Christophe Peymirat
Head of Uber for Business in EMEA
Christophe Peymirat is the Head of Uber for Business in EMEA. Previously, as a founding member of Egencia, he held various roles within the organisation, with his last role being Chief Commercial Officer. In his early career, Christophe began as a sales and marketing executive at L’Oréal before moving to a business consultant role at Bain & Company. He graduated from the HEC School in Paris. In addition to driving growth in his professional role, Christophe also pursues excellence in his sporting life. With a passion for running, he completed his most recent marathon in 3 hours and 21 minutes.
Clément Dénarié
VP, Strategic Partnerships & Alliances - Hospitality
Hospitality, Tech and Loyalty enthusiast. I love building teams, relationships and alliances.
Eric Jafari
Co-Founder
Eric Jafari is the Founder and Managing Director of AENDRE, a London-based development studio creating design-led, real estate-backed hospitality brands across Europe. His work sits at the intersection of development, brand, and culture—transforming buildings into distinctive destinations defined by place, community, and a more human-centred approach to hospitality, with an increasing focus on longevity and culturally-rooted wellbeing. Eric previously led the transformation and sale of SACO / CLSA’s real estate platform for Oaktree Capital Management, culminating in its acquisition by Brookfield in 2018 and subsequent rebrand to edyn. He went on to serve as Chief Development Officer and Creative Director at edyn, overseeing a £1.5bn+ pan-European platform spanning investment, development, design and brand. He is a co-founder of edyn, Locke and Birch. Earlier, Eric co-founded Union Hanover Securities, building and managing a £400m+ development portfolio. Eric is based in London.
Susanne Sandler
SVP, General Manager, Fintech
Susanne Greenfield Sandler is a strategic, metrics-driven leader with deep experience in the travel and fintech industries. She has experience scaling products, building teams, and accelerating growth both organically and inorganically. She also has a wealth of experience setting and refining business strategies, improving and maturating operations, and working with investors and Boards of both public and private companies.
Madeline Bushbeck
Senior Product Manager
Madeline Bushbeck is Senior Product Manager at Mews leading the Agentic team, and a member of the original Datachat team acquired in 2025. She focuses on AI-powered experiences grounded in the Hospitality Semantic Layer, helping hotels operate more intelligently. At Unfold, she’ll share how this foundation unlocks practical, agentic experiences for teams across operations, revenue, and guest experience.
Conor Winders
VP of Product and Engineering, SaaS
Conor is a lifelong builder who loves turning complex problems into simple, elegant products. At Mews, he leads the Back of House division, creating smart tools for operations, finance, and revenue teams. With a focus on AI, automation, and deep integration, he brings a maker’s mindset to shaping the systems that power hospitality behind the scenes.
Yael Barak
VP of FinTech, Product & Engineering
Yael spearheads the Fintech R&D engine at Mews, where we are building the next generation of embedded financial services for the global hospitality industry. With a 20-year track record at market leaders such as Checkout.com and WorldPay, Yael specializes in building high-scale, enterprise-grade payment systems. Today, she is focused on transforming how hotels manage revenue by moving fintech from a "feature" to a foundational layer of the guest experience
Joel Ndreu
VP of Product & Engineering, Front of House
With 20+ years spanning engineering, real estate, and big tech - including product leadership at Meta, Zoom, and CLEAR - he brings a rare cross-industry perspective to hospitality technology. At Mews, he leads the teams building the guest-facing products that help over 12,500 hoteliers deliver remarkable experiences.
Josef Starýchfojtů
CPTO
Josef’s origin story is an inspiring one: he joined Mews as a humble backend developer while studying software engineering at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in Prague. Through hard work and prodigious talent, Josef worked his way up to lead our product and tech teams. Today, Josef is Chief Product and Technology Officer at Mews, leading a team of 400 people. Outside of his day-to-day, Josef mentors at Femme Palette, Plato and The Mentoring Club and enjoys passing on his insights and experience to others.
Sarah Dandashy
Travel Media Personality and Creator
Sarah Dandashy is a TV travel expert, best-selling author, and TEDx keynote speaker. With 18+ years in hospitality and roots as a luxury hotel concierge, she built Ask A Concierge into a globally recognized brand with 300k+ followers. She partners with top travel brands and tourism boards, appears on ABC/CBS/FOX, and delivers sharp, real-world insights on travel trends and guest experience. She also co-hosts Skift’s Good Morning Hospitality and fronts the Skift Daily Briefing.
Naomi Trickey
Chief People Officer
Naomi joined Mews in 2023 and oversees recruitment, onboarding, benefits, development and growth, and workplace management. She's passionate about people, and has a large role in steering Mews’ culture, making her a great judge of character and meaningful change.
Manisha Athukorala
SVP Customer Experience and Delivery
