Mike Flaskey

November 11, 2024

Dear Global Crew,

I’m thrilled to announce two new appointments to our leadership team.

On November 1, Liz Crisafi joined Hornblower Group as our Senior Vice President of Marketing, leading marketing, brand, communications, revenue optimization, digital, and data strategy across our global portfolio of businesses.

Liz comes to Hornblower with more than two decades of experience in global brand building, performance marketing, and digital transformation. Most recently, Liz was the Global Vice President of Integrated Marketing for IHG Hotels and Resorts, where she led a diverse global team responsible for IHG’s digital commercial performance, brand growth, and integrated customer marketing across 19 hotel brands and 6,000+ hotels worldwide. Charged with continuing IHG’s growth trajectory and optimizing marketing’s role in commercial performance, she successfully drove consistent outperformance in market share/RevPAR & EBITDA. As a key player in IHG’s recovery post-Covid, she also helped put IHG on the map as a leading hotel brand with the global launch of IHG Hotels and Resorts and IHG One Rewards campaigns, including the largest and most comprehensive media investments in company history.

Liz, who resides in Atlanta, Georgia, will report to me.

In addition, today we welcomed Cyrus Kelley as our new Senior Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis. Cyrus will lead the company’s financial strategy, overseeing budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting and ensuring we continue to meet business objectives.

A people-first finance leader, Cyrus has more than two decades of experience delivering profitable sales growth for billion-dollar brands. Most recently, Cyrus was Vice President of Finance and Strategy at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews. Playing a pivotal role on the senior leadership team, Cyrus partnered with the CEO to develop a comprehensive “North Star” strategy that significantly enhanced guest satisfaction and improved team member retention. Under his leadership, Red Robin experienced a 33 percent increase in profitability in 2023.

Reporting to Chief Financial Officer Frank Dunsford, Cyrus will join our growing executive team in our Orlando office.

Please join me in welcoming Liz and Cyrus to Hornblower Group!

Mike Flaskey

CEO, Hornblower Group

November 4, 2024

Dear Global Crew,

I’m pleased to announce several foundational changes in Hornblower Group’s IT organization.

Reflecting our commitment to building a stronger, more cohesive organization, these changes will enable our IT teams to better meet the needs of our businesses and will more effectively align our resources to maximize their impact.

These changes are summarized below and are effective immediately.

Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Technology Officer: I’m thrilled to share that Stewart Alpert will lead our IT organization through these changes in this newly expanded role. Stewart, who joined Hornblower Group in 2022, has been an innovative and hands-on leader and will be pivotal in overseeing this evolution of our IT organization.
Enterprise Applications Group: To streamline our approach to enterprise software—from development and purchasing to implementation and support—we’re consolidating all enterprise applications into a new, centralized group, reporting directly to Stewart until a permanent leader is selected.
Field IT Team Reorganization: The IT specialists who support Hornblower’s ports globally will now report under the unified leadership of Craig Corbin, who has been promoted to Senior Director of Field IT. This move enables more cross-training, consistent practices, and strategic utilization across our locations.
Core and Infrastructure Team: Led by Tim Bankert, Director of Information Systems, this team will maintain the responsibilities of our previous systems team, focusing on delivering infrastructure solutions.
End User Computing: To enhance end-user support, we are centralizing help desk functions, user training, provisioning, and device management under Tim Claffey, Director of End User Computing.
Software Development and Engineering: Matthew Thurmaier, Senior Director of Software Engineering, will lead the software development division, which will continue to include application development, integration, and DevOps and will welcome the data science and Salesforce engineering teams to the group.
Office of the CTO: As Office of the CTO Chief of Staff, Lucas Mitchell will lead our newly established Office of the CTO, which will bring together the Project Management Office, IT FinOps, research and development, and standards to drive strategic initiatives and oversee project management across the organization.
Cybersecurity: Our cybersecurity team will remain a separate function under the leadership of Dirk Karjack, who was recently promoted to Deputy Chief Information Security Officer/ Senior Director.

With these updates in place, I’m confident that our IT organization will drive innovation and elevate our services as we enter this new era of transformation and growth. Please join me in congratulating and supporting Stewart and all our IT leaders in their roles and responsibilities as we move forward together.

Mike Flaskey

CEO, Hornblower Group

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