Matthew Weihs is Managing Director of Bench. Within this role he focuses on the development of new business opportunities and sales for Bench and partners, whilst also supporting the direction of the business and providing commercial support for new product launches.
First and foremost a passionate development director who has been involved in business-to-business conferences for over two decades. Matthew’s key skills are creating business proposition and finding support to launch and support new events and services for Bench. Having started his event career with IQPC in 2000 he took on many sales related roles before moving to the Guardian News and Media as Sales Director in 2007. Joining Bench in 2020 his main responsibilities have been to develop the business and enact upon a vision for growing and diversifying the business. Since joining the portfolio of events and services has grown to wider hospitality as well as strengthened the existing hotel investment events. With divisions focused in aviation, restaurants and real estate Bench is the leader in hospitality services in EMEA. In 2012 he successfully founded and launched the African Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF) which, in 2019, developed the sister conference (FIHA) Forum de l’Investissement du Hotel Africain. In 2013 development of the Morocco Tourism Investment Forum (MTIF) – gave Bench the impetus to work for clients to produce and deliver invitation only events to aid their marketing. Across Europe (2015) he launched the Mediterranean Resort & Hotel Real Estate Forum (MR&H) (not owned by Bench) and recently negotiated the acquisition of the Adria Hotel Forum and placed this brand in the newly formed IDEEA – Investment, Development in Eastern Europe Assets portfolio. As well as negotiating the partnership with Hotel Analyst to develop the Operational Real Estate Festival (OpRE).

Always keen to spot an opportunity and try new things during the decade with Bench, Weihs has also worked as a Director of the African Chapter of Destination Develop, a full service marketing platform for our investment customers and launched his own business Africa Event Services (AES) where he launched an event for real estate professionals (SPACE – Efficient Buildings Africa) that is now part of the Bench portfolio as it strives to support education and support for sustainable growth and investment in hospitality.

Outside of work Matt, when not busy with his wonderful girls, he is a keen cricket supporter and player and was part of the organisation team behind KiliMadness – the world record breaking “highest game of cricket” – played at 5750m in the crater of Kilimanjaro (raising almost £300,000 for Tusk (conservation) and Cancer Research. Fun and fundraising is never far from his mind and in 2019 he completed an ultra-marathon (100km) raising money for MIND (the mental health charity). Annually he’s been organising a cricket match raising over £8000 for local and international charities.

Eric Hallerberg serves as Oracle Hospitality’s Vice President EMEA Sales. Based in London, Eric leads the sales and account management teams across the region, including both direct -and partner channels.

Eric has enjoyed a varied career across multiple sectors, but he has spent his last 17 years in and around travel technology across the globe. He started in Marketing and Data Analytics with Sabre in Texas and then relocated to Singapore in 2007, where he spent time in Finance and Corporate Development with Sabre’s JV Abacus, before moving to “where the action is”, as he puts it – customer-facing commercial roles. He has been in these roles ever since.

He led sales, account management, and technology teams in APAC while in Singapore and then across EMEA after moving to London in 2013. After leaving Sabre, he established and led the commercial function for a UK-based travel technology scale-up firm, before joining Oracle in April.

Eric has a passion for growth, building strong relationships internally and externally to collaboratively cultivate high-performing teams and drive the success of the customer as a trusted advisor. An enabling leader, his goal is to create the right environment for great people, and then get out of their way, so they can fulfil the critical role of advocate for the customer inside Oracle, and advocate for Oracle in the marketplace.

Before embarking on his technology career, Eric spent time in politics in Washington as well as in academics. He holds undergraduate degrees in History and Finance and a Ph.D. in Economics.

For the last 25 years, he has considered himself an aspiring rock guitarist (which in his own mind is likely to continue as aspirational for the next 25 years). He is a part-time golfer and cricketer, as well as tennis and softball player, but his most recent pursuit is trekking, spurred by a visit to Everest Base Camp in 2016. In his downtime, he enjoys exploring the wide range of experiences that London has to offer.

HFTP is the global professional association for Financial and Technology personnel working in hotels, clubs and other hospitality-related businesses and are the producers of HITEC – the largest Hospitality Technology Event in the world.

