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 six leading hospitality companies.
Through the unparalleled distribution of Apple Vacations®, Travel Impressions® and CheapCaribbean.com®, ALG serves more than 2 million guests annually—delivering more North American leisure travelers to Mexico and the Caribbean than any other hospitality company in the world.
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 esteemed collection of luxury brands: Zoëtry® Wellness & Spa Resorts, Secrets®, Breathless®, Dreams®, Now®, and Sunscape® Resorts & Spas. The company closed 2017 with the largest pipeline of all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. This follows multiple years of double-digit growth for the company, a trend which ALG continues 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, plus CNN Expansion magazine ranking Alex among the “100 Most Important and Influential Business People in Mexico”. On 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.
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.
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