Executive Team
Alejandro Zozaya
As CEO of Apple Leisure Group, Alejandro Zozaya leverages 30 years of industry insight to optimize global synergies between the Group’s fourteen leading travel and hospitality brands.
Through the unparalleled distribution of Apple Vacations®, BeachBound®, Funway Holidays®, Travel Impressions®, CheapCaribbean.com®,, Blue Sky Tours®, Southwest Vacations®, Funjet Vacations®, and United Vacations®, ALG serves more than 3.2 million guests annually—delivering more North American leisure travelers to Mexico and the Caribbean than any other hospitality company in the world, and positioning itself as the # 1 vertically integrated provider of charter flights.
Amstar DMC is the largest destination management company in Mexico, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. For over 25 years, Amstar has expertly served group, business and leisure travelers with personalized tours, private excursions and deluxe airport transfers.
AMResorts® and its popular guest loyalty program, Unlimited Vacation Club®, spearhead ALG’s rapidly expanding resort product portfolio. Since 2001, AMResorts has elevated the all-inclusive resort experience with an awarded collection of luxury brands: Zoëtry® Wellness & Spa Resorts, Secrets®, Breathless®, Dreams®, Now®, Reflect®, Sunscape® Resorts & Spas, and Alua® Hotels & Resorts. AMResorts closed 2017 with the largest pipeline of all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean; by the end of 2018’s first semester, announced a development pipeline of 10,000 rooms, equivalent to 50% of their current inventory; and closed the year with an impressive expansion to Europe, adding more than 4,000 rooms and 16 hotels to its portfolio on that region. This follows multiple years of double-digit growth for the company, a trend ALG plans to continue in 2019 as it is poised to expand its portfolio of resort management contracts by 36 percent, if we only consider the projects secured to-date.
Prior to establishing AMResorts in 2001, Alex held senior positions at Fiesta Americana Hotels & Resorts, where he directed all commercial activities for Latin America's largest hotel consortium.
Alex's outstanding contributions to international hotel business have garnered numerous industry accolades, including recognition as “Hotelier of the Year” by Alta Hoteleria, for which he received the distinguished Diamante Award; CNN Expansion magazine ranked Alex among the“100 Most Important and Influential Business People in Mexico”. In February 2018, Alex was named Vice President of the Mexican National Council of Tourism Companies (CNET for its acronym in Spanish), main organism representing the tourism private sector in the country. Additionally, in August 2018, Alex joined the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Executive Committee as Vice Chairman for Latin America and the Caribbean. The council provides valuable expertise and services to the travel and tourism sector while actively shaping the future of the industry in those regions.
John Hutchinson
John Hutchinson is President of Apple Leisure Group®. In this role, he is responsible for all ALG’s business units as well as its headquarters and staff organizations.
Mr. Hutchinson joined Apple Leisure Group from American Airlines, where he most recently served as Senior Vice-President of Planning and Chief Financial Officer of American's regional airline subsidiary American Eagle. He played a central role in formulating and executing the plan to grow Eagle’s ground services business over the past several years and in the company’s recent restructuring efforts.
Mr. Hutchinson joined American in 1989 and progressed through several finance and planning roles including Managing Director of Corporate Development, where he led American's efforts to sell its ownership in Orbitz, Worldspan and Hotwire, and as Managing Director of International Planning where he negotiated and managed American's codeshare partnerships in Latin America and Spain.
Mr. Hutchinson received a B.S. Degree in Civil Engineering with a Spanish minor from Brigham Young University and a M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.
Gonzalo del Peón
As the President of AMResorts®, Gonzalo del Peón has successfully helped shape the company’s business model and organizational structure, to grow AMResorts into a leading luxury vacation brand generating more than 20,000 direct jobs and exceeding $3.5 billion in investments.
Bringing more than 30 years of deep hospitality industry expertise, Gonzalo oversees all areas of investor and owner relations, operations, sales and marketing innovation for the company’s 53 hotels, across six award-winning brands in 25 beach destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. He also oversees Unlimited Vacation Club® (UVC), an elite benefits program for discerning travelers. Under his management, UVC has quickly grown to 30,000 members worldwide.
