BOARD OF ADVISORS

Darin McAuliffe has co-founded four highly successful travel technology companies and has worked as a Senior Executive with large corporations. As Co-founder and COO of Turobotrip.com, Darin designed and managed the team that built one of the first on-line hotel booking engines. Turbotrip.com grew as a New Orleans based online retailer, to eventually transact business in 55 countries and over 360 destinations worldwide. The company was purchased by hotels.com in 2002.

Darin Co-founded and was the COO of neworleans.com, a destination advertising portal that catered to inbound travelers to New Orleans. Founded in 1993, neworleans.com was a leading edge portal introducing new revenue and advertising models to the Internet. The company was purchased by the Hammack-Jones Group in 2007.

Darin Co-founded and was the President of Internet Destinations, LLC, an Internet website development and hosting company. Founded in 1994, at its peak, IDC had developed over 1300 websites and hosted over 500 companies web presence. It was later folded into neworleans.com.

Darin also co-founded and was President of Hotel Booking Solutions, Inc., a demand management software suite utilized by over 15,000 hotels and hundreds of online distribution, tour operators, originating in Zell am See, Austria. After relocating the world headquarters to the United States and receiving significant Venture Capital investment, HBS was sold to Trivandrum, India based I Believe Systems.

He later served as Vice-President of Distribution Solutions for Pegasus Solutions, the world’s largest travel technology provider. In that capacity, Darin directed global sales for Pegasus’ distribution products. Darin is a frequent speaker at events on the topics of Entrepreneurism, E-Commerce, and Revenue Management.

Robert Lane is the former President of Key Bank, NA, Central Ohio District. Cleveland-based KeyCorp is one of the nation's largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $100 billion. As President, he managed the Community Bank function including Middle Market, Business Banking, Retail and Private Banking and Wealth Management. The District is comprised of 32 offices in Columbus and Mansfield and all of the contiguous counties. The Central Ohio District is a $1.5 billion bank with 250 employees and annual expense budget of $23.7 million.

Before joining Key Bank, Mr. Lane served as Director for Crowe Horowatch and Company, LLP., the eighth largest CPA/consulting firm in the country. Crowe Horowatch and Company has 1,800 employees and 23 offices throughout the country, and is a leading provider of assurance, consulting, and outsourcing services to the financial services industry. Mr. Lane managed the East Coast Business Development initiative and provided strategic planning for banking clients in all markets and generated $40 million in revenues and established forty-five new business relationships in a 24-month period. 

In 1993 Mr. Lane served as Executive Vice President for Retail Planning Associates -an international consulting and design firm for many of the world’s leading financial institutions. Mr. Lane doubled the penetration of financial services segment to $4.5 million annually with 18 new clients in United States, Mexico, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. He managed the financial services business segment, worldwide staff development, treasury function and RPA Europe; the London subsidiary. 

Mr. Lane has also served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for First Union National Bank of Tennessee, where he grew assets to $425 million. Prior to becoming C.E.O., Mr. Lane served as Senior Vice President of First Union National Bank of North Carolina.

Mr. Lane is an experienced, dynamic senior executive successful at building and leading high performing businesses with revenues in excess of 1.5 billion. He combines strategic and financial expertise with the ability to build strong organizational teams. He possesses a strong history of business development, operations, and P & L management. Mr. Lane earned his MBA from Duke University, an MA from the University of North Carolina, and a BA from Elon College.

Dr. Yiorgos Bakamitsos is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the A.B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University. Before joining the faculty at the Freeman School, he was with the faculty at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Ph.D. and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a B.S. (with High Distinction) in Business Administration from the American College of Greece.

Dr. Bakamitsos’ research focuses on Consumer Behavior and his work focuses on how consumers process information, form judgments and make decisions. In particular, his work examines how the context in which consumers process information affects their attitude as well as their decisions and what are the implications on communication strategies as well as electronic commerce. His work has appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Consumer Behavior. Dr. Bakamitsos is a member of the American Marketing Association, the Association for Consumer Research, the American Psychological Association, the Society for Consumer Psychology, the Hellenic Management Association (EEDE) and the Hellenic Institute for Marketing (EIM).

Dr. Bakamitsos serves as a member at the Advisory Board for McGraw Hill’s Grade Summit Group and for the Shiyao Investment Bank. Dr. Bakamitsos has served a Research Director for Consumer Behavior and Electronic Commerce at Glassmeyer - McNamee Center for Digital Strategies at Tuck School of Business as well as on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Consumer Psychology. He is an ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology and the Electronic Journal for E-Commerce Tools and Applications.

Dr. Bakamitsos has taught graduate, undergraduate and executive education courses in Marketing Management, Marketing Communications, Marketing in the Network Economy and Marketing Topics at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, the A.B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University and Bocconi University in Milan.

Dr. James Biteman is Clinical Professor of Business Administration at the A.B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Business, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University.

Dr. Biteman advises many multinational corporations, and has guided clients and facilitated their management activities, including restructuring operations in Latin America for an international insurance company and strategic planning and implementation assistance to a global provider of oilfield services. Dr. Biteman has also provided valuation assessment and testimony, including damages for restraint of trade and has carried line management responsibility for global enterprises in multiple industries with responsibilities ranging from management of research and development to plant management.

Dr. Biteman frequently works for extended time periods in Asia, and for the past nine years, Dr. Biteman has taught in international programs delivered to students in their home countries, including countries in Eastern Europe, Mexico, South America, Taiwan and China – and in programs presented “in-house.” Over the past seven years, he has received sixteen awards for teaching excellence, including three Outstanding Teacher awards.