Choice Hotels Intnl. Bank of America Gaming and Lodging Conference 2026

I appreciate it. It's an honor to be here.

I certainly have a diversified set of experiences, and I know we have a prior relationship. But first thing I want to do is just say, week 2 on the job, so it's good to see everybody again. It's great to be back. I was the CFO of the company for about 7 years, so a lot of familiar faces in the room. Really excited to see everybody and talk throughout the day. But first off, honored by the board's confidence in me with this appointment. Really excited about leading the company through its next chapter of growth, and I think that's going to be the theme, just really laser-focused on execution and growth. To your point, Shaun, I am not new to the industry. Spent a little bit of time at Marriott, but had a diversified set of experiences before I got to Choice.

Actually focused on finance, operations, strategy. Also had a little bit of telecom experience.

Right. We share a little bit of a background there.

I've been in the technology world for some time. Just before Choice, I actually was the CFO of a company called XO Communications, which was a unique opportunity. I actually was able to work directly with Carl Icahn and his team. It was a bit of a turnaround situation, turn around the company, and had the opportunity to lead the company through its eventual acquisition by Verizon. It was back in 2017, where I got the call from Choice to basically become the CFO. At the time, the company was going through a bit of a transition period. Obviously, there were some white spaces that the company was entering, extended stay, growth in some of the more revenue-intense segments, and I had a front row seat to all of that.

That was the reason I was brought into the company, to really lead Choice through that phase of its growth. We were very successful in doing that. I obviously was instrumental in some of the inorganic things, so the acquisition of Radisson, WoodSpring, et cetera, but also really helped lead the organic growth in terms of this revenue-intent strategy, which is very much becoming a both/and, which we can certainly get into. The reality is, seven years into the job, I was able to then really have a 360 view where I led the operations for the company, led the strategy of the company, led growth development brands. You name it, I've kind of done it here at Choice Hotels. It's really an honor to be in this role.

Candidly, all of those experiences gave me a front row seat to effectively what is core to our model, and that's the franchisee, right? At the end of the day, when the franchisee wins, we as a franchisor win. Everything that we're focused on, it's the unit economics for our franchisee. Candidly, when they're growing, we're growing. I'm really proud of the growth under the leadership team that I've actually had the honor of working with. When I joined the company back in 2017, we were a $295 million adjusted EBITDA business. Today, the guidance that we issued in Q2 implied about a $643 million adjusted EBITDA business, so pretty tremendous growth over a nine-year period of time. Just really excited to lead the company during this next phase of growth.

Sure. The first thing I would say is the core of who we are as a company, that is not changing. There is going to be a little bit of a returning to our roots theme that you are probably going to hear throughout this conversation. But really it comes down to that franchising business model. It is really being that asset-light franchisor, and again, when our franchisees win, we win. So, laser focus on unit-level economics for our franchisees, and really leveraging what we classify as a best-in-class conversion engine. Really that is what has been the catalyst for our growth this year, and in the supply-constrained environment, we see that continuing to be the catalyst for our growth in the foreseeable future. But when you think about, and I will just kind of peek behind the curtain a little bit, what I have told our associates internally, I am laser-focused on 3 things.

You are going to see a maniacal focus on execution, which is mission critical. But there is really 3 buckets. It is culture, it is execution, and it is long-term strategy. As it pertains to the culture, really bringing in a sense of urgency in the role that I am sitting in today, a renewed energy. I think you heard it on the Q2 call, a transparent approach, frankly. I think it is really important to own where we may be falling short and to really lean in where our strengths are. So that is my commitment to the investor community, that is my commitment to you as an analyst, to continue to have that transparency and the sense of urgency. I think from an execution perspective, there is really 3 priorities, and that is my number 1 priority is net rooms growth.

Specifically in the U.S., our investors have asked for this time and time again. We are delivering momentum in that category, and we are going to continue to do so. I have already talked about unit-level economics. The third really is doing all this in a capital-light fashion. I think throughout my tenure, we have actually put the balance sheet to work for acquisitions, for development and whatnot, but you are actually seeing us becoming a net recycler of that capital. So that is going to continue to be a huge focus for me and really returning to our roots from a capital light perspective. The last bucket, like I said, it is really around the long-term strategy, and I think the bridge there is a lot of what you heard on the Q2 call as well. It is really our commercial engine.

I think that this is an area where we've really leaned in on the investments that we've made over the last two years, just with regards to a guest data platform, a RFP tool, a new loyalty program, a loyalty tool itself. A few things we'll probably talk about throughout the day today, but that really is the bridge in terms of us becoming a much more consumer-centric organization that is really AI enabled. I think you can't have a conversation without talking AI, but I won't get into that just yet.