Mike Kistner
President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors 

 

Mike Kistner is the president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors of Pegasus Solutions, Inc., a global leader in providing technology and services to hotels and travel distributors. In his position, he is responsible for the company’s daily operations, technology and shared services as well as the company’s reservation and distribution service line.

Kistner joined Pegasus from Best Western International, Inc., where he was chief information officer and senior vice president of distribution, responsible for worldwide systems development and management. Before joining Best Western, Kistner was a senior vice president at Cendant Corp., where he implemented the largest-ever hotel technology roll-out. Previously, Kistner worked for Super 8 Motels where he was executive vice president of operations, heading IT, reservations, corporate travel, guest service, convention planning, corporate and franchise insurance and facilities management. He also was vice president for management information systems and reservations at HFS Inc.

Kistner holds a bachelor of science degree in accounting and information systems from Northern State University, Aberdeen, S.D., and a master of science degree in information systems from Colorado State University. He is the past chairman and current member of the e-commerce committee of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. From 2000 to 2005, he served as chairman of the Open Travel Alliance (OTA) and has been recognized as one of the leading CIOs in the hospitality industry.

Ric Leutwyler
Chief Operating Officer and President, Representation Services

 

Ric Leutwyler serves as the chief operating officer (COO) for Pegasus Solutions, Inc., as well as the president of Pegasus representation services, including Utell® Hotels & Resorts and Utell Connect. He is responsible for managing all product, sales, customer care and marketing for Pegasus, as well as strategic planning and continuous process improvement. He also manages Pegasus’ leading hotel marketing, sales and representation services, enhancing the brands, which together make Pegasus the hotel industry’s largest third-party marketing and reservations provider.

Leutwyler joined Pegasus after serving six years with Best Western International, Inc. where he served in a number of senior executive positions. While with Best Western, Leutwyler worked with more than 4,100 hotels in 80 countries and territories worldwide overseeing areas of brand quality, member services, eCommerce and field marketing, among others.

Prior to joining Best Western in 2002, Leutwyler held various leadership positions with Cendant Travel, Inc., where he also served as general manager. While in this role, he had responsibility for running the leading U.S. travel agency, which had more than $750 million in annual sales, 12 call centers and more than 2,500 employees at the time. Before his 11 years at Cendant, he also held national account positions with AT&T.

Leutwyler holds a bachelor’s of business administration in marketing, industrial relations and human resources from the University of Iowa. He also served for three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he left active duty as a sergeant.

Mark Dubrow
Chief Financial Officer

 

Mark S. Dubrow serves as chief financial officer (CFO) and president of financial services for Dallas-based Pegasus Solutions, Inc. With more than 15 years of accounting and finance experience, Dubrow currently leads the financial services team which includes commission processing and electronic reconciliation services. Before assuming his current role, Dubrow had responsibility for all financial related activity for Pegasus’ Utell® Hotels & Resorts, including general accounting, financial planning and analysis, treasury management, contract administration and financial services.

Dubrow joined Pegasus in 2000 after nearly five years with the Atlanta, Georgia based Homestead Village extended-stay hospitality chain, where he served as vice president of accounting and financial systems. In this capacity, Dubrow was responsible for operations and development accounting, financial systems and internal reporting. 

Prior to joining Homestead Village, Dubrow worked nearly eight years in various financial positions with Marriott International. Located at Marriott’s international headquarters in Washington D.C., Dubrow was responsible for financial reporting, regional operations accounting and financial operations training. Dubrow’s experience includes Marriott Hotels, Resorts and Suites and Residence Inn by Marriott.

Dubrow holds a bachelor degree in Accounting from the University of Maryland and he received his master of business administration with high honors from the University of Texas-El Paso. Mr. Dubrow currently resides in Dallas, Texas, with his wife and three children.

Mark Peacock
Chief Information Officer

 

Mark Peacock is chief information officer (CIO) of Pegasus Solutions, the global leader in providing technology and services to hotels and travel distributors. In this role, Peacock has responsibility for the organization’s information technology (IT), including development, enterprise services, quality assurance, architecture, infrastructure and more.

Peacock has more than 20 years of experience helping companies improve the results of their investments in IT. Prior to Pegasus, he ran the IT Effectiveness practice at Archstone Consulting, a strategy and operations consulting firm he helped found in 2003. Before Archstone, Peacock was a Partner with Deloitte Consulting, where he helped create and run the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Practice. He also created and led Roundarch, a joint venture between Deloitte and WPP Group, established to deliver complete e-business solutions. 

Peacock began his career with ROLM Corporation, an industry leader in call center technology, holding finance and operational positions. He also held product marketing positions with FMC Corporation’s specialty chemical group. 

Peacock received a master of business administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as well as a bachelor of chemical engineering from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Chris Klimko
Senior Vice President and General Counsel

 

Chris Klimko serves as senior vice president and general counsel of Pegasus Solutions, Inc., a global leader in providing technology and services to hotels and travel distributors.

Klimko’s responsibilities as senior vice president include participation on the executive management team developing strategies and overseeing Pegasus’ operations. As general counsel, Klimko oversees all legal aspects of the company’s operations. Specific areas of involvement include mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, employment law, intellectual property, legal counsel on internal and external communications, litigation management and oversight, creation of and compliance with policies (domestic and international), contracts and other transactional review.