Manisha’s extensive experience in leading and scaling international teams (including Uber) brings invaluable strategic insight to our panel. Her commitment to diversity and high-performance makes her a great judge of innovation.
Jan van Hövell
Founder
Jan van Hövell is the founder of KLABU. Growing up in countries with large refugee communities, including Bangladesh and former Yugoslavia, shaped his commitment to supporting refugees. After an internship with UNHCR in Ghana and a career as a lawyer in Amsterdam, he left law in 2016 to build KLABU. Today, he leads a growing team, fully dedicated to creating long term impact for refugees through sport.
Julie Linn Teigland
Global Vice Chair – Alliances & Ecosystems
Julie is EY Global Vice Chair for Alliances and Ecosystems and a member of the Global Executive. She leads EY’s global strategic alliances, driving client value through collaboration and innovation. With 30 years in professional services, she expands ecosystems and technology partnerships. Formerly EMEIA Area Managing Partner, she chairs AmCham EU, serves on international boards, and is a US CPA and dual German American citizen.
Duncan Wardle
Former Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney
As Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney, Duncan led teams across Disney Parks, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, Imagineering and Animation, developing magical new storylines and amazing experiences worldwide. He now delivers keynotes and masterclasses that spark disruptive thinking and unlikely connections. A multiple TEDx speaker, he contributes to Fast Company, Harvard Business Review and Forbes, teaches at Yale and Harvard, and holds prestigious national and academic honours.
Gilad Berenstein
Founder
Gilad Berenstein is an AI entrepreneur, board director, and venture investor based in Seattle, with three decades at the intersection of technology, travel, hospitality, and lifestyle. He leads Brook Bay Capital and serves as Advisor and on Boards including Virtuoso, Faye, Mindtrip, and ResortPass. Founder of Utrip, the first AI trip-planning company, Gilad is a leading thinker on AI, personalization, and the “Great Commoditization,” advising Founders and CEOs from across our industry.
Eljesa Saciri
General Manager
Eljesa Saciri is the General Manager of The Mandrake Hotel and its first female leader, redefining modern luxury hospitality. With nearly a decade of experience, she drives excellence across hotel, wellness, and members’ clubs. A Caterer Acorn 30 Under 30 winner, Eljesa is a passionate advocate for equality, mentorship, and wellbeing, championing social impact, education, and inclusive leadership across the industry.
Charlie MacGregor
Founder & CEO
Charlie founded The Social Hub in 2003. His love of community and belief that customers deserve better started it all and remains the guiding force behind the company’s winning hybrid hospitality concept. With his instinctive drive, The Social Hub has grown to hold 23 assets across Europe and has raised more than €2 billion from investors, making Charlie a leading voice on the future of social impact driven hospitality.
Danica Smith
Guest Experience Advisor
Danica Smith is a Top 100 hospitality industry thought leader, guest experience advisor and co-host of Hospitality Daily. With 15 years in hospitality and hotel tech, she’s worked on new openings, guest experience strategy and tech rollouts across the industry. She’s obsessed with the moments that shape guest experience and the commercial impact behind them. She also serves on the board of Women in Travel Thrive EMEA, supporting women’s visibility, leadership growth and real community-building across travel and hospitality.
Richard Valtr
Founder
Richard is an entrepreneur, ex-hotelier and hospitality enthusiast. He founded Mews to bring modern, seamless hospitality to hoteliers and guests alike, pushing hoteliers to think differently, from operations and payments to optimizing every square inch of their properties.
Matt Welle
CEO
After years in the trenches of hospitality, Matt co-founded Mews in 2012. Since then, he's been our fearless CEO, leading the company and the industry forward.
Halima Aziz
Head of Hotels
Halima Aziz leads Criterion Hospitality, transforming obsolete buildings into high-value, sustainable hospitality assets. Halima spearheads Zedwell, Criterion’s pioneering in-house hotel brand, scaling it across the UK and launching the world’s largest capsule hotel. Halima’s remit spans 28 current and pipeline hotel assets with 9,000+ rooms. A recognised industry voice, Halima serves on the Mews Hospitality Industry Advisory Board and was named in Boutique Hotelier’s 2025 Power List.
Speakers
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Duncan Wardle
Former Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney

Sarah Dandashy
Travel Media Personality and Creator

Christophe Peymirat
Head of Uber for Business in EMEA

Julie Linn Teigland
Global Vice Chair – Alliances & Ecosystems

Charlie MacGregor
Founder & CEO

Richard Valtr
Founder

Halima Aziz
Head of Hotels

Matt Welle
CEO

Eljesa Saciri
General Manager

Josef Starýchfojtů
CPTO

Gilad Berenstein
Founder

Danica Smith
Guest Experience Advisor

Joel Ndreu
VP of Product & Engineering, Front of House

Yael Barak
VP of FinTech, Product & Engineering

Eric Jafari
Co-Founder

Conor Winders
VP of Product and Engineering, SaaS

Clément Dénarié
VP, Strategic Partnerships & Alliances - Hospitality

Madeline Bushbeck
Senior Product Manager

Jan van Hövell
Founder

Susanne Sandler
SVP, General Manager, Fintech