Gonzalo has worked as part of AMResorts’ executive team since its inception in 2001. Prior to joining the Philadelphia-based company, Gonzalo, played a major role in the growth and development of the Posadas Group in Mexico and Latin America. During his 14-year tenure with the company, he gained extensive industry experience and served in several positions including Marketing Director, Director of Strategic Planning and Innovation, and Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Previously he also served as Project Manager for Equipamientos Técnicos Comerciales in Bilbao, Spain, and Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble in Mexico City.
Gonzalo has earned a reputation for excellence and has been recognized by industry leaders in Mexico and the Caribbean for his professional achievements. In addition to his professional positions, he has played an active role in the Marketing Committee of Mexico's Tourism Promotion Council since 1999.
He earned a Master in Business Administration at the Pan-American University’s PanAmerican Institute for High Business Direction (IPADE) and a degree in International Marketing at the Bilbao Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Spain. Gonzalo lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two children.
Lynn Torrent
Lynn Torrent is the Executive Vice President and President of Distribution for Apple Leisure Group®. In this role, she will be responsible for all aspects of Apple Leisure Group’s tour and destination management businesses, in addition to having corporate oversight over Human Resources and IT Product Development.
Lynn’s most-recent position was Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations at Carnival Cruise Lines, where she was accountable for all global sales activities, ship deployment, revenue management, and guest services. She previously served as President of Costa Cruise Lines, North and Central America markets. Lynn had worked earlier as a Vice President of Marketing Services for Carnival Corp.
Prior to her years in the cruise industry, Lynn served as Chief Financial Officer at Safecard Services.
Lynn earned her Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, magna cum laude, from Long Island University and her MBA degree from Florida Atlantic University.
Javier Coll
Javier Coll is Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Apple Leisure Group®, Co-founder of the group’s luxury resort brand management company, AMResorts®, and its elite benefits program, Unlimited Vacation Club® (UVC). Javier has played a pivotal role in the development of both businesses and is also responsible for ALG business operations in Europe.
The multidisciplinary executive applies more than 25 years of international hospitality operations and finance experience to skillfully direct the group’s growth, development, mergers and acquisitions. Under Javier’s leadership, AMResorts has become the largest Resort Brand Management company in Mexico and the Caribbean.
Since the inception of AMResorts in 2001 and prior to his appointment as Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer of Apple Leisure Group, Javier held diverse leadership roles in AMResorts, including Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer, and was directly involved in negotiating contracts, analyzing and selecting existing hotels for rebranding, plus supervising the development and construction of new hotels. While defining the signature attributes of AMResorts’ six luxurious brands, Javier also developed and implemented new operating procedures for each brand’s finance, administration, auditing, IT and legal departments. Javier has been responsible and instrumental in developing strategies that would expand AMResorts’ world-class portfolio. Before joining AMResorts, Javier was the Deputy Managing Director of MAC Hotels, based in Palma de Mallorca, where he oversaw sales, marketing, operations and administration for the hotel chain. Javier was also Head of International Development (Spain), Managing Director (USA), and Director of Administration for Spain’s Barceló Group. He began his career as an economist, developing viability studies of the transition from traditional European-plan hotels to the all-inclusive format.
Originally from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Javier graduated from Universitat de les Illes Balears with a B.A. in Marketing & International Taxation and received an M.B.A. in Business Administration/Economics from Universitat de Barcelona.
Javier Águila
In his role as President of Apple Leisure Group’s (ALG) European Division, Javier Águila leads the firm’s operations throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA region). A travel and hospitality industry veteran with more than 15 years’ experience in investment, strategy, operations and corporate finance, Mr. Águila is currently spearheading ALG’s ongoing international expansion into markets including Spain among others.
