Suzanne Neufang is a transformation-focused executive who has successfully led teams and product/service innovation through times of great challenges and change – “connecting dots” in technology, marketing, talent and customer needs to exceed sales, revenue, customer adoption/retention, and employee engagement goals.
Suzanne was named to lead the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) in February 2021, where she oversees the association’s staff and services, providing value to
members, sponsors and partners, and where she also leads the organization’s and industry’s recovery from recent pandemic challenges.
In her most recent role as HRS’s SVP-Americas and Managing Director-North America, she launched the German company into the US B2B market with its Platform-as-a-Service set of hotel solutions for corporations and hotels. During her 5 years at HRS, she expanded enterprise sales wins to include Fortune 100 companies, and built a talented, high-energy and diverse team across North America and Latin America. For 18 months, she was additionally tapped to lead the company’s global go-to-market initiatives within the groups & meetings space.
Prior to HRS, Suzanne was Chief Marketing Officer at Intuit’s $500M ProTax unit. In this role, she oversaw growth marketing for their new SaaS B2B2C tax platforms; customer communications and retention initiatives for their three existing, traditional B2B software platforms; and divisional brand/event strategy.
Prior to Intuit, Suzanne spent nearly a decade at Sabre Holdings’ family of companies. She earned global travel industry recognition as president of Sabre’s top B2B2C SaaS business, GetThere, then the #1 online corporate booking tool. During her tenure, she successfully turned around GetThere from a flat-growth, 10-year-old acquisition, into a profitably growing line of business, expanding it to handle over $12B in gross annual travel spend with customers in 95 countries and employees in 17 countries. She began her career at Sabre in Travelocity – as director of product management for leisure vacation packaging, cruise, and travel extras e- commerce divisions.
In 2013 she was named a “Top 30 Influencer” by the UK’s Buying Business Travel publication. In 2011, she was recruited to become president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) – a highly visible volunteer role– and she served on the ACTE board for seven years in total. She has been an oft-quoted and sought-after speaker on travel, technology and global workplace practices (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, FOX Business Television).
Before Sabre, Suzanne led teams for over 9 years at Verizon (formerly GTE) in e- commerce/digital transformation, brand, product marketing, and interactive media strategy – in Texas, Connecticut, and Hawaii. She started her career in commercial and public broadcasting – in production, advertising and community engagement.
Suzanne received her MA in communications from the University of Hawaii, and her BA from Minot State University (summa cum laude) in broadcasting and foreign languages with a music minor. She and her husband Ralf live in New York City, and have two grown sons – they maintain a strong connection to northern Germany.
Fun fact: Suzanne has visited nearly 40 countries on her professional and personal travels, and flown nearly 3 million air miles.