Klimko joined Pegasus in 2001 as associate general counsel, and was promoted in 2003 to senior associate counsel. Before joining Pegasus, Klimko served as general counsel for start-up Go Figure Technology, and before that as regional general counsel for Banc One Corporation. He began his career as an associate with Jenkens & Gilchrist, and later with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

Klimko holds a bachelor degree in economics from Ohio University, and earned his J.D. from the University of Michigan. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

Steve Lapekas
Executive Vice President, Corporate Business Development

 

Stephen J. “Steve” Lapekas is the executive vice president, corporate business development for Pegasus Solutions, Inc., where he assumes a lead role in managing complex and significant business development and product positioning initiatives. During Steve’s tenure, during which he has also served as chief technology officer (CTO), Pegasus has gone through multiple information technology transformations; most notably new cost-efficient technologies such as data center automation and multi-core processing.

Prior to Pegasus, Steve served as the vice president of client services and practice director of Entessa’s Automation Integration practice. After leaving EDS in December 2003, Steve and Entessa, leveraging industry and technical expertise, established an industry first Automation Integration practice. The practice consulted and integrated industry best data center automation software throughout North America, Asia Pacific and EMEA.

While at EDS, Steve served as the client executive and business administrator of the Loudcloud Managed Hosting Business acquisition ($63.5M). Responsibilities included managing the transition as well as the profit and loss ($45M) of 45 clients that included USAToday.com, News Corp, Nike, Blockbuster, Fandango, Adidas and Brocade Communications. Additional responsibilities included the Business Operations and Project Management Office of the Web and Application Hosting Service Offerings.

Prior to the Loudcloud acquisition, Lapekas was the global service executive of Web hosting and enterprise application hosting within the EDS Hosting Services group and Operations Solutions. He and his group were responsible for the profitability, planning, directing, and developing the overall portfolio strategy for the Web and Application Hosting Service Offerings.

Lapekas joined EDS in 2000 as a member of the Marketing and Portfolio Management organization to evaluate and manage new technologies in the Web hosting offering. He became the global offering manager of Web hosting in 2001, the same year EDS Web Hosting received Network Computing’s Editor’s Choice Award. In early 2002, the offering was also named a market leader in Business 2.0’s “Who’s Who of E-Business”.

Before joining EDS, Lapekas served as a product manager for Global One Communications in the Internet Application Services organization. He transitioned to Global One from Perot Systems where he held various positions working for accounts such as National Rental Car and PSINet. Lapekas also spent five years of active military duty as an officer in the US Army, Field Artillery. During this time, he served in multiple leadership positions while attaining the rank of Captain. His military qualifications include Airborne, Air Assault as well as the coveted Ranger tab.

Lapekas received a B.S. in general engineering from the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY. He was also a three-year letter winner on the varsity baseball team.

In his spare time, he enjoys watching and participating in all sports. Steve Lapekas lives in McKinney, TX, with his wife, Tracey, and sons Reid and Ty.

Andrew Stringer
Senior Vice President, Human Resources

 

Andrew Stringer, senior vice president of human resources, manages worldwide human resources for Pegasus Solutions, Inc.

Stringer joined Pegasus’ representation service Utell® Hotels & Resorts in 1996 as corporate human resources manager, based in Kew, U.K. Utell later merged with Anasazi to form REZsolutions, which was acquired by Pegasus. Stringer moved to the United States in 1998, on assignment to manage the implementation of systems, applications and products across the company. He assumed the role of human resources director in 1999, taking on responsibility for the Americas region outside the Dallas headquarters. Stringer was named to his current position in January 2004.

Before joining Utell, Stringer worked for 10 years with Forte Hotels in the U.K., where he held a variety of positions in operations and human resources.

Stringer attended college in the U.K. and earned a degree in hotel, catering and institutional operations. He was recently certified as a senior professional in human resources by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Aaron Shepherd
Pegasus Fellow

 

Aaron Shepherd serves as a Pegasus Fellow for Pegasus Solutions, Inc., a global leader in providing technology and services to hotels and travel distributors. His focus is on evolving Pegasus’ next generation central reservation system (CRS), RezView® NG (RVNG), while working closely with company leadership on strategic growth and industry innovation.

Previously as chief information officer (CIO) for Pegasus, Shepherd was responsible for information technology (IT), including areas such as development, enterprise services, quality assurance, architecture, infrastructure and more. He also served as the senior vice president of reservation technology for Pegasus.

Before joining Pegasus, Shepherd was chairman and chief executive officer of GuestClick, a provider of enterprise hotel management and CRSs to companies such as Mobil Travel Guide, Home Away, and Best Western. Prior to GuestClick, Shepherd was the president of Executive Technologies, which implemented leading software programs designed by Shepherd that processed online reservations for large hospitality chains, including Best Western International, Westin Hotels and Resorts, Wyndham Hotels, and Sandals Resorts.

Shepherd has been involved in all aspects of operations including product design and development, management of large-scale development projects, day-to-day business issues, financing, long-term planning, human resources and recruiting. His leadership culminated in the successful sales of Executive Technologies to Micros Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ: MCRS) in 1995, and of GuestClick to Pegasus in 2007. Shepherd additionally successfully facilitated the integration of the merged companies.

Shepherd has worked in the software industry for more than 25 years and has written over 100 systems in numerous computing environments. Shepherd is an Oracle Master and an expert with Internet-based systems, large online transaction databases, distributed/open systems, and numerous programming languages and operating environments.