Immediately prior to joining the ALG team, Mr. Águila served as CEO and Founder of Alua Hotels and Resorts, one of Spain’s fastest-growing and dynamic hotel management companies. During his tenure at Alua, Mr. Águila worked alongside top institutional investors—including Blackstone, KKR, HI Partners, and Hispania—to quickly expand the brand’s portfolio to include over 3,000 rooms. The brand’s rapid growth, along with Mr. Águila’s ability to identify promising development opportunities and effectively raise capital, led to the acquisition of the Alua brand by ALG in 2018.
Prior to founding Alua, Mr. Águila served as Chief Operating Officer at Orizonia, one of Spain’s largest tourism conglomerates at the time (Tour Operator, Travel Agencies, OTA, DCM, Airline, Hotel Management) with over €2 billion in sales and more than 5,000 employees. He also worked as an investment professional at the Carlyle Group, a European Leveraged buyout fund with special focus on the travel and leisure industry; as a management consultant at Mckinsey & Co., a U.S.-based worldwide management consulting firm; and Booz Allen, an American management and information technology consulting firm with activity throughout the U.S., Europe and Latin America.
Mr. Águila holds a B.A. in Business Administration from ESADE, a master’s degree in International Management from Thunderbird and an MBA from Columbia Business School where he attended as a Rafael del Pino, and ICO Foundation Scholar.
Ryan Solomon
Ryan Solomon is Chief Financial Officer for Apple Leisure Group and is a member of the Executive Committee. In this role, he oversees the finance, accounting, treasury and tax functions of Apple Leisure Group.
Ryan brings more than 15 years of broad finance, strategy and travel experience into his current role, mostly with American Airlines where he held various roles of increasing responsibility over nine years within Finance, Corporate Development and their Regional airline network strategy.
Ryan played a central role in the financial planning, diligence efforts and subsequent plan of the largest and most successful airline bankruptcy and reorganization in US history with American Airlines. In addition, Ryan successfully led efforts around the American Airlines regional network strategy that included the negotiation of a twelve year, ~$4 billion contract for new large regional jet aircraft that began operations in 2013, and integrating two new regional airline operators into the American Airlines regional network.
Ryan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Texas A&M University and a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance from Texas Christian University.
Cory Shade
Cory Shade is General Counsel and member of the Apple Leisure Group Executive Committee. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company’s legal matters. She was appointed to her position in August 2017.
Prior to joining ALG, Cory served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Perry Ellis International. Inc., where she was responsible for all legal matters. Prior to joining Perry Ellis in 2006, Cory was the General Counsel of Firstcom Corporation (merged into AT&T Latin America) and responsible for all legal and governance matters.
Previously, Cory was a Corporate Attorney with the law firm’s Steel, Hector & Davis, LLP, which is now known as Squire, Saunders & Dempsey, LLP and Kilpatrick Stockton LLP. Her practice included securities, mergers and acquisitions, and financing, as well as general corporate counseling.
Cory holds a B.A. in economics from George Washington University, and she earned her J.D. and M.B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis.
John Ische
Sean McDevitt
Sean McDevitt is the Chief Human Resources Officer for the Apple Leisure Group (ALG). In this role he oversees all Human Capital and Talent Management functions for ALG globally.
Sean brings more than 20 years of diverse HR experiences to this role, having led HR teams both in the U.S. and abroad. Previous to ALG, Sean worked for PepsiCo where he led North America Beverage’s field HR function, supporting over 50,000 field-based employees in the U.S. and Canada. In this role he revitalized the HR team, built a culture of engagement and redesigned the Markets to strengthen field leadership..
In previous roles, he led the acquisition of an independent bottler in Turkey and additionally, brought the Snacks and Beverages businesses together in Spain and Portugal. Furthermore, Sean worked as the HR leader for the Global PepsiCo Transformation, working with the CEO to design a more globally integrated enterprise. Prior to PepsiCo Sean worked for Payless ShoeSource as an internal OD Consultant.
Sean received his B.S. in Psychology from Brigham Young University with a minor in Spanish. He earned his Masters’ of Organizational Behavior from the Marriott School of Management also at Brigham Young University.