Michael Mahar

I believe the most powerful thing a technology leader can do is reimagine what's possible, and then build the team that makes it real.

25 years as a Travel & Hospitality leader and now Head of Technology, Digital and Loyalty Products at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, I've spent years doing exactly that. Every team I've led, I've approached the same way: listen deeply, remove the barriers holding people back, develop talent relentlessly, and create the conditions where people become the best version of themselves. When my team succeeds, we all succeed.

One of the most meaningful shifts I've led is the transformation of our Digital IT team into a true Product organization, measured not on IT metrics, but on business outcomes. That mindset change unlocked everything: a 3X increase in project delivery velocity and record-high Digital Direct Contribution that speaks for itself.

Travel is an emotional experience and technology enables and enhances that experience. Now leading and executing what is the second-largest project in Wyndham's history, a complete redesign of our e-commerce platform, built AI and LLM-ready from the ground up, with a new global UX optimized for personalized guest experiences at scale. This isn't a refresh. It's a reinvention.

That foundation, a 100% cloud-optimized, fully modernized technology platform, is what positioned Wyndham to lead when AI arrived. I led Wyndham's early response to AI, and we are now executing an end-to-end AI-First strategy with a people-first lens: built for our team members, our owners, and our guests.

AI-First isn't about automating what already exists. It's about reimagining everything from the ground up. We are flipping legacy processes entirely, streamlining how organizations operate, and driving velocity across every dimension of the business. The outcome isn't efficiency for its own sake, it's commercial growth, better guest experiences, and a fundamentally different way of working.

This is a transformation moment. The companies that lead won't be the ones who bolt AI onto old thinking. They'll be the ones who had the courage to rethink the process before they automated it.

25 years of success: 45%+ reduction in IT costs, 99.9%+ platform availability, resolution times cut by over 70%, and employee engagement scores that have outpaced organizational averages for eight straight years. When leaders were saying you cannot manage Cloud spend, we were celebrating 3 years of cost reductions, increased performance and unlocking capabilities for our business leaders through our Cloud First strategy.