding team of Screaming Media, Inc. Howard actively advises companies on digital strategies and is a regular speaker at many industry conferences. Howard was involved with building the first website for the NY Times and is currently affiliated with the American Film Institute’s Digital Content Lab in Hollywood, CA.
Ori Klein – Chief Technology Officer
As the company’s CTO, Mr. Klein handles all technology research, development, and support. Ori works with the technical team to enhance the company's dynamic packaging, hotel, and attraction ticket engines. A strategic thinker with a strong technical background, Mr. Klein is experienced in managing technical teams and participating in the development processes of travel websites. Mr. Klein has over 15 years of technology experience at the management level. Prior to Travel Spike, Ori founded and led Locust Systems, Inc., a full service application development and consulting company. Earlier, he held the position of Chief Technology Officer of RezConnect Technologies. This public company operating in the franchised travel world as Global Travel Networks has over 400 offices in 21 countries. Mr. Klein supported the complete business-to-business, consumer-to-business and e-commerce strategy for the various web portals.
Ted Perlstein – Vice President of Operations
Ted brings over a decade of experience in e-commerce as a strategy expert (with a focus on the online travel industry). He has held strategy positions at Orbitz, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and LastMinuteTravel.com, in addition to strategic consulting positions at Niche Marketing and Ascenda Partners. Most recently Ted was responsible for driving strategy on the air business at Orbitz that constituted annual revenue exceeding a quarter of a billion dollars. Ted was a founding member of LastMinuteTravel.com and was responsible for the front-end consumer website, as well as the backend solution for all travel suppliers and partners. He has a rare skill set that allows him to understand both the marketing and technical sides to a travel organization. Ted holds an Electrical Engineering degree from Washington University in St. Louis and earned his MBA at Columbia Business School.
David Bowman – Vice President of Sales
Dave brings 30 years of general sales, enterprise sales, technology, and travel experience to Travel Spike and heads up sales and development for the company. Dave has cultivated strong relationships with almost every major hotel chain and property management company during his sales tenure in the hospitality sector. Prior to Travel Spike, Dave was VP of Sales at Computerized Lodging Systems, Director of Business Development at Micros Systems, and has many years of experience with other hotel technology organizations where he consistently exceeded his sales quotas. Dave is a dedicated professional that endorses strategic solution based selling and excellent customer service to retain client satisfaction. Dave was groomed in the advertising industry early in his career. His father was president of Byer & Bowman Advertising Agency employing over 200 people. Dave is a graduate of Boston University with a degree in Marketing and Communications.
Inna Shamis – Vice President of Corporate Communications
A skilled communications professional with over 12 years of industry experience, Inna is the V.P. of Corporate Communications, specializing in online marketing communications, public relations strategy and implementation. Inna worked on one of the first social networks in the travel sector back in 2001. Before joining Travel Spike, she was as an Independent Communications Consultant serving a number of industries. Inna formerly held the roles of Director, Public Relations with Crunch Fitness; and Manager, Marketing & Corporate Communications for Cendant Corporation’s vacation ownership division, RCI. Inna’s career spans a number of industries, having worked with clients in the areas of: travel and hospitality, consumer and professional products/services, food and beverage, fashion and beauty, healthcare and fitness, media and hi-tech. Inna holds a degree from Monmouth University.
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