Bruce Chemel

Bruce Chemel is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and then received an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.  Bruce began his career at American in 1973, and after several positions in the Finance Department, moved to the SABRE group in 1976. In 1990, Bruce moved to American’s Marketing Department where, in 1991, he became head of the AAdvantage loyalty program. Bruce was subsequently named President of AAdvantage in 1996, a position he held until he retired from American in 2001.

Jeff Foland

Jeff Foland has been a top executive at large, global, sophisticated companies in the aviation, hospitality, travel and consulting space for 20+ years. He has been a member of the executive committee at United Airlines and Hertz Global Holdings, as well as being a board member for Lasalle Hotel Properties, a lodging REIT. He is an expert in strategic marketing and growth, and has held the positions of Chief Revenue/Commercial Officer, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer, Executive Vice President of Sales-Marketing-IT, and President – MileagePlus Holdings. He has deep executive experience and expertise across commercial and operational functions, including highly leveraged areas like sales, marketing, loyalty, CRM, IT, ecommerce, pricing, revenue management, customer experience, fleet planning, call centers, franchising, and new business development. Prior to his corporate career, Jeff was a principal with ZS Associates, a global sales and marketing consultancy. During that tenure, he led numerous go-to-market engagements across more than a dozen industries, with extensive experience in the travel sector.

Andreas Koch

Alan Lias

Alan began his career at American Express as a marketing graduate spending nine years in various direct marketing, channel management, product management and sales force management roles.

He spent the next five years in the energy industry, first as Head of Marketing and Customer Services at Total’s commercial gas business, then as Managing Director of the consumer energy business Beacon Energy, a joint venture between BP and EDF.

In early 2000 he joined the Canadian marketing services company, Mosaic, as Founder and Managing Director of its direct consumer marketing division, Mosaic Precision Sales, offering UK brands including Sainsbury’s, Prudential and NTL outsourced sales, marketing, customer acquisition and customer management solutions.

Alan joined Virgin Atlantic in September 2004 and spent the next 12 years heading loyalty and ancillaries.

As Vice President Customer Loyalty and Ancillaries, Alan led Flying Club to become one of the world’s top airline loyalty programmes in terms of partnership revenue per member, programme profit and member contribution to airline performance. He also led the development of Virgin Atlantic’s ‘a la carte’ ancillary business, overseeing and leading the introduction of a range of profitable products including seating products, to and through the airport experiences and onboard experiences, significantly driving airline profit and customer NPS.

Alan left Virgin Atlantic in September 2016 to become an airline loyalty and ancillaries consultant, working with airline, loyalty marketing, financial services and travel brands on strategy, partnerships and product development.