Thank you for coming to Travel Tech’s 2026 Start-Up Summit!
Explore highlights, photos, and what’s next for travel tech innovation.
Travel Tech Association (Travel Tech), the unified voice for the travel technology ecosystem, hosted its second annual Start-Up Summit, which took place on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, at Concorde in National Landing, Arlington, Virginia. The event brought together travel technology founders, investors, industry leaders, and innovators for a day of networking, education, and collaboration focused on advancing the next generation of travel technology companies.
Start-Up Summit Agenda
Connect with start-ups, investors, industry leaders, and innovators over breakfast and get an early look at the start-up showcase tables before the day’s pitches and programming begin.
Bethany Reitsma, Senior Manager of Industry Relations, and Laura Chadwick, President & CEO of Travel Tech Association, welcome attendees and open the Summit. Seth Borko, Head of Research at Skift, then shares a brief research presentation highlighting the latest data on technology, AI, and travel start-up funding.
Learn what investors and industry leaders are watching now, including how AI is reshaping what makes a travel tech start-up fundable, scalable, and strategically valuable.
Panelists: Gilad Berenstein, Founder, Brook Bay Capital; Leslie Adler, Vice President, Business Development & Innovation, Hilton; Johnny Thorsen VP Strategic Business Development, Serko
Moderator: Li Reilly, Fractional General Counsel to Travel Tech Association, BizTechLaw
Hear the first group of Travel Tech start-up pitch competition finalists deliver presentations to a panel of judges, followed by Q&A and an opportunity for attendees to cast votes.
Judges: Gilad Berenstein, Founder, Brook Bay Capital; Scott Hill, Founder and Executive Director, Proxenia Foundation; Chris Joyce, Founder/CEO, Gusher; Steve Reynolds, CEO, CorpTravelTech; Shondra Washington, Founder, TBC-Capital; and Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, Head of Travel Policy, Chase Travel
Meet other travel tech start-ups, investors, industry leaders, and innovators.
Learn what it takes to turn a promising pilot into a lasting partnership — from getting in the door with major travel companies to proving value, scaling adoption, and building relationships that drive growth.
Speakers: Hillary Dallas, Head of Global Travel and Events, Amazon; Steve Reynolds, CEO, CorpTravelTech
Meet other travel tech start-ups, investors, industry leaders, and innovators over lunch.
Join small-group conversations hosted by investors, industry leaders, and travel tech experts on topics such as funding, enterprise partnerships, AI, distribution, visibility, and customer acquisition. Exchange ideas, ask questions, and make targeted connections around the topics most relevant for travel tech innovation.
Expert Hosts:
- Jared Alster, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder, Dune7 (Go-to-Market Strategy)
- Roman Townsend, Managing Director, Belvera Partners (PR, Positioning, and Market Visibility)
- Ethan Weitzman, Chief Compliance Officer and AI Committee Chair, Fareportal, Inc. (Product Development and Legal Risk Management)
- Eric Bailey, Owner and Managing Director, Purposeful Travel Solutions (Launching at Scale, Lessons from Implementing Solutions in Corporate Travel)
- Li Reilly, Fractional General Counsel to Travel Tech Association, BizTechLaw (Pre-Seed Rounds: A Guide for Travel Tech Startups)
Learn what industry leaders and investors expect to shape travel tech by 2027, including AI, buyer priorities, investment trends, and emerging opportunities for start-ups.
Panelists: Jared Alster, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder, Dune7; Seth Borko, Head of Research, Skift; Roopak Pati, Managing Director and Head of Global Travel Technology Investment Banking, Oppenheimer & Co
Moderator: Roman Townsend, Managing Director, Belvera Partners
Hear the second group of Travel Tech start-up pitch competition finalists deliver presentations to a panel of judges, followed by Q&A and an opportunity for attendees to cast votes.
Judges: Gilad Berenstein, Founder, Brook Bay Capital; Scott Hill, Founder and Executive Director, Proxenia Foundation; Chris Joyce, Founder/CEO, Gusher; Steve Reynolds, CEO, CorpTravelTech; Shondra Washington, Founder, TBC-Capital; and Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, Head of Travel Policy, Chase Travel
Meet other travel tech start-ups, investors, industry leaders, and innovators.
Celebrate the pitch competition finalists as the judges’ selections and audience choice winners are announced, followed by brief closing remarks.
