The Team
Experiential Ventures Hospitality (EVH) is a team of hospitality, food & beverage, branding/marketing, retail, design, entertainment, technology and real estate leaders who have worked with some of the most iconic brands in the world.
CHRIS SCHROEDER
Chief Executive Officer
As CEO of Experiential Ventures Hospitality, Schroeder is also leading the creation and expansion of significant projects with legacy brands including Sports Illustrated, Conde Nast, Authentic Brands Group and Emmitt Smith, as well as creating proprietary brands like The Garage.
Schroeder also holds the position of Chairman and CEO of Sports Illustrated Resorts where he has been a key player in creating and expanding the Sports Illustrated Resorts brand, including upwards of $1 Billion in projects slated since the founding of Sports Illustrated Resorts a little over 24 months ago. He has also been instrumental in securing over $500 Million in equity contribution for Sports Illustrated Resort projects.
Over the last 30 years Chris Schroeder has also been an interactive media pioneer, visionary resort developer, brand creator and marketing leader for globally recognized brands. He brings an award-winning background in creating and implementing large scale marketing, branding and development projects for globally recognized organizations including American Express, California Tourism Commission and MGM Grand Resorts. He is a founding partner of the UMUSIC hotel and entertainment center concept that is a partnership with the world’s largest music company Universal Music Group.
Schroeder previously served as Chief Marketing Officer for Veremonte, a multi-billion-dollar investment company out of London, where he worked to create the largest leisure development in Europe, bringing partnerships with Hard Rock Hotels and Cirque du Soleil. He also worked to incubate and launch Formula E, the first fully electric racing championship in the world, with such notable partners as Leonardo di Caprio, Michael Andretti, Alain Prost, and Virgin Racing. Races are held in iconic cities including Paris, London, and New York.
As an interactive media pioneer, Schroeder founded the world’s leading internet development company for the hospitality industry at the time, with 90% of the world’s largest hotels as his client. Additionally, he led the development of the first online reservation system of its kind in the travel industry for MGM Resorts and Hilton/Park Place Entertainment. During this time Schroeder also played a lead role in creating and implementing a massive rebranding and redevelopment campaign for MGM Resorts, which included developing a multimedia roadshow to present to stockholders and Wall Street investors to secure funding to implement the project.
Schroeder also served as President of the Interactive Division for Custom Marketing Group, the exclusive destination marketing group at the time for American Express, where he developed and managed digital media campaigns for over 20 leading Tourism Boards for destinations including State of California, State of Florida, Country of Mexico, and cities of Las Vegas, Cancun, Orlando, New York, and Chicago. Many of the programs Schroeder worked on were responsible for double digit tourism growth and hundreds of millions of dollars in consumer spend in-market.
Mr. Schroeder has also been a leader in travel marketing, incentives, and loyalty, having created a patented rewards system and founding a leading incentive company that created proprietary products and long-term marketing campaigns for companies including Capital One, American Express, Bank of America, Samsonite, and Ford Motor Company. Many of his programs were ongoing and included massive cooperative marketing initiatives incorporating local tourism boards, corporate partners, attractions, media, airlines and hotels. Schroeder also created the first custom travel offers for the Today Show, the #1 morning show in America, in addition to Fox and Friends, CBS, and others. Additionally, Schroeder, in partnership with Steve Burks, created a proprietary travel rewards system that multiple companies used including the world’s largest online travel company, Priceline/Booking.com.
During college, Schroeder founded one of the largest college travel and marketing companies in the country, with clients including Ocean Pacific, Miller Beer, Hawaiian Tropics, Ray Ban and Ujena Swimwear. This led to him being hired directly out of college to serve as the National Marketing and Retail Director for the company owning Ujena Swimwear, Swimwear Illustrated and Runner’s World Magazines.
Schroeder has been an invited speaker at large conferences globally for groups like American Express, Mexican Tourism Board, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Caribbean Tourism Organization, Global Automotive Trends, American Resort Development Association (ARDA) and Intel Partnership Showcase.
ARK KORROS
President
MARK KORROS
Mark Korros is a highly successful CEO, who is skillful at designing winning business growth strategies and inspiring organizations to succeed. He has consistently delivered rapid growth driving measurable, sustainable multimillion-dollar returns, increasing shareholder value. Mark is a strategic out of the box thinker with an affinity for encouraging an entrepreneurial culture within an organization.
Mark has worked with private equity, privately owned and public companies solidifying their business base to provide organic growth and cultivating new profitable growth opportunities. Prior to becoming President of Experiential Ventures, he served as CEO at Covercraft industries, he created a Value Creation Blueprint establishing the company as a platform and targeted acquisitions that would fortify his vision of dominating the aftermarket custom-fit vehicle protection products category. Over a 4-year period he made 5 acquisitions each accretive and fulfilling the vision and the company leading to the sale of his company at a double digit multiple on EBITDA performance.
