Management

Murat Ozsu, Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Murat is the visionary and technical mind behind innRoad, now the leading web-based hotel management system. He is paving a better innRoad: one that meets the needs of independent hotel owners looking to compete successfully – and profit – in a new web-connected global landscape.

 

Before innRoad, Murat was Vice President of Application Development for Credit Suisse, leading global multi-year development projects for over $300B of the bank’s assets. Prior, he was a strategy consultant for eB2B.com, a Silicon Alley consultancy supporting various Internet startups and Lexis-Nexis, the leading online information company.

Murat holds a BA in International Marketing from Baruch College of the City University of New York.

Chris Ficalora, Chief Operating Officer

 

Chris leads Global Strategy, Sales, Implementation, and Client Support teams at innRoad, ensuring the company grows increasingly efficient and effective. From our New York City headquarters, Chris oversees geographically diverse innRoad initiatives, including global expansion (innRoad hotels currently profit in 12 countries) and industry-leading user experience.  

 

Prior to his success at innRoad, Chris was a Regional Vice President of Zipcar, helping to build a company that went public in a big way and was recently acquired by Avis. His passion and knowledge for hotels is a product of his tenure at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. In senior leadership for over 15 years, he managed Starwood properties of all sizes, offering expertise in operations, revenue management, and sales. He was a part of the team that planned and launched W Hotels: forming the strategy for its operations, brand design, and guest experience. And he is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt - procedural inefficiencies never stood a chance.

 

Ahmet Can, Senior Vice President Finance and Human Resources

 

Ahmet currently leads Finance, Human Resources and Administration teams, ensuring the talent, infrastructure and financial resources to position innRoad as a global leader in the hospitality software sector. A structured finance and start-up veteran, Ahmet brings expertise in growing and managing teams from prior roles in finance, strategy, human resources and operations.  

 

Prior to innRoad, Ahmet was pivotal in building several successful high-growth start-ups, including Net2Phone, WhenU.com, and Phorm, as board member and Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. Before making waves in the Internet sector, he was an investment banker at Goldman, Sachs & Co. as well as RBS Greenwich Capital.

 

Ahmet holds a dual Bachelor's Degree in Economics and Middle East Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.

Charles Sasi Paul, Vice President Engineering

 

Sasi is the master of all things Information Technology at innRoad, connecting the IT dots from New York City to India and back. He is a rare blend of technical, managerial and operational expertise.  He is the one who floats an effective SaaS platform for innRoad clients on the cloud.

 

He has a proven ability to bridge tech strategies with business goals to provide effective IT solutions and lead cross-functional teams with diverse technical backgrounds in a multi-cultural global arena.

 

In his 16 years of leadership experience in planning, developing, and implementing state of the art software architectures, Sasi has guided periods of transition for many corporate executive management teams looking to grow overseas.

 

Sasi holds degrees from NIT Jalandhar and IIM Bangalore. At industry events, corporations, and associations he regularly speaks on the finer points of highly scalable software architectures. Few people understand what he is talking about.

 

Anil Lahoti, Vice President Research and Development

 

Anil is overseeing the implementation of proprietary innRoad revenue management software: software that captures incremental revenue for innRoad hotels. At the same time he is leading research and development of new products at innRoad, ones that will unlock even more latent revenue for innRoad hotels.

 

Anil is good at this – he is a travel industry veteran with more than 20 years of leadership experience in pricing, revenue management, distribution and e-commerce, generating incremental year-over-year revenue increases of 5% to 7% for leading global travel and transportation companies (Cendant/Travelport, Sabre/American Airlines). He is a former VP at Priceline.com where he led initiatives to launch, maintain, and develop travel industry services.

 

More recently, he co-founded LTV Hotel Systems LLC, a revenue management software company in the hotel sector. innRoad has recently acquired the science and talent developed at LTV.

 

Anil is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt with a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University, India. He also holds a certificate in Hotel Real Estate Investments and Asset Management from The Hotel School at Cornell University.