Chicago - (February 18, 2010) - Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG), announced the election of two more major hotel company CIOs to its already distinguished board. Mike Blake reestablishes Hyatt's presence on the HTNG board, which had until last September been unbroken since the organization's inception. Robert Webb, CIO of Hilton Worldwide, was also elected, and expects to significantly expand Hilton's involvement in HTNG.
"We are honored that these CIOs from the renowned Hilton and Hyatt hotel groups have chosen to support our organization's mission by joining our board" said Douglas Rice, Executive Vice President & CEO. "We are looking forward to the additional insight and experience that they will bring to our already strong and active board."

Michael Blake came to the Hyatt CIO role from his prior position as Vice President of Finance for Global Marketing, Brand Standards & IT for Hyatt Corporation. Blake has over 20 years of experience in finance and technology in various roles, and is charged with providing strategic leadership and sound perspective that contributes to the management and evolution of Hyatt's global IT functions. He is responsible for driving innovation and supporting revenue growth. "I am looking forward to this opportunity to share and interact with counterparts from other hotel companies around the world," said Blake, "and to provide focus for resolving some of the greatest challenges in hospitality technology." Prior to his role with Hyatt, Michael was Senior Vice President of IT for First Data, Vice President of IT Finance at Kaiser Permanente, and Director of IT Finance for Sears, based in Chicago, IL. In each of his roles, he was the highest ranking IT Finance resource and key internal consultant and advisor to national senior leadership teams. Prior to that, Michael was Director of Financial Planning & Analysis for Commerx, a B2B startup, and Director of Financial Planning for United Airlines.

Robert Webb joined Hilton Worldwide as Senior Vice President and CIO in August 2009. Prior to joining Hilton, Webb held a similar position at Equifax, the Atlanta headquartered global credit information and technology solutions provider. Webb has provided leadership for systems strategy, enterprise planning and architecture, information security, technology infrastructure, and outsourcing initiatives across multiple business units since 2004. Prior to joining Equifax, Webb held executive positions at General Electric including CIO of GE Commercial Finance. He has extensive international experience and has lived and worked in Europe, Greater China and Japan as a management consultant for Andersen Consulting and Electronic Data Systems.

HTNG's board of directors, which now consists of 14 CIO-level hotel IT executives, is the key direction-setting body for the organization. HTNG's board actively provides direction and prioritization on the key issues that these industry leaders face in their daily tasks of improving technology for the more than 2.3 million hotel rooms worldwide within the scope of their responsibility. HTNG's board of directors includes most of the world's largest hotel companies, as well as several midsized and smaller hotel groups across a range of hotel types. A full list of board members can be found at www.htng.org/about/index.htm.

Hotel technology professionals who are interested in learning more about work of HTNG can visit the company's website or also consider joining the industry's leaders at HTNG's 6th Annual North American Members' Meeting in Orlando this coming March. More information about that meeting is available at HTNG's event web site: http://www.htng.org/america.
 

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About Hotel Technology Next Generation

The premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG is a self-funded, non-profit organization with members from hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, and other industry members including consultants, media, and academic experts. HTNG's members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards. Where necessary, it also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry

Membership in HTNG is open to hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, academics, press and others. Currently, more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including most of the world's leading hotel companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG's Board of Directors alone represents more than 2.3 million guest rooms - with the total rooms impacted by all of HTNG's hotelier members surpasses 4.3 millions rooms worldwide. Workgroup proceedings, drafts, and specifications are published for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. Specifications are released to the public domain as they are ratified by the workgroup. For more information, visit www.htng.org.