SAN FRANCISCO—David Woolenberg has been named CEO of Duetto, a provider of revenue management solutions for the hotel industry, based here.
Last fall, Duetto co-founder Patrick Bosworth exited the CEO position to take on the role of executive chairman, while Woolenberg was promoted to COO and president, a move that this recent transition builds upon.
Woolenberg joined Duetto as chief revenue officer in 2018 before moving into the president/COO role. As a member of Duetto’s senior leadership team, Woolenberg implemented a customer-focused business strategy and spearheaded new initiatives to better understand challenges faced by hoteliers, translating that knowledge to impactful product enhancements. Last year, Duetto increased revenue by 40%.
Woolenberg will continue to lead Duetto’s business growth strategy and operations and will join the company’s board of directors.
Woolenberg told Hotel Business that the focus of the company will remain the same. “Our team has really spent a lot of time interviewing our customers, interviewing the customers of our competitors, interviewing everyone we can to learn about what’s valuable to hoteliers, particularly as it pertains to a revenue strategy platform,” Woolenberg said. “We’re really focusing on the fundamentals of revenue strategy—pricing, forecasting and analytics—and working with hoteliers to make sure we’re catering to the natural workflow so they can focus on strategic issues and not on things that take up a lot of their time that are not as valuable.
“We want them to be strategic, we want them to drive wonderful guest experiences and to truly make their businesses more profitable—and do that in a way that ultimately improves their lives,” he added. “This is a very hard job that hoteliers—and particularly revenue managers—have, and our revenue strategy platform is really designed to make the lives of hoteliers better. That’s going to continue to be our focus.”
According to Woolenberg—who has been with Duetto for two years and involved in SaaS software for a big part of his career—Duetto’s strengths include its team; the fact that the platform was built by hoteliers for hoteliers; and its culture.
“We have this great combination of Silicon Valley technology expertise married with world-class hospitality and revenue management expertise, and it’s created this excellent combination that is really valuable to our customers,” he said. “People here really want to roll up their sleeves and engage with customers and make our customers successful, and that’s something that’s really part of the culture. Culture is something that’s very hard to build; we have this wonderful brand, and the culture that sits behind it is something that the people here in Duetto live and breathe every day.”
Not surprisingly, it’s something Woolenberg aims to foster in his new role. “I’ve had this wonderful experience in my career where people have taken an interest in me, taken the time to mentor me and give me an opportunity,” he said. “One of the hallmarks I try to bring in leadership, first and foremost, is listening… When it comes to leadership and how I operate the company, I want people to have a voice, I want people to have opinions and to be passionate about what we do. My first thing is just to listen and make sure I really understand what’s going on and the context as we try to go after our strategy in this industry.”
Woolenberg also understands the value of a talented bench. “I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been able to hire some wonderful leaders into the company already and we’ll continue to do that going forward,” he said. “Recruiting is a really important part of what we’re doing. Our aspirations are much larger than where we are today—and we’re doing really well today—and in order to do that, we’re going to find world-class people to really bolster the wonderful brand and the relationships we have with our customers today.”