Hospitality and travel software provider RateGain, which is headquartered in India with an office in Irving, has appointed veteran hospitality executive Peter Strebel as president for the Americas region and tasked him with leading the company’s expansion in the Americas.
Strebel most recently served as chairman of Omni Hotels & Resorts and was Omni’s president from 2018-2022, according to LinkedIn. He will take the reins from Chinmai Sharma, who was with RateGain for more than five years.
“The next phase of RateGain’s growth requires a leadership team that can help us outsize the impact we are making on our industry, and I am quite certain that Peter will help in bringing that to RateGain,” founder Bhanu Chopra said in a statement. “His experience in leading operations, sales, and marketing will be critical for us to drive more well-rounded growth as we aim for our next big goal.”
Aiming to ‘change the status quo’ in hospitality
RateGain said it intends to accelerate growth and double its revenue within the next three years, and that Strebel brings knowledge of the industry and experience in the region.
Among the positions that Strebel has held are executive vice president and chief marketing officer for the Wyndham Hotel Group, where he later was president before returning to Omni. Strebel has held board memberships in organizations such as the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) and the Incarnation House in Dallas, RateGain said.
He was involved in the rebranding and repositioning of Wyndham Worldwide during its acquisition by Cendant Hotel Group.
“Having built a career by continuously identifying new areas of investment and innovation to change the status quo, I believe that RateGain is also trying to do the same for the hospitality industry,” Strebel said in a statement. “The opportunity to do that for over 100,000 hotels excites me about this opportunity.”
Adding tech expertise and tech-focused hospitality firms
RateGain said it also is adding industry veteran David Peller, who has experience at Google and Booking.com, as a board adviser.
Chopra said that Peller would be key in helping RateGain scale up its technology offerings as he has also led Amazon’s travel and hospitality division.
RateGain boosted its presence in the enterprise segment within the Americas region through acquisitions. The Americas region has become a large contributor to the company’s overall revenue.
Earlier this year, RateGain acquired Adara, a Silicon Valley-based firm in travel martech and predictive consumer intelligence. The deal was RateGain’s fourth acquisition, but the first after the company went public in 2021, Skift reported.
RateGain acquired Dallas-based hotel distribution tech company Distribution Hospitality Intelligent Systems Co. in 2018 and BCV, a Chicago-based social media management and strategy company focused on the hotel sector, in 2019.
Get on the list.
Dallas Innovates, every day.
Sign up to keep your eye on what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth, every day.
R E A D N E X T
-
Sylvia Trent-Adams has become the seventh president of The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth and the first black woman to lead a health science center in Texas. Her appointment was made formal this week by the school's board of regents. Adams was selected by the regents as the sole finalist for the position on Aug. 19 after an eight-month national search. State law requires university governing boards to name finalists for a presidency at least 21 days before making a permanent appointment. “From the first time I set foot on the HSC campus in January…
-
Trick Rider will pay homage to a legendary woman trick rider from the 1940s and '50s. Its spirit will be encapsulated in an astonishing light sculpture suspended over the bar: a 16-foot-long, nine-foot-high crystal horse chandelier made from 4,075 "bohemian cut" crystal beads.
-
To celebrate Dallas Arts Month, the Omni Dallas Hotel is displaying 16 animations by UTD Projection Mapping Lab students on select nights through the end of the April, from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m.
-
India-based Mastek, whose U.S. headquarters is in Dallas, announced that Vijay Iyer has been appointed as president of the Americas and will be based in and operate from the United States. “Vijay comes with extensive experience in driving revenue and value creation for clients in global IT services organizations. I look forward to Vijay’s leadership as we accelerate growth from account mining, large deals and focused vertical go-to-market motions in healthcare, manufacturing & tech, and retail/consumer industries in the Americas,” Hiral Chandrana, global CEO, Mastek Group said in a statement. Mastek is a turnkey digital engineering and cloud transformation partner…
-
Four years in the making, the Home of PGA of America opened its doors for a "Welcome Home Celebration" on Monday. The state-of-the-art building at PGA Frisco is a symbol of the future of the organization and the game of golf.
