Executive Profile
Name: Jerry Rosenthal
Title: Global Account Executive
Organization: ConferenceDirect
Location: Aurora, Illinois
Birthplace: Boston
Education: Nathaniel Hawthorne College, BS in business administration
Career History: Rosenthal worked for a variety of hotels, including several Sheraton and Marriott properties, from 1970 through 2000. In 2001, he joined Conference Direct, where he works as a global account executive.
The average person changes careers between three and seven times during their lifetime, but Jerry Rosenthal has worked in hospitality for more than 50 years.
Rosenthal was born and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, and went to Nathaniel Hawthorne College, where he studied business administration. After graduating, he was hired by Sheraton Hotels to join a corporate training program. It was his first rung on the hospitality ladder.
Rosenthal spent two years in Columbus, Ohio, at Sheraton’s corporate headquarters in the training program and assisting the vice president of food and beverage for Sheraton Worldwide. He then went to the Copley Plaza in Boston (a Sheraton property) for a year and a half, where he was responsible for the hotel’s renovations.
“My portrait was painted on one of the mirrors in what was then Copley’s Restaurant,” said Rosenthal. “From there, I went to New York City to manage the Sheraton Hotel LaGuardia for three years, where I was one of the youngest hotel managers at the time, and then I was the general manager at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport for a year and a half.”
After his tenure with Sheraton, Rosenthal jumped ship and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and managed hotels for the DeBartolo Corporation, which had five hotels in the area.
It was during his time at DeBartolo that he met his wife, Diane, when she worked as the hotel’s controller. Together, they went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he managed a Marriott hotel, then to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to open a Marriott there. From there, he joined Pickett Suite Hotels, where he opened and managed their flagship property in Ohio for four-and-a-half years, along with opening several properties including in Disney World and in Tampa.
“We eventually got married after jumping around the country for about nine years,” said Rosenthal. “We’ve been happily married ever since. We have three sons and eight grandchildren.”
Rosenthal went to Holiday Inn’s corporate offices, managing an award-winning flagship property in New Jersey, then moved to Chicago to follow his wife, who worked for Dolce Corporation at the time.
“We moved to Chicago because she was offered a position as the general manager of the Brook Hills Resort and Conference Center, which is a Hilton Hotel now. We have been in Chi Town, as we affectionately call it, since 1998 — the longest we’ve ever been in one location.”
Rosenthal’s background caught the attention of the founders of ConferenceDirect, who asked him to join their team. Rosenthal agreed to join the planning side of the hotel business and has now worked with them for 22 years. He is a global account executive, coordinating event and hotel needs for clients at properties around the world.
“I come from the old school of hotel administration, where in days gone by, you made a deal with a handshake and service was primary to our customers,” he said. “I took that philosophy and put it into a conference planning business. I not only seek out the best venue for the client, but research, create easily analyzed reports they can review, arrange site visits, evaluate the pros and cons of each opportunity, and negotiate the contracts. We are like the worker bees for their team.”
Tips from Jerry Rosenthal
• Involve and utilize convention and visitors bureaus. They are the authority of the cities they represent and as a result are an excellent resource for site tours of hotels, attractions and restaurants.
• Our industry was founded on hospitality and service. Go that extra mile to provide outstanding service.
• Be sure to give back to the community both monetarily and by providing volunteer services to charitable organizations.
