The organization

Project cost down 30%. Keys up 45%. Concept to board-approved program in six months. A historic mansion, a boutique hotel vision, and eighteen months of prior work with architects, an owner's representative and a hotel consultant that resulted in ballooning costs and a shelved project.

The tipping point

UpVentures had invested in eighteen months of design work, pre-construction estimates and hotel consultants that produced no operating program, no financial model and no feasibility analysis, while scope and cost ballooned with every pass of the drawings. The experts took a black-and-white approach to the project, attempting to repeat approaches they'd seen work elsewhere, without taking the time to understand why this organization, in this location, at this time, was different and deserved a different approach.

The problem no one saw

Without an operating model that was bespoke and relevant to the geographic location and local economic conditions, the project had been at the mercy of experts more focused on fitting it into the molds they knew than on evaluating it holistically against macro and micro local conditions. The experts came from traditional industries and applied traditional approaches. They couldn't recognize that the needs of the local customers, and of UpVentures as an ownership entity, varied so greatly from those of their other clients.

What we did

Within six months we delivered ownership a detailed operating program built on a lean, modern labor model, set against an upscale experience that will elevate hospitality in the region. Rather than building for the limited local tourism population and being forced to generate demand, we repositioned the majority of the assets to target the local community and their unique needs and opportunities. Behind the model sits a feasibility analysis grounded in local population, economic and competitive data, a five-year projected P&L and a detailed first-year cash flow. We reviewed and modified the architectural plans room by room, completed the kitchen design and equipment layout for the food and beverage concept, and issued and evaluated RFPs for owner's representative, general contractor and architect. We now serve as fractional CXO through design, construction and pre-opening.

Feasibility · Operating program · Financial modeling · Owner's representation · Pre-opening

The organization

$621M in revenue. 3.9 million bookable nights. 8 countries, 45 cities, 250+ locations, 600+ frontline team members.

The tipping point

Sonder built its model on apartment-style buildings with no front desk and no on-site service support, and for a time that model held. Then it grew fast, and the product fragmented across a wide variety of real estate acquisitions around the globe, many of them buildings that had previously operated as hotels. Leadership had underestimated the way guest expectations are formed, and how a mismatch between those expectations and the service delivered can erode the perception and value of an otherwise well-executed product. As scores fell and reviews soured, the assumption remained that the zero-staff model would stretch to fit the new portfolio, which it did not.

The problem no one saw

Guests decide what to expect long before they arrive, drawing on the website, the marketing copy, the photos and reviews, the in-app experience, and finally the physical plant of the building itself the moment they walk through the door. When the service experience didn't match those preconceived notions, it didn't read as a quirky brand choice; guests felt they had been deceived. Nobody had connected the acquired buildings to the dissatisfaction data, and once we did, the fix was clear: the service model had to match what each building promised to the guest.

What we did

We designed three service models, one for each building archetype, and introduced Sonder's first on-site guest-facing roles in select locations. All three models rolled out globally within three quarters, followed by a robust suite of support for on-site leadership, including hiring guidelines, scorecards and manager toolkits, that kept the model on track to deliver results as it matured after launch.

Service design · Operating model · Labor model · Frontline leadership

The organization

600+ frontline team members. 48 locations. Four to five systems per guest issue. A digital-first guest model that only worked if on-site headcount stayed at the minimum each building required.

The tipping point

In-market staff are expensive, and an offshore contact center is not, but even a low-cost overflow bill grows with every property added to the portfolio. Frontline team members were working across four or five systems to resolve a single guest issue, and inbound chats were routed to whoever happened to be available rather than to whoever was best positioned to help, which meant the people already being paid to be in the building were rarely the ones answering.

The problem no one saw

The offshore bill was a symptom of routing and tooling rather than a cost to be negotiated down. Every chat that went offshore because the on-site team member couldn't reach it in time was paid for twice, once for the person in the building and again for the person answering in their place, and leadership had been managing the contact center contract when the real leverage was in the product.

What we did

We led product for Salesforce Service Cloud and rebuilt it around the operating model. Routing now matched each guest chat to the best available person in a deliberate sequence, beginning with someone in the guest's own building and moving out to the market, the city and a sister city before reaching the contact center, all within SLA. Language support became part of the match, and the system maintained its own guest records so that the next conversation finds the right speaker automatically. We consolidated the four to five frontline systems into a single console and, on the guest side, piloted closed-loop AI workflows for the issue types where automation could complete the entire request.

Salesforce Service Cloud · Contact center design · AI workflows · Systems consolidation

The organization

200+ properties. 45 cities. 8 countries. 30 technical workstreams touching frontline service teams and the guest experience.

The tipping point

In 2024 Sonder signed a long-term licensing agreement with Marriott, and our principal was one of ten executives who negotiated and finalized the integration scope. The agreement gave the company eight months from contract signature to a fully implemented pilot — by far the fastest implementation ever undertaken by Marriott, and its first with a blended technology approach. During implementation every property had to integrate eight or more new systems including revenue management, property management, booking, Bonvoy loyalty and CRM, group management, guest service, and payment processing. The company's own cash models made clear that it could not continue if the date slipped, so hitting the pilot timeline was paramount.