Speakers + Judges
Leslie Adler
Vice President of Business Development & Innovation, Hilton
Leslie Adler is the Vice President of Business Development & Innovation at Hilton. She leads the company’s enterprise corporate strategy and directs Hilton’s AI strategy, building relationships with technology partners and prioritizing internal transformation opportunities. She also drives white space growth opportunities and new business development for the company, including the creation and launch of Apartment Collection by Hilton, a new lodging category outside the company’s hotel business. Prior leadership roles at Hilton included brand strategy, luxury & lifestyle, innovation, and customer experience.
Before joining Hilton, Leslie led the development of new business units, products, and services at Choice Hotels International. Previously, she worked in acquisitions and asset management at HEI Hotels & Resorts, a hotel real estate investment fund.
Leslie holds a B.S. from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and lives in Maryland with her family.
Jared Alster
Co-Founder, Dune7
Jared is a marketing leader with 20 years experience working with Fortune 500’s and startups in travel and tech. Jared started his career with advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather working on global brand campaigns for Yahoo! and Six Flags.
Since then, Jared has enjoyed 15+ years in the travel industry. He spent five years running U.S. marketing at Intrepid Travel during a period of hyper-growth for the company. Jared then went onto join Travelstride, a venture-backed marketplace for multi-day tours, as co-founder and Vice President, Marketing.
Upon returning to New York, Jared led the east coast office for luxury tour operator Cox & Kings. Prior to Dune7, Jared was Vice President, Marketing at Rodo, a mobile-first car leasing startup backed by IAC. He’s also an active advisor for both consumer and enterprise startups in the US and Europe.
Outside the office, Jared is an amateur road cyclist and races locally and regionally. He lives in New York with his family.
Eric Bailey
Owner and Managing Director, Purposeful Travel Solutions
Eric works as an advisor to corporate travel companies to define business strategies and opportunities around Purposeful Travel solutions including Digital ID. He recently retired from the role of Director of Employee Travel at Microsoft, where he oversaw travel, payment and events planning for 180,000 employees in over 100 countries. In 2018, and again in 2022, he pulled together industry leaders to publish the Travel Manifesto and later the Purposeful Travel Platform with the goal of aligning suppliers and buyers to provide forward direction and insight for the industry. In 2015, Eric was honored to be named Travel Manager of the Year by BTN. He was also among the Top 25 Influential Travel Executives in 2015 and 2018. Eric was inducted into the Business Travel Hall of Fame in 2023.
Gilad Berenstein
Founder, Brook Bay Capital
Gilad Berenstein is an AI entrepreneur, Board Director, and Venture Capital investor with two decades of experience at the intersection of technology, travel, hospitality, and lifestyle businesses. Based in Seattle, Gilad leads Brook Bay Capital, an AI-focused investment firm backing category-defining companies across travel, hospitality, fintech, and experiential consumer platforms. He serves on the boards of both large, established organizations and high-growth startups, including Virtuoso, Faye, Mindtrip, and ResortPass, and advises CEOs and institutional Investors navigating technological disruption, platform strategy, and long-term growth.
Gilad is widely regarded as one of the industry’s leading thinkers on artificial intelligence, personalization, and what he has termed the “Great Commoditization”; the structural shift reshaping competitive advantage, product differentiation, and power dynamics across industries. His perspective is grounded not in theory alone, but in operating experience: he founded Utrip in 2011, the world’s first AI travel company, which helped more than 200 million travelers and pioneered the first large-scale integrations of AI into many global hospitality brands. Earlier exposure to AI through his father, a machine-learning pioneer in the 1990s, shaped a lifelong focus on applying advanced technology in practical, human-centric ways. In addition to his board and investment work, Gilad is a frequent keynote speaker at major global conferences (including Skift, Phocuswright, Arival, Forbes Travel, etc.), co-hosts the Travel Tech Insider podcast, and mentors founders through platforms such as Plug and Play and others.
Known for strategic nuance, long-term thinking, and calm leadership in moments of change, Gilad brings boards a rare combination of AI depth, operating experience, and sector-specific insight. Helping organizations build resilient advantage in an increasingly intelligent, dynamic economy.
Seth Borko
Head of Research, Skift
Seth Borko leads Skift Research, the premier source of market research and business intelligence on the travel industry. He oversees the team’s 45+ annual reports covering hotels, airlines, online travel, short-term rentals, travel experiences, traveler behavior, and destinations.
Seth co-hosts the Skift Travel Podcast with Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit, where they discuss the latest news, research, and insights shaping the business of travel. He’s also an accomplished public speaker, combining data-driven analysis with a passion for travel and an understanding of industry history to bring emerging trends to life. Before joining Skift in 2018, Seth worked in finance at J.P. Morgan.