Mark’s unique approach to establish a company in a “Category of One '' has served as a catalyst to create a diverse perspective that demands excellence, embraces best practices and fuels a culture that not only ensures a business’s success but brings its products to the forefront of customer preference. Having been responsible for building brands and unlocking their value he understands the leverage and opportunity leading brands have in the marketplace. His strategy has effectively been employed across multiple brands, products and industries. It is being driven through customer focus, creative marketing and collaborations, innovative new product development, optimizing production capabilities and continuous improvement initiatives to create lasting impact.
His career and industry experience are highly diversified. Mark has served in the top executive leadership roles for premium brands, wholesale/manufacturing/retailers that include Covercraft Industries Filson, Samsonite, Pendleton, FranklinCovey, Reebok and Health-tex. He has also led two pureplay multichannel catalog/internet retailers, Central Restaurant products and Levenger that ultimately ushered him into a database and digital marketing agency, ParadyszMatera, where he led efforts to design a program for defining MultiChannel Revenue Attribution.
In addition, Mark had launched 3 major websites, overseen manufacturing facilities in 5 companies and built over 450 retail stores throughout his career. All combined, his cross-functional experience in marketing, product development, manufacturing, finance and distribution has enabled him to quickly assess a company's strengths and challenges to work with the organization and develop a profitable growth strategy.
KENT PURDY
Chief Innovation Officer
Kent Purdy is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader who has worked in the entertainment, technology and hospitality industries for over 30 years. His experience includes to create a ticketing platform for major music festivals, including Bonnaroo and others. He has produced multiple movies with notable talent including Charlie Sheen, Ezra Miller and Olivia Culpo.
He was a key player in the launch of the UMUSIC Hotels concept and as Chief Strategy Officer for Experiential Ventures, he continues to help expand the brand as well as other initiatives with leading brands and organizations including Sports Illustrated, Conde Nast, Authentic Brands Group and Akoin.
JEFFREY COHEN
Chief Operating Officer
Jeffrey Cohen is a seasoned technologist and a visionary leader with over three decades of experience providing solutions in a range of industries. He serves as the COO at Experiential Ventures Hospitality and the CIO/CTO at Sports Illustrated Resorts. In these roles, he oversees technology, overall business operations, in addition to all marketing activities, teams and strategies.
Previously, Jeffrey spent over 24 years as the CIO and CTO of one of the largest privately held direct marketing agencies in the US. During this tenure, he spearheaded large technology teams engaged in development projects that encompassed the creation of both internal and external software solutions, along with the robust infrastructure required to support them. His portfolio of accomplishments includes enterprise-level development and analytics initiatives that played a pivotal role in supporting marketing endeavors for renowned companies such as Microsoft, Capital One, Dell, KPMG, and America Online.
Drawing from his extensive background in business, marketing, and the intricacies of hardware and software, Jeffrey takes a holistic approach to problem solving and tackles challenges with an agnostic mindset, ensuring that the most effective and efficient solutions are always identified and implemented.
STEVE BURKS
Executive Vice President, Business Development
Steve Burks is a senior executive with over 25 years of experience including serving as Chief Marketing Officer for Disney Development, Ritz Carlton Destination Club, Marriott Vacations and Bluegreen Resorts.
Mr. Burks has developed a special skill set in forging strategic alliances with the largest companies in travel such as American Airlines, Delta, Hertz, Universal Studios, Six Flags, Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity and more. He has also built relationships in banking with Bank of America, American Express, and Barclays Bank. Mr. Burks has worked with the largest names in hospitality and has led his own company Brightstone International to over $1 billion in hospitality development deals. Mr. Burks enjoys building development relationships with brands and working to expand those brands.
Steve also partnered with Chris Schroeder to create one of the leading travel deal providers for companies like Groupon, CBS and America’s #1 Morning Show, The Today Show. Additionally, he and Schroeder created a proprietary rewards and incentive system for Priceline/Booking.com, the largest online travel provider in the world. Steve has also served as Board Member for the U.S. Travel Association.
DEV PATHIK
President of Destination Development
Dev Pathik has founded and served as CEO of multiple leading tourism, group events, and sports industry brands.
Today Pathik serves as board member, investor, partner, in numerous destination develoment entities. He is the President of Destination Development and a board member for Sports Illustrated Resorts and Hotels.
Dev began his career as an Outward Bound Instructor, wilderness guide and mountaineer. In the mid 90’s Dev launched and sold a 10 acre team and leadership development center, multiple development focused consulting firms, and in 2003 he launched The Sports Facilities Advisory which went on to become the The Sports Facilities Companies under his leadership. These organizations have served more than 3,000 communities around the world as they plan, develop, and operate large scale sports tourism and event destinations. In 2023 SFC managed venues hosted more than 40 million guest visits to its sports complexes, event centers, conference centers, amphitheaters, water parks and major tourism centers.
With over 30 years of destination development and place-making experience, Pathik is known as a preeminent thought leader contributing to projects like the Aspen Institute’s Project Play 2020 and collaborations with various national governing bodies, the International City and County Managers Association, thousands of destinations HBO’s Real Sports, NBC TODAY Show, CNBC, PBS and others. His work in public private partner has led to billions in developments due to well researched and measurable outcomes related to community well-being, jobs creation, tourism, and health outcomes.
