Stewart’s interest in airline ancillary revenue and customer reward and retention (loyalty) programmes comes from his years of business and leisure flying as a fare paying passenger and his passion for leveraging customer satisfaction to deliver business value.

Maria Walter is the Director of Merchandising for United Airlines, responsible for developing and executing the ancillary revenue strategy for the company.  Maria has been in the airline business for over 10 years, with experience in revenue management, interline revenue strategy and marketing.

Maria and her team have led the industry with initiatives such as the introduction of the domestic second bag fee and the recent launch of Travel Options by United, an innovative suite of products and services customers may purchase to enhance their travel experience.  By implementing Travel Options, a simple, yet powerful upgrade program, United has been able to provide their frequent flyers a better in-flight experience, allow less frequent flyers to upgrade when they choose, and make a significant contribution to the company’s profitability.

Dan McKone is a Partner in L.E.K.’s Retail & Consumer practice and has been with the firm’s Boston office since 1995. He is a leader in driving customer loyalty and has advised a wide variety of global clients on topics of growth and business transformation.

Dan has directed nearly 200 major consulting engagements spanning mergers & acquisitions, new concept development, pricing strategy, market positioning, organizational design and new business launches. He also manages a number of the firm’s major direct selling relationships. A sample of recent projects include:

Direct Selling
Developed international growth strategy for a direct seller with a leading party-plan model.

Worked for 2 years with a top global MLM on a successful acquisition-led transformation strategy.

Performed sourcing risk assessment for an international direct selling company.

Analyzed and profiled the direct selling landscape for a major private equity player.

Other Retail & Consumer
Developed a pricing and category strategy for multi-thousand unit retail chain.

Created and launched a winning services business for a Fortune 500 retailer.

Developed a new merchandising framework for a major food and beverage company.

Devised a new product development strategy for core category of global consumer products company.

Dan originally comes from a finance background and, prior to joining L.E.K., worked in Latin America for a large multinational corporation. He has an MBA The Wharton School and was awarded an AB, Magna cum Laude, from Dartmouth College with dual majors in economics and government.

Raphael Bejar spent 15 years in the airline industry studying finance and purchasing methodology before creating Airsavings in 2001. Having worked previously with Jet Finance, Credit Foncier, and SH&E, he had the experience and vision to apply group purchasing business models familiar in other industries to both the cost reduction and ancillary services area of airline operations.

Through his company, Mr. Bejar has created cost saving opportunities for low cost and mid-sized airlines heretofore unattainable except by industry giants. Three years ago, he combined his innovative group buying technique with burgeoning web services technology to provide ancillary revenue solutions to those airlines as well. Mr Bejar holds a degree in aeronautical engineering from the ESTACA in Paris and a postgraduate degree in Banking and Finance from Paris University.

Kyle Moore has been with Sabre for over 10 years, with experience across a variety of disciplines. He currently leads the Product Marketing team responsible for setting Sabres product strategy across the air and ground distributions spaces, as well as the Sabres Enterprise Data Management strategy. For airline distribution, this includes identifying where Sabre evolves its core participation, its connectivity tools, its point-of-sale shopping technology, and its inventory solutions.

Prior to this, Kyle had marketing responsibility for hotel distribution and a large variety of Sabres solutions offered to airlines for their internal automation needs, including tools to facilitate crew management and airport staffing, loyalty tools, cabin services, and reservations point-of-sale tools. He also has experience in corporate travel management and online travel, as well as traditional agency shopping and booking behavior.

In addition to these roles, Kyle has worked in corporate strategy and business development, participating in several of Sabres largest partnerships and acquisitions, as well as in corporate finance.

After completing his MBA, Kyle started his career in finance at American Airlines, where he also focused on risk management. Kyle and his wife, Nancy, were married in 1996. They have two children, a son, Alexander, born in 2002 and a daughter, Sydney, born in 2004.

Mr. Brownlow is Vice President with InterVISTAS Consulting where he leads the company’s revenue management practice. Mr. Brownlow has over 24 years of airline commercial management experience and has held positions in product management, route planning, fleet evaluation, pricing, product distribution and revenue management. He has been consulting in revenue management since 1992 and has led revenue management studies for the full range of business models from international to regional airlines and from traditional legacy to low cost carriers. Mr. Brownlow’s revenue management clients have included Japan Airlines, KLM, TWA, SpiceJet, GoAir, liat, and Copa Airlines.

Prior to joining InterVISTAS, Mr. Brownlow held positions as President of Sherpa Decision Systems, Senior Consultant with Aeronomics Incorporated, and Market Development Manager with Air Canada. Mr. Brownlow is the creator of InterVISTAS’ revUP! revenue management system and IATA’s Airline Business Simulation Model.

Adam Bauer is President of Air Meals, a software provider that enables an airline’s passengers to book in-flight services at time of ticketing and check-in that are delivered directly to their seats. Air Meals’ flagship product, AM-1, recently won a prestigious Mercury Award from ITCA.

While Managing Principal for a management consultancy, Adam was entrusted by executives at Fortune 500 firms to solve some of their most important IT challenges, including retail banking which passed through an identical movement that airlines now find themselves entering. Air Meals is his second internet commerce company that he co-founded and led. Academically, he holds two undergraduate degrees in business and an MBA along with honors and distinctions.

Adam lives near San Francisco, California and enjoys outdoors sports, is an active member of his church, and is married with two young children.

Carrie DeMoss is a Manager of Industry Solutions in the Product Marketing and Development division at Airline Tariff Publishing Company. Ms. DeMoss has 23 years of airline industry experience. She joined ATPCO in 2006 and since joining has had primary responsibility for marketing and development of Automated Reissues and Refunds, Optional Services, and Branded Fares. Prior to ATPCO, Ms. DeMoss spent 11 years with American Airlines in the areas of Reservations and International Pricing. In 1997, Ms. DeMoss joined Sabre Holdings, Inc. as a Business Analyst in Fares and Pricing Development focused on numerous core pricing funtionalities such as Pricing Unit and Automated Reissue Pricing.