Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) has revealed that Jeff Bzdawka and Jeff Edwards are the 2022 HFTP International Hospitality Technology Hall of Fame inductees, both recognized for their experience and leadership in promoting hospitality innovation and technology. Bzdawka serves as CEO at Knowland, while Edwards is SVP, property, owner and enterprise products and platforms, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). The 2022 inductees will be honored at HITEC in Orlando on June 28.
The International Hospitality Technology Hall of Fame is HFTP’s highest level of recognition in the area of technology, according to the organization. Since 1989, 51 individuals have received this award as a reflection of their contributions to the hospitality industry.
“I am honored to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, amongst so many accomplished leaders in our industry,” said Bzdawka. “This recognition goes beyond me to the many mentors, peers, colleagues and organizations who have influenced me and supported me along this journey. As a lifelong learner, I strive to continuously grow, and I am thankful to HFTP for giving me a platform to do that as well as help others along the way.”
Bzdawka’s hospitality journey began as a corporate management trainee at Hyatt, where he spent 20 years across two stints with the brand. In his early years at Hyatt, Bzdawka identified a need to improve occupancy forecasting to support labor scheduling. This initiative led to the development of a program used by multiple Hyatt properties to streamline processing and improve operational efficiencies. Later, as SVP, global technology at Hyatt, he orchestrated the first self-hosting model for Opera PMS.
Bzdawka has also served as head of Pegasus Financial Services and SVP, service delivery at Pegasus Solutions. While at Pegasus, he introduced an electronic reconciliation and tracking product to reduce friction points between supply-and-demand channels, improving supply chain experience and reducing time to market substantially.
Edwards brings a versatile industry outlook, having worked across the board for vendors, consumer brands and major hotel brands. Throughout these roles, he has championed the use of technology to advance the industry and create lasting change. His contributions to distribution and reservation technology, as well as hotel brand and owner technology, have been groundbreaking legacies to the hospitality industry, according to HFTP.
“Being inducted to the Hall of Fame is a true career honor, as it is a recognition by my industry peers,” said Edwards. “I am pleased to be alongside a group of outstanding professionals, each with their own specialties all culminating in the excellence and progress of the hospitality technology industry.”
During his time as president of Amadeus’ hotel division, Edwards led a team that developed a next-generation approach to a cloud-based reservation system. This new approach established greater flexibility in managing hotel inventory and enabled greater visibility into consumer options compared to the legacy tools of the past. Edwards has more recently been focused on advancing IHG Concerto, IHG’s proprietary hotel operating platform. Previous to his roles at IHG and Amadeus, Edwards served as CIO, Wyndham Hotel Group; president/CEO, OpenTable Inc.; and president, MICROS-Fidelio.
Look for more HITEC coverage next month on hotelbusiness.com