Areas of Research
Seth researches how consumer trends, economics, distribution, and technology intersect across the global travel industry. He has a focus on hotels, airlines, and online travel agencies. He leads the Skift research team in translating its findings into clear, compelling perspectives for industry leaders—bringing together data, analysis, and real-world context to deliver meaningful and actionable insights for readers, clients, and event audiences.
Hillary Dallas
Head of Global Travel and Events, Amazon
Hillary Dallas is the Director of Global Travel and Events for Amazon. With over 25 years of strategic sourcing, supplier, operations and and program management experience, Hillary leads the organization responsible for driving the global travel and events program strategy including the management of global service delivery platforms, oversight of supplier management strategies across all travel and event categories and the delivery of end-to-end meeting and event solutions. Hillary is responsible for implementing initiatives within the corporate travel and events program that deliver value, improve the customer experience and drive efficiencies in support of the company’s strategic business goals. Hillary’s prior experience includes the leadership of global travel, events and expense programs for multiple fortune 500 companies. Hillary has consulted across industries to provide education and insights on best practices for travel and event category management. Hillary participates in several industry advisory boards and is a member of GBTA where she participated and led the GBTA hotel and aviation committees.
Scott Hill
Founder and Executive Director, Proxenia Foundation
Scott Hill is the Founder and Executive Director of the Proxenia Foundation, a nonprofit organization building entrepreneurial infrastructure around hospitality and travel technology. Through the Proxenia Accelerator, Scott works with early-stage founders to strengthen market validation, connect with industry operators, and move emerging technologies toward real-world adoption. Based in Orlando, he is active across Central Florida’s hospitality, technology, and entrepreneurial communities and works to build stronger connections between startups, industry organizations, operators, and the institutions that support them.
Chris Joyce
Founder/CEO, Gusher
Chris Joyce has built 24 companies across technology, consumer goods, and manufacturing. He is the Founder of Gusher—a performance-equity company with 350+ portfolio companies globally—and leads Joyce Co., a holding company focused on corporate acquisitions, roll-ups, and turnarounds. His products have reached 11,000+ retail stores across 23 countries, with users in 148 countries.
Roopak Pati
Managing Director and Head of Global Travel Technology Investment Banking, Oppenheimer & Co.
Roopak Pati is a Managing Director and Head of Global Travel Technology Investment Banking at Oppenheimer & Co. He has executed transactions in travel technology for the last 14 years, comprising over $20 billion in deal value. Oppenheimer has been highly active across recent IPOs, M&A and private fundraises across the landscape. Roopak previously led the travel technology investment banking practice at Needham & Company and worked in corporate development at Expedia Group.
Li Reilly
Fractional General Counsel to Travel Tech Association, BizTechLaw
Li Reilly is Fractional General Counsel to the Travel Tech Association.
Reilly is an experienced attorney, legal executive, and department leader with deep expertise in commercial contracts, technology transactions, corporate governance, M&A, product counseling, compliance, and privacy. In her role with Travel Tech, she supports the Association’s regulatory initiatives and the development of compliance resources and programs. She also provides strategic guidance, focused on general counsel and legal teams across the travel technology sector.
Reilly currently serves with BizTechLaw, a boutique firm providing general counsel services to technology and tech-adjacent companies. She previously served as General Counsel of Fareportal, where she was a key contributor to Travel Tech’s federal advocacy efforts as a member representative.
Steve Reynolds
Chief Executive Officer, CorpTravelTech
Steve Reynolds is the Founder and former CEO of TRIPBAM, the corporate travel optimization platform acquired by Emburse in 2023 after helping customers manage more than $30 billion in travel spend. He is also the former CEO of TRX, which went public in 2005, and CTI, which was acquired by American Express. Today, as CEO of CorpTravelTech, Reynolds works with travel technology companies as an investor, advisor, and mentor, helping founders navigate growth, product strategy, and scaling their businesses. Reynolds was also recently inducted into the Business Travel Hall of Fame, recognizing his lasting impact on the industry.
Johnny Thorsen
VP Strategic Business Development, Serko
Global travel technology evangelist in the corporate travel and mobile world with proven ability to start new business or develop new services within large companies as well negotiating and closing “impossible deals” between global enterprise buyers, start-up suppliers and major established industry players.
All-round background in software services ranging from actual code writing to marketing of new products and services and creation of completely new business models with associated go-to-market strategy and significant disruptive innovation resulting in new customer value creation.