Carl was involved with successfully bringing HITEC to Europe for the first time in Amsterdam in March 2017 and 2018 and then in 2019 to Palma Mallorca. HITEC Europe Sessions will run weekly for five weeks this year starting on 26^th May.

Carl has been running HFTP Europe Hangouts (27 to date) for over a year now with over 2,000 attending. Carl was also part of the HFTP GDPR/DPO Task Force in 2018.

Carl was previously Chief Executive of HOSPA for 11 years where he also created HOSPACE (now a major industry event) and received the special ‘Outstanding Contribution to HOSPA’ award in 2016

Carl’s career in Hospitality Finance, Planning and Operations spans 40 years with companies such as Forte Hotels, Holiday Inns International (UK, EMEA and in Brussels for the worldwide International Division), Periquito Hotels, Virgin Hotels, Noble House Group and Regal Hotel Group where he has held positions such as Group Financial Controller and Financial Director often responsible for Techology implementations.

Carl has also worked on special projects in the past through CW Hospitality for companies such as Sodexho, Devere Hotels, easyHotel, Allied Pharmacy, Spaghetti House and a major Scottish Golf Resort

Luc Gesvret is a sales, marketing, digital & revenue management professional with more than 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry gained at Accor. As a highly respected leader he has been responsible for key projects in the Northern Europe region covering 30 countries and more than 1000 hotels, focusing on guest experience and its personalisation, digital transformation and reinvention of customer journey.

Currently based in Warsaw, Luc helds a position of SVP Guest Experience and ALL Accor Northern Europe, focusing on emphasising digitalisation and personalisation to ensure guests loyalty and improve performance of the business. He is a leader, who can easily transform an idea into action, with a clear vision of the future.

He has been associated with Accor since 1989, continuing his career as a General Menager including Novotel Moscow Airport an Novotel Paris Tour Eiffel. For five years he managed properties in Romania, including Pullman Bucharest. In the 2010 he became SVP operations of Accor Czech Republic and Romania. Since 2014 he was appointed as VP Sales, Distribution, Revenue Management, Loyalty and Marketing at Accor Russia. Later in the 2018 he continued his work for Accor Eastern Europe as Chief TOPLINE Officer.

Will Perry is a seasoned hotel professional whose career spans more than two decades in the US and EMEA with major hotel brands including: Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Hilton, The St. Regis, Hampton, Conrad, and numerous independent properties. His experience consists of hotel operations, revenue strategy, sales, hotel development, and asset management. He is an expert in Hotel financial modeling, and he has served as an external consultant on numerous hotel finance projects including debt and equity structures.

He has written a number of industry related articles and co-authored several academic papers on hospitality and tourism. He was featured in in Joseph Michelli’s book, The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company (published by McGraw-Hill).

He is a Certified Revenue Management Executive, and holds a BA from Stetson University, an MBA from Georgia College, and a Master of Human Resources from Rollins College.

Will currently resides with his spouse in Dallas, Texas.

Eric Hallerberg serves as Oracle Hospitality’s Vice President EMEA Sales. Based in London, Eric leads the sales and account management teams across the region, including both direct -and partner channels.

Eric has enjoyed a varied career across multiple sectors, but he has spent his last 17 years in and around travel technology across the globe. He started in Marketing and Data Analytics with Sabre in Texas and then relocated to Singapore in 2007, where he spent time in Finance and Corporate Development with Sabre’s JV Abacus, before moving to “where the action is”, as he puts it – customer-facing commercial roles. He has been in these roles ever since.

He led sales, account management, and technology teams in APAC while in Singapore and then across EMEA after moving to London in 2013. After leaving Sabre, he established and led the commercial function for a UK-based travel technology scale-up firm, before joining Oracle in April.

Eric has a passion for growth, building strong relationships internally and externally to collaboratively cultivate high-performing teams and drive the success of the customer as a trusted advisor. An enabling leader, his goal is to create the right environment for great people, and then get out of their way, so they can fulfil the critical role of advocate for the customer inside Oracle, and advocate for Oracle in the marketplace.

Before embarking on his technology career, Eric spent time in politics in Washington as well as in academics. He holds undergraduate degrees in History and Finance and a Ph.D. in Economics.

