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The Hospitality Leadership Academy offers over 40 combined years of customer-oriented experience in hospitality, retail, and healthcare, and has 3 books published between the Principals. Our team would be delighted to partner with your team to elevate your talent, improve customer experiences, and deliver better business results.

Suzanne Markham Bagnera, PhD
Managing Partner

Expertise: Hospitality Training & Development, Leadership Development
Suzanne Markham Bagnera, PhD is the Director of the Hospitality Institute in the Workforce Education Division at Indian River State College in Florida.  Her prior teaching experience includes the Boston University School of Hospitality Administration, Johnson & Wales University, and Fisher, Endicott, Mount Ida, and Bunker Hill Community Colleges. Suzanne has over 20 years of hospitality industry experience.  She co-authored the textbook Human Resource Management in Hospitality Cases.

Danielle Clark Cole
Partner

Expertise: ​​Leadership Development, Team Strategy, Employee Relations
​Danielle Clark Cole believes that great leaders can transform the success of an organization.  With experience as a senior Human Resources leader at both large companies and small start-ups, she is passionate about coaching leaders to make solid business decisions with a hospitality mindset.  She is the co-author of Human Resource Management in Hospitality Cases, a textbook.

Alec N. Dalton, CRDE, CHIA
​Partner

Expertise: ​Service Quality, Customer Experience Strategy, Luxury Management
Best-selling author and service scientist Alec Dalton inspires excellence through service quality. After operating five luxury hotels and spending six years in the Global Quality office at Marriott International Headquarters, Alec shares over a decade of expertise and passion when engaging with both name-brands and boutique businesses. In 2018, Hotel Management Magazine named Alec to the "30 Under 30" list of rising hospitality executives; in 2021, the Customer Experience Professionals Association recognized him as an inaugural "Emerging Leader in CX". In addition to co-authoring the best-selling books in the Customer Experience series, he is co-editor of the textbook Operations Management in the Hospitality Industry. Alec serves on the Boards of the Customer Institute and HorizonCX, and he also judges several international customer experience competitions.
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