CHRIS SCHROEDER

Chief Executive Officer

As CEO of Experiential Ventures, 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.