For the last 25 years, he has considered himself an aspiring rock guitarist (which in his own mind is likely to continue as aspirational for the next 25 years). He is a part-time golfer and cricketer, as well as tennis and softball player, but his most recent pursuit is trekking, spurred by a visit to Everest Base Camp in 2016. In his downtime, he enjoys exploring the wide range of experiences that London has to offer.

Thomas spearheads the Business Development efforts and Strategic Partnerships for Oracle’s Nor1 Upsell Platform in EMEA. His role focuses on partnering with high-profile hospitality customers to optimize their upsell revenues through the use of Nor1’s suite of products.

After earning degrees in Hospitality Management, Thomas gained extensive experience working in Luxury Hotels in Germany, Switzerland and North America.

Oracle’s Nor1 solutions deliver industry leading upsell products and solutions all built on a core platform that combines a machine learning based decision engine with an optimized operational process. This enables hotels to enhance the guest stay and generate greater revenue throughout the entire reservation life cycle.

Gonçalo Oliveira holds a Management Degree from the Portuguese Catholic University and an MBA from INSEAD, in Fontainebleau. Before joining the Pestana Hotel Group, the largest multinational hotel group of Portuguese origin, Gonçalo was the COO/CIO and Executive Board Member of Tranquilidade, an insurance company. Previously Gonçalo had served as CIO at Galp Energia until 2017, which followed his 12 years at Portugal Telecom (PT), where he was, among other, Head of Information Systems and Board Member of PT-SI (the IT branch of Portugal Telecom). In March 2020 he joined the Pestana Hotel Group as member of the Executive Committee and CIO.

During his professional career spanning over twenty years, Gonçalo Oliveira had several responsibilities in the fields of Digital Transformation, IT, Operations, Customer Care, Strategy and also in Consulting, having worked at McKinsey & Co. Gonçalo lives in Lisbon with his wife and two young children.

Who thinks of people? Casper does.

He thinks about them all the time – because he believes that if we forget about people in this stretching digital age, the one thing that makes hospitality tick will get lost.

Before citizenM, Casper worked for KLM and bol.com, always balancing on the axis of customer engagement and digital.

He now brings this experience to citizenM, a hotel brand which disrupted the traditional hospitality industry by - amongst other things - viewing technology and genuine care as equal in importance.

And that view did not change in the times of coronavirus.

Casper and his team were already working hard on building clever journeys, funky websites and an entertaining app, and now, with new covid-19 demands, they discovered how to bring the contactless promise alive. But if they had built it without thinking of the people, they would’ve missed the purpose entirely.

This is why Casper believes that balancing the digital and the human will remain the cornerstone to the future success of citizenM; and the reason he continues to help citizenM on its journey to be the brand of choice for any modern traveler - even in the new normal.

Michael joined Edwardian Hotels London (formerly known as the Edwardian Group London) in 1997 as Customer Services Manager.

Software Development and data analysis was one of Michael’s passions which he put to good use when he introduced automation and data analysis in the customer services department during his first year with the Company.

By the year 2000 Michael had formed Edwardian’s first ever software development team and through progression, dedication and hard work, is now the Group’s Director of Information Technology.

With 30 years’ experience in the hospitality industry, Michael drives a successful in-house IT team with the objective to increase the personalisation of guest services via sophisticated technology built around Edwardian’s highly specific requirements and in alignment with the Group’s vision of being ‘Memory Makers’ for their guests and employees. The EHL technology team serves 12 luxury properties including their respective F&B portfolio such as Scoff & Banter, Steak & Lobster, May Fair Kitchen and Great British Fish Co. Michael and his team constantly push to make this technology available to a wide range of guests and employees on as many different platforms as possible with a greater focus on mobile devices.

Originally from Morocco, fluent in four languages, Michael graduated in Experimental Sciences and Business Studies before moving to the UK and attending an Advanced Management Programme at the University of Oxford, Templeton College. Michael started his hospitality career in 1987 and gained a vast experience in all areas of the industry from food and beverage to running a multi-lingual reservations and customer services call centre. Over the years, Michael and his team have developed a large suite of hospitality applications for EHL including 30 mobile apps used daily by employees throughout the business.