ABOUT THE SESSION:

Please join NYCBTA on March 11th as we honor Women's History Month 2021 with a dynamic panel discussion with women at different stages of their career to discuss their journey in the travel industry. You won’t want to miss this session.

AGENDA:

ABOUT THE PANELISTS:

Aileen Furlong
Aileen Furlong is the Managing Director of Global Corporate Accounts and New Business Development at United Airlines. She leads a team of sales professionals focused on building strategic partnerships and delivering outstanding, customer-focused solutions. She is also responsible for acquiring new corporate business and driving revenue across diverse portfolio of corporate segments including United’s Global and Key accounts representing the company’s largest customers, the SME corporate segment and select corporate Specialty customers. She joined United’s Sales team in 2018 leading Leisure and Specialty Sales. 

Aileen is a travel industry expert and Sales & Marketing specialist with a proven track record of delivering innovative solutions, driving customer loyalty and forging successful partnerships for United. She joined United’s Network Planning team in 2000 after receiving her MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Since then she has held a variety of commercial leadership roles across United’s Marketing, Customer Experience, Loyalty and Sales divisions. Aileen received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and currently serves on the Georgetown University Alumni Association’s Board of Governors. Aileen also serves on the Strategic Advisory Board for WINiT (Women in Travel) by GBTA (Global Business Travel Association).

Colleen Kearney
Colleen Kearney has managed the Global Corporate Travel Program for Raytheon Technologies (formerly UTC) for the past 4 years. Her prior background is in the consumer goods industry with Procter & Gamble where she built a progressive career in Procurement over 17 years in several direct and indirect categories. She has been known as an advocate for the promotion of talent within her organization, her coaching skills, and building strong supplier relationships that bring exceptional value to the company.

She calls Cincinnati home, although she now resides in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her teenage daughter Quin. She is a graduate of The University of Cincinnati (BA) and Xavier University (MBA). Colleen is active in her community as a volunteer at her daughter’s high school and with Crossroads Church in Cincinnati. Outside of work, Colleen enjoys time with her 3 daughters (Quin-15, Murphy-19, and Kendall-20), traveling, watching college basketball, and home improvement projects.

Shirley Lu
Shirley is a graduate of the NYU Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism Management with a concentration of Revenue and Marketing. She spent a year and a half with sbe as a junior revenue analyst, and after graduating in 2018, she started with The Standard Hotels as a regional revenue analyst, then moved on to become regional revenue manager for the New York region. Since, she has assisted with revenue management for the Miami and LA properties and hopes to continue assisting with the other sister properties. Over the course of the pandemic, the hotels were closed 6 months and the majority of employees were laid off, including herself. She was called back in August to assist with reopening efforts and has since been assisting as a sort of Jill of all trades – human resources, executive office, front office, reservations, and quality assurance – wherever her assistance is needed! On her own time, Shirley is passionate about traveling to new areas and learning about different cultures.