Advisory Board Members

Kathy Misunas – Former CEO of The Sabre Group and Reed Travel Group

A highly respected executive in the travel industry, Misunas has more than 27 years of technology deployment experience with extensive focus on e-business solutions. While CEO of Reed Travel Group, she oversaw several of the company’s leading business divisions including travel publications such as the Official Airline Guide and Travel Weekly, as well as the company’s other travel, technology and marketing units. As CEO of The SABRE Group, Misunas led the company’s Travel Information Network and spearheaded Easy SABRE, the travel industry’s first online consumer reservations product. In this role, she was also directly involved in the development of SABRE Interactive, which launched Travelocity, one of today’s most successful and popular travel Internet sites.

She currently serves as Director on various Boards including Tech Data (Clearwater, Florida), Canadian Tire (Toronto, Canada), Saturn Reservations, Inc. (Morganville, New Jersey) and IMBOT (New York). She is also an advisor for several councils/associations including Penn State University, Cendant/WizCom (Parsippany, New Jersey), 2nd Sight Software (San Francisco, California), and World Tourism Foundation. She also served on the Board of Travelocity, prior to its purchase by Sabre.

Misunas is currently president and a partner in Essential Ideas, a digital commerce and technology consultancy specializing in the global travel and tourism, consumer retailing and communications fields. Her partners include former CEOs, CFOs and CIOs of Travelocity, PanAm, American Airlines, Sabre and Blue Cross. Before that, she was CEO of AirTreks, a San Francisco-based travel company, specializing in multi-continent international travel planning and fulfillment. Prior to that position, she led the New York City-based brandwise, LLC business by launching its comparison shopping and purchasing Web site which offered a personalized shopping experience to consumers for home durable goods, as well as information and technology products for retailers, manufacturers and other Web site owners.

Misunas studied French and Political Science at Moravian College and studied French at the Alliance Français in Paris. Misunas also studied business at The American University and has attended executive courses at the University of Virginia’s Darden School and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.