HIDE Programme

With more than 20 years’ experience in the world of travel tech at companies such as SiteMinder, Travelport and Expedia, and as a former VP Global Sales at Selina, Karla Brooklyn has a deep understanding of the needs of both travellers and hoteliers in the current digital marketplace. Now bringing her wealth of knowledge to her current role managing Enterprise and Strategic Accounts at Mews. Karla works closely with large hotel franchises and chains to ensure they have the technology and business partner they need for success and growth. Also passionate about giving back to the broader community, Karla is a guest lecturer at Boston University, a start-up mentor and is a strong advocate for the importance of female leaders, particularly in the technology space. She holds qualifications in marketing and hospitality revenue management, and a Master of Business Administration at the University of Warwick.

Thomas Emanuel is a Senior Director at STR, a CoStar Group Company. He is based in London, and leads a team focused on driving business with Industry Partners.

He has spent his entire career in the hotel industry, beginning in 2000 with Miki Travel, before joining Hyatt Hotel & Resorts, where he gained experience in corporate sales at both the worldwide sales office and at property level. Thomas then led the corporate sales function for Hazlitt’s Hotels, a group of independent boutique hotels in London.

In 2006, Thomas joined the Deloitte HotelBenchmark team, where he was responsible for creating and leading the department’s business development function. He held this role until the formation of STR in March 2008, and has since focused on overseeing STR’s rapid expansion outside North America. Throughout his time with STR, Thomas has gained a wealth of experience working with hotels, investors, developers, consultants, banks, governments, destination management companies and many others.

Thomas has been a guest lecturer at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, and been invited and participated in the OECD’s high level meetings on tourism policies.

Travelling extensively, Thomas has worked in over 45 countries across 6 continents and regularly speaks at major hospitality conferences around the world. He is also frequently interviewed for his insights on the hotel industry by news outlets including CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, as well as various tourism and hospitality publications.

Rebekah is founder and MD of Independence Ventures, a consulting firm specializing in real estate advisory for prominent family offices and institutional investors in the US and Europe with a focus on operational real estate strategies.

She was formerly MD at single family office Marcol, focused on new strategies in real estate, venture and private equity. She has been very active in the sourcing and management of self-storage businesses in Europe, such as Space Plus in Germany.

Rebekah is an advocate for creating outperformance through diversity and supports mentoring programs such as CREW UK and Mentoring Circle. In addition, she sits on the real estate expert council at Global Family Office Community (GFOC) and is an Angel investor and Venture Partner in First Look, an early-stage VC fund investing in women and minority-led tech companies in finance, health, future of work and real estate.

Prior to working with family offices, Rebekah was Divisional Director at pan European fund manager M7 Real Estate now owned by Oxford Properties. Previously, she held various senior roles at CBRE in New York and London and was a Partner at Cushman & Wakefield in the cross border capital markets team advising North American private equity and pension funds investing in European real estate.

Rebekah has over 20 years of real estate and investment experience. She holds a BA in English from San Diego State University, during which time she completed a special study in English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Rebekah is a certified real estate appraiser in New York and Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS). She currently lives in London with her husband and their two children.

Navneet has over 38 years experience in the hotel, travel and e-commerce sectors. He has been a Director of Investment Services at HVS International, the global hotel-consulting group, and Director of Finance at Taj International Hotels, based in the UK. During this period he has transacted on and developed hotels in UK and Europe, India and in the US.

He was with the Tata Group for eighteen years as Head of Finance at Taj International Hotels during which he coordinated the listing of the Indian Hotel Company Limited’s (The Taj Group), in London. Thereafter he was a Director with HVS international based in London. Subsequently he joined as CFO at Ebookers plc, a leading pan European travel agent, where he was responsible for listing Ebookers’ shares on the London Stock Exchange.

In 2009 Navneet joined Duet Group, a Private Equity firm headquartered in London, as Chief Investment Officer of Duet’s specialist hotel fund for India. Duet India Hotels raised USD 200 million. In April 2011 Duet signed a c$150m JV with IHG, the word’s largest hotel chain, to develop the Holiday Inn Express brand in India. Navneet lead this initiative for Duet and headed the JV.

In 2012 Navneet joined Holidaybreak as Group FInance Director. Holidaybreak included several travel brands: an Education Travel Business (PGL and NST), a Camping business (Eurocamp), Hotel Bookings (Superbreak), Adventure travel (Explore). The Education business had acquired Meininger Hotels in 2010 and the transaction was completed in March 2013.

Following this Navneet took over as CEO of Meininger Hotels in April ‘13, whilst continuing as Group FD of Holidaybreak. In 2016 took over as Chairman of Meininger. At this stage Meininger had 16 hotels and c7,000 beds but no pipeline. Navneet re-structured Meninger as an independent division within Holidaybreak and focused on creating a new senior management team and growing the business. The company now operates 30 hotels with c16,500 beds across Europe and has a signed pipeline of an additional 4,100 beds and 10 hotels.

Navneet has now launched a new hybrid brand lyvInn which aims to satisfy the increasing need for young professionals to stay in rented accommodation which is flexible and provides a sense of community in a safe and trusted environment.

Mr. Bali holds a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management. Mr. Bali has also completed the Investment Management program at the London Business School.

Andrew has been a journalist for his entire career, starting out on trade press titles before joining the national press and a brief spell at the BBC. He launched his own business focused on providing high level information on a subscription basis after despairing at the quality of what the old business model of selling advertising space was producing.

Andrew Sangster launched Hotel Analyst almost 20 years ago and it has grown into a publishing business that now encompasses a paid subscription service for hotel investors, a reports division and events.

More information on these services can be found at www.hotelanalyst.co.uk.

Andrew holds a BSc in economics and a MA in journalism. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and three children.

Shona joined Coutts & Co in 2022 to lead their Hotels, Healthcare and Insurance team. With nearly 25 years experience, she has specialised in operational real estate for the last 17, working both bank and client side. Shona’s remit covers the UK and includes a wide variety of assets including funding for development, trade/fill up and investment.

Thomas Emanuel is a Senior Director at STR, a CoStar Group Company. He is based in London, and leads a team focused on driving business with Industry Partners.

He has spent his entire career in the hotel industry, beginning in 2000 with Miki Travel, before joining Hyatt Hotel & Resorts, where he gained experience in corporate sales at both the worldwide sales office and at property level. Thomas then led the corporate sales function for Hazlitt’s Hotels, a group of independent boutique hotels in London.

In 2006, Thomas joined the Deloitte HotelBenchmark team, where he was responsible for creating and leading the department’s business development function. He held this role until the formation of STR in March 2008, and has since focused on overseeing STR’s rapid expansion outside North America. Throughout his time with STR, Thomas has gained a wealth of experience working with hotels, investors, developers, consultants, banks, governments, destination management companies and many others.

Thomas has been a guest lecturer at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, and been invited and participated in the OECD’s high level meetings on tourism policies.

Travelling extensively, Thomas has worked in over 45 countries across 6 continents and regularly speaks at major hospitality conferences around the world. He is also frequently interviewed for his insights on the hotel industry by news outlets including CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, as well as various tourism and hospitality publications.