The problem no one saw

Six hundred frontline team members at 48 locations had to run daily operations on systems they had never used, from the day of cutover, with no sandbox to practice in and no legacy process to fall back on. The new workflows demanded more hands-on system use than the old ones had, which was especially challenging in Sonder's ultra-lean, modern service approach.

What we did

We led the team that architected the technical and operational solutions across 30 of 32 workstreams. In parallel, we rebuilt the learning and development function so that training and a complete help library were in place before cutover, and we replaced the knowledge management platform with Zendesk on 60 days' notice, a cost-saving decision made in the middle of the integration. Our principal led the build through pilot, setting the teams up with a complete stack for full rollout in the subsequent 10 weeks.

Systems implementation · Change and adoption · Learning and development · Executive negotiation

The organization

$3.5M in new annual revenue at 90% margin. 20% less guest contact. One product, built in twelve months by a five-person team, after the normal product process had passed on it.

The tipping point

Early check-in and late check-out were among the most common guest requests, and the hotel industry treats them as exactly that: requests, approved in real time and never guaranteed, so that a guest cannot plan a flight or a meeting around one. At Sonder these requests represented a meaningful share of guest contact, every one of them handled by a person. A guaranteed, purchasable version had been proposed and deprioritized by the tech team as too experience-focused, with too little revenue to justify a dedicated team.

The problem no one saw

Viewed through the service lens, this was one request creating three costs at once, because it drove contact volume, it disappointed guests who couldn't get a firm answer, and it gave away as a maybe an amenity that guests valued enough to pay for. A single commercial product would address all three.

What we did

We led a five-person skunkworks team across tech, service and operations to build confirmed, guaranteed early check-in and late check-out as a paid product. It was fully integrated into the guest app, purchased through a self-directed flow using the existing payment methods and processing, and on the back end each request drove automated housekeeping schedules so that site teams could capably deliver on the guarantee every time. The product charged for inventory and labor the business was already paying for, and beyond card processing fees and a modest addition to technology costs, it carried no incremental operating cost at all.

Product development · Revenue design · Contact deflection · Guest experience

A note on Sonder: the company ceased operations in November 2025, for reasons unrelated to the work described in these case studies.

The organization

$80M+ invested. Lodging up 200%. A $20M Forbes Four-Star spa. Seven years advising the owner and executive team, from two country inns to a destination resort.

The breaking point

In 2014 Pleasant Rowland, the founder of American Girl, bought back the two inns in Aurora, New York that she had restored years earlier and gifted to Wells College, after the college had let them decline. She returned with a mandate to continue preserving the village and the resources to invest in it, supported by a leadership team that, at that point, saw two charming country inns.

The problem no one saw

The assets were exceptional, and nothing within a three-hour drive resembled them, but the team had not yet recognized the caliber of what they owned or what it could become in Upstate New York. The opportunity was to create a category in a region that had none, and we advocated for luxury boutique resort positioning from the start. That positioning became the reference point for every capital decision that followed.

What we did

Over seven years we advised on market positioning and the capital program behind it, built the financial and operating models used for budgeting and forecasting, coached senior leaders, right-sized teams and delivered frontline training. On the spa we led the strategic vision, the business plan and the detailed architecture and design review. The original plans were flat, and didn't effectively reflect the needs of the purchasing demographic or the reliance on significant local and repeat business. We pushed instead for an experience that changes with the time of your visit: separate treatment wings, a quiet upstairs lounge apart from the more active ground floor of café, lockers and hydrotherapy, a co-ed spa so that couples aren't separated for the day, an on-site café, a dedicated events space away from the main spa, and a salon oriented away from the quiet areas. The resulting product beat all financial projections and has become both an anchor within the resort and a significant financial driver in its success.

Strategic positioning · Capital planning · Spa concept and design review · Financial modeling · Executive coaching

The organization

Six destinations. Teams of 6 to 25. $12M to $60M in real estate per portfolio. Private luxury residences for high-net-worth members across 40 destinations, six of them run by our principal.

The tipping point

Operating costs ran high across the residences and, because ultra-luxury is generally understood to be expensive to deliver, no one questioned whether they needed to be. Most importantly, the constant state of stress was burning out team members who were working double-time to remediate issues before members were impacted.

The problem no one saw

The overspend was not in guest service and support. Instead, housekeeping was running on overtime and maintenance had no preventative program. The lack of rigorous structure and operating systems made every issue an emergency, with emergency pricing or outsized time and effort to reach resolution.

What we did

We restructured housekeeping scheduling and communication, implemented a preventative maintenance program, and built rigor into how residences were stocked and maintained through the busy seasons. The approach was adopted as a company-wide best practice and resulted in Destination of the Year accolades driven by best-in-class member satisfaction scores.

Operations · Cost structure · Property management · Team leadership