Advisory Board

Global Business Director

Partner Portfolio Manager

Co-Founder

Managing DireChristian is a bicultural professional with dual French and German nationality. He has over 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry, with a strong focus on development and asset management across Europe.For the past five years, Christian has worked as an independent hotel consultant, supporting hotel owners across Europe. His clients include major players such as Henderson Park Capital - on projects including the Westin and Le Méridien Etoile in Paris, resorts in Greece, an extended stay portfolio in France, and the Aloft Madrid, along with various F&B initiatives in France and Spain.He has also advised PAI Partners on the Motel One deal, collaborated with Weinberg Capital Partners on developments in Paris, and partnered with asset managers and family offices on diverse projects in France, Germany, and the Kempinski Bahía Estepona on the Costa del Sol. Christian has been helping owners to successfully reposition luxury, midscale, lifestyle, city, and resort hotels and provided expert advice to owners looking to purchase or sell their properties.Before, Christian spent 15 years with Accor Hospitality Group in Europe. In his role as SVP Development Accor Europe, he was responsible for hotel development in over 30 countries. Christian led a team of 40 developers and closed over 500 deals across various brands (from luxury to eco), different contract types (management, franchise, hybrid, lease, as well as ownership), and concepts (lifestyle, business-city hotels, resorts, and extended-stay).Prior to his role as SVP Development Europe, Christian worked for Accor in hotel asset management in Germany and Austria, where he restructured around 100 hotels. He also has a strong financial background, having worked for Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, and Paribas from 1993 to 1998.Christian's entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found the German subsidiary of bfinance in 2000. bfinance was a startup operating in the UK, France, and Germany, and that received 40m€ of equity, from investors such as GE Capital and Carlyle.ctor

Chief Executive

Susanne Kraus-Winkler is a longstanding entrepreneur, an industry expert and representative in the hospitality industry with 45 years of practical experience in the hotel and restaurant business as well as in tourism consulting and academic lecturing. She was founding partner of the Loisium Wine & Spa Resort Hotel Group, shareholder of several hotel management and tourism consulting companies such as Harry’s Home Hotel group and Advisory board member of MRP Hotels, a European Tourism consulting company in Europe. Susanne has been a Member of HOTREC Executive Committee since 2004 and was President from 2015 to 2018 representing the European hospitality industry at EU level. She held several further positions in the management board of tourism representations in Austria and at EU level and is member of the Austrian chapter of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.Until May 2022 she was President of the Austrian Professional Hotel Association within the Austrian Chamber of Commerce representing 16,000 hotels in Austria. From 2022 until March 2025, she held the position of the Austrian State Secretary for Tourism within the Federal Ministry of Labour and Economy.

Head of Asset Management Intercontinental

With two teams Martin is responsible for a portfolio currently comprising around 130 properties and approximately €11 billion in real estate assets across four continents and 16 countries. The main types of use are hotels, serviced apartments, offices, logistics, and retail. Martin holds a degree in business administration (FH), real estate economics (IRE|BS), hotel management (IHK) and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS). Schaller has more than 25 years of experience in the hotel and real estate industry and studied hotel, real estate, and tourism management at universities in Germany, Sweden, and the USA. He was involved in a large number of hotel deals at the international real estate consulting firm Christie + Co and was responsible for hotel transactions at Union Investment from 2009 to 2014. Martin was also responsible for setting up the first special fund for hotels at Union Investment before taking over and building up the asset management hospitality team in 2014. In 2023, he took over the management and development of the newly founded asset management intercontinental department at Union Investment to bundle expertise in global asset management and leverage synergies in market development. Martin Schaller has an extensive network of project developers, service providers, hotel operators, and other real estate investors and has positioned Union Investment as one of the leading hotel asset managers in the open-ended fund segment in recent years. His team's most recent successes include supporting Motel One's market entry with The Cloud One brand in New York City and achieving the strongest rental performance since 2015 in the office sector.

CEO

Rupert Simoner is an Austrian hospitality executive and entrepreneur with extensive international experience in hotel management, corporate strategy, and business development. He is the CEO of Lombard Estate Capital GmbH in Vienna and founder of Wayfarer Club GmbH (formerly Vagabond Club GmbH). He successfully launched and sold both Vagabond Club and the REVO hotel concept to REVO Hospitality Group. He also served as Chairman of the Advisory Board for the HR Group in Berlin. Previously, he was CEO of Vienna House Hotelmanagement GmbH and held senior leadership roles at Kempinski Hotels, including responsibilities across Europe, Russia, and the CIS. His career includes key operational and development roles in destinations such as China, Malta, Tanzania, Italy, the UAE, and Switzerland. Rupert Simoner holds an MBA in Corporate Strategy & Finance from Reims Management School and is a graduate of the renowned Hotel & Tourism School Klessheim in Salzburg.