Reimagining Travel

Francis Davidson is the co-founder and CEO of Sonder, a next-generation hospitality brand that recently reached a $1 billion valuation from its Series E funding round.

With thousands of beautiful spaces built for travel and life, Sonder is pioneering a new category of accommodations. Today, Sonder manages $4 billion worth of real estate and continues to grow rapidly — operating in more than 35 cities across 7 countries and welcoming hundreds of thousands of guests annually.

Francis was named EY’s “Entrepreneur of the Year,” one of the world’s most coveted and prestigious business awards. In 2018, he was put on Forbes’ “30 under 30” list for Consumer Technology. 

Francis studied Philosophy and Economics at McGill University. He enjoys science, art and literature, and lives in San Francisco. 

Vivek Bhogaraju is the GM, Revenue Performance Solutions, Lodging & Vacation Rental at Expedia Group, where he helps lodging partners adopt analytics, accelerate data-driven decision making, and ultimately drive revenue performance. Prior to his current role, Vivek was the Director of Global Strategic Alliances & Initiatives at IDeaS – A SAS Company, where he was responsible for the global partner ecosystem and for identifying organic and inorganic growth opportunities for the company. He began his career in travel with Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, with management roles in Rooms and Food & Beverage Operations. Vivek completed his Master’s degree in hospitality management from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and his Bachelor’s degree from the Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration. In addition, he has completed programs in strategic alliances and management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and in strategic change and growth at Columbia Business School.

Antonio Figueiredo is Senior Director of Industry Solutions for the Global Transportation, Travel, and Hospitality group at Salesforce. He is a seasoned technologist with over 25 years of experience bringing digital transformation to customers from different industries around the world. Antonio has served as CTO and V.P. of Architecture for a number of technology companies, bringing innovation, architecture solutions, thought leadership, and execution of complex business projects to global organizations.

Dave Roberts retired from Marriott in 2019, after 23 years with the company. Most recently, he was the Senior Vice President of Revenue Strategy & Solutions. In this role, he was responsible for revenue management strategy and execution for around 7,000 hotels worldwide. He also led revenue analytics, providing top-line analysis for the company; as well as sales systems, providing strategy, development, and deployment of technology to manage meeting and event business. Prior to this role, in addition to leading revenue management, he led the Consumer Insights department, providing consumer research and analytics for regional and corporate stakeholders. Dave has also been Regional Vice President of Market Strategy for Marriott’s Eastern Region, as well as Vice President of Global Pricing, in addition to several other roles in the company. Prior to Marriott, Dave was a manager in the Finance Department at American Airlines, working on airplane purchases and route economics. He was also a technical consultant on missile defense for the U.S. Department of Defense, as part of the “Star Wars” initiative. He has a B.S. and an M.S. in Operations Research from Cornell University, and an MBA with majors in Finance and Economics from Northwestern’s Kellogg School. He holds a U.S. patent on a software product (a “data matching” algorithm) and has published several academic papers on such topics as forecasting, options pricing, and customer choice modeling. Dave was on IBM’s Business Analytics Advisory Board for six years and on Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research Advisory Board for five years. He has been a frequent speaker at industry events as well as several top universities. In his spare time, Dave enjoys martial arts and astronomy.