Dev is an active philanthropist with a dedication to serving mothers and children seeking pathways out of challenging circumstances.
MARK LAISURE
Executive Vice President, Immersive Media Technologies
Mark is an award winning entrepreneur, inventor and inspirational speaker. His focus is on experience driven immersive technologies and providing intuitive strategic guidance in navigating the massive changes in today's environments.
Mark serves as strategy and partnerships founder/advisor to multiple immersive technology, production and development companies including ArtsDistrict.Live, (integrated IP studio in immersive entertainment,) Vortex Immersion Media, the world’s leading designer of transformative 360 immersive entertainment experiences. Dubbed "Community VR," Vortex live concerts, stage shows and experiences feature surround video & audio, spectacular visual effects and real-time interactivity. The company is looking to bring the “empathy generating” dome format to the art, entertainment and sports community venues worldwide and Arena.TV (the world's first turnkey, scalable, real-time, collaborative, streaming environment bringing live content creation and interactive fan engagement to the masses.)
Inspired by his passionate focus on community, Mark is also the Producer & Co-Host of The LIFE CHANGES Show and Live Event Series which shines light on sharing and embracing "change" in order to "do life better." Having experienced extraordinarily large ups and downs along with all of the life lessons in between, Mark has learned that wisdom comes with experience and persevering through the darkest hours. The successes are fun and empowering yet personal growth and expansion comes from the setbacks and struggles. He coaches that this is where the real insightful magic is discovered and authenticity ultimately realized.
Mark spent his early career around Wall Street as principle with Firms such as UBS Paine Webber and Wellington Shields & Co. and has been a guiding force within several start-ups, takeovers, and turn-arounds; Inktomi Corporation (acquired by Yahoo!), Emmy Award winning Teranex (video processing), Mesh Networks (mobile wifi, acquired by Motorola,) Theseus Logic (clock-less semiconductor, acquired by Camgian,) Skycross (award-winning antenna technology) Zeros & Ones, Inc / Voyant Intl (digital convergence) and ONEHOPE Wine (cause commerce.)
Mark's contributions have resulted in numerous awards as an entrepreneur and inventor including; A Prime Time Emmy for technological innovation in film and television processing, R&D 100 award (The Oscar's of Inventing) and Businessweek Magazine Product of the Year.
ERICA L. PHILLIPS
Executive Vice President, Real Estate
With a real estate career spanning over 25 years, thru multi-facets of the industry, including appointed as VP of a real estate law firm, Erica has collaborated and closed over 8,500 residential and commercial real-estate transactions primarily from the legal perspective across the globe. Her role as Executive VP and Partner of Real Estate at Experiential Ventures Hospitality highlights her skillset as a global facilitator, of unique and remarkable off-market sites and investors for Experiential Ventures brand concepts, including Sports Illustrated Beach Club Hotels and Resorts, and Conde Nast WiRED Tech Magazine Hotels.
Erica has spent much of her career procuring and closing properties, as well as handling discretionary consulting for high profile, high-net wealth individuals and a multitude of various companies where she has excelled at finding off-market opportunities. To this point, she has provided turnkey services, which include funding for real estate and other ventures, including fund raising for a sustainable energy-storage technology company partnered with NASA; mandated to identify investors for a life-changing neuro-technology company used to help children with Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy; and also mandated to raise $1B, by the family awarded the government concession to build the first railway line in a developing country.
On a personal note, Erica was raised fourth generation of the politically-active family in South Florida, who founded the Orange Bowl Committee and Lighthouse for the Blind. This has afforded her life-long relationships and connections to multiple family-offices, high-net wealth individuals, and investors in her sphere. She balances her work with daily meditation, reading and for fun she likes to hit the sticks long and straight.
ERIC SCHROEDER
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Eric Schroeder is a seasoned creative powerhouse who serves as the Creative Director at Sports Illustrated Experiences and the VP of Visual Design at Experiential Ventures Hospitality. With a steadfast commitment to upholding a unified brand identity across all platforms, Eric oversees and guides his creative teams in their endeavors.
With over two decades of experience, Eric is a passionate and ambitious executive with expertise in developing, directing, and executing successful projects for high-profile brands. Eric studied marketing and advertising at Texas State University and visual art and design at the Art Institute of Dallas. Most recently, Eric served as a senior creative designer at USAA from 2019 to 2021, preceeded by a role as Senior Art Director at The Wood Agency from 2012 to 2019.
Eric has earned numerous prestigious awards throughout his career, including Gold and Silver ADDY Awards, a Silver Graphis, and claiming multiple gold medals at the Texas Marketing Summit for his exemplary work in digital user experience and print design. Eric attributes his success in creative design and marketing to his penchant for conceptual innovation, unwavering work ethic, and his innate ability to foster productive teamwork and leadership.