Proven presenter at very large travel industry events in both EMEA, APAC and US, with audiences ranging from 10 – 1,000 delegates.
Named as one of the 25 most influential people in the travel industry in 2010 by Business Travel News (BTN) as CEO and co-founder of conTgo, a UK-based startup acquired by Concur technologies in March 2013
Named as one of the 25 most influential people in the travel industry in 2018 by Business Travel News (BTN) as VP of Strategy and Partnerships for Mezi as well as strategic advisor for multiple startups.
Global network of business contacts within the travel, procurement and mobile world after living and working in 5 different countries in EMEA, APAC and now USA.
Roman Townsend
Managing Director, Belvera Partners
Roman is the Managing Director of Belvera Partners, a PR consultancy focused solely on the travel tech space. He founded Belvera in 2021 following almost 20 years in PR at companies like Amadeus and Hotelbeds. Belvera now has over 30 clients around the world providing tech to hospitality, aviation, tours & activities, and other areas of the travel sector – and a core team of 11 staff. Roman holds a degree in history from Cambridge and is a bilingual Spanish speaker based in Mallorca, Spain.
Shondra Washington
Founder, TBC-Capital
Shondra Washington is the founder of TBC-Capital, the finance team for scaling consumer brands, and an angel investor whose portfolio includes Liquid Death, Canva, AG1, and CurlMix. A former professional dancer turned HR analyst at AIG and Jefferies — where she made a rare leap into technology investment banking — she built TBC-Capital to give $2M–$5M founders in beauty, wellness, and CPG the profit clarity they need to grow. Through Profit Intelligence™, Embed™, and StateSync™, her team delivers decision-ready financial systems that have helped clients raise over $50M and scale to nine-figure valuations. A sought-after keynote speaker and panelist, she has taken the stage at SXSW, Afrotech, MIT, Yale, and Target, and has been featured in Reuters and Inc. Magazine.
Ethan Weitzman
Chief Compliance Officer and AI Committee Chair, Fareportal, Inc.
Ethan Weitzman, Esq. is the Chief Compliance Officer and AI Committee Chair at Fareportal, Inc., a leading travel technology company with B2C brands CheapOair and OneTravel, and a growing B2B platform -Fareportal Enterprise Solutions. He oversees the legal aspects of Fareportal’s compliance, AI governance, data privacy, product development, and marketing efforts. Ethan works closely with Fareportal’s executive leadership and development teams to embed compliance, privacy-by-design principles, and responsible AI practices into business operations and technology solutions. He believes Legal should be an active stakeholder throughout the product development lifecycle, and that early engagement helps drive innovation while effectively managing legal, regulatory, and reputational risk, while also reducing long-term costs.
Prior to joining Fareportal, Ethan served as in-house counsel and Data Protection Officer for (international retail behemoth) Lidl’s USA operations and as Chief Regulatory Officer for the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), a federal counter-narcotics law enforcement program. Ethan holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a J.D. from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Ethan lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and four-year-old twins. Outside of work, he enjoys rock climbing and collecting rare whiskey.
Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg
Executive Director & Head of Policy, Chase Travel
Jennifer is a 35+ year veteran of the travel industry and is recognized by many as an industry expert and trusted resource. As Chase Travel’s Head of Travel Policy, Jennifer, and the travel policy team help the business understand and respond to the various regulatory and legislative issues that may impact Chase Travel and the overall industry. She and her team strategically identify appropriate action, including advocacy, with the ultimate goal for the travel industry to remain robust and thriving.
She actively represents Chase Travel at Travel Tech Association (Travel Tech), the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA), the U.S. Travel Association (USTA), the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), Destinations International (DI), and other travel trade associations and related events. She is passionate about advocating to government officials, trade associations and in the media for travel and tourism, encouraging the travel industry to speak in a unified voice. Jennifer thrives on educating on the significant and positive impact travel and tourism has on global economic economics.
Among Jennifer’s recognitions, she has been recognized by NorthStar Media as Travel Pulse 2026 Influential Women in Travel, was appointed to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board (TTAB) in 2025, and was included in the Top 50 Women in Travel by WINiT by GBTA in 2021.
In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys traveling with her husband, grown son, family, and friends. She is a seasoned golfer, having competed in her local club 9-hole championship 4 times, and won most recently in September 2024. Though her favorite destination is subject to change, her favorite golfing destination is in Scotland, where the unpredictable weather ensures an endlessly exciting game every round.
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