Fran Brasseux

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Area of Expertise:

• Growing business results through partnership, strategic marketing and team performance
• International sales and marketing
• Hospitality senior business management in both airline and hotel sectors
• Nonprofit business management and successful fundraising
• Leadership with teams and in business

Fran Brasseux joined The Coulter Companies in March 2008, when Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) became a client of Coulter Nonprofit Management. She joined HSMAI in 2002, and serves as HSMAI's executive vice president and as the HSMAI Foundation's executive director, a non-profit 501 (c)3.

In this role, Brasseux is responsible for the oversight of all HSMAI programs, events, membership, education and marketing functions. She is an experienced nonprofit senior level association executive with over 25 years of international experience in strategic marketing, partnership, fund-raising, member and customer relations, program development and financial and business operations.

Prior to joining HSMAI, for more than 11 years, Brasseux worked for Forte Hotel Group, London, England, a $5.8 billion hotel group with more than 800 hotels. As senior vice president, sales & marketing, Brasseux was responsible for the sales and marketing management of the Americas, including all hotel and regional sales, marketing programs, reservations and public relations. Prior to joining the Forte Hotel Group, Brasseux developed an impressive 13 year sales and marketing career with Pan American World Airways, Inc., where she last served as division director of incentive and meeting sales, USA. She was recognized by Travel Agent Magazine as one of the "Top 100 Women in Travel" for four years running and has received numerous HSMAI Adrian awards for marketing and public relations excellence. She was recognized by industry peers in 2004 as one the hospitality industry's Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Sales & Marketing. Brasseux is a member of the American Society of Association Executives, and is on the marketing committees of both the US Travel Association and Caribbean Hotel Association.

Brasseux currently teaches a graduate class in hospitality sales & marketing each Fall at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Believing that education never ends, she enrolled in graduate business classes at Georgetown University in 2002, continually participates in business, finance and revenue management programs at Cornell University and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia., and attended Northern Virginia Community College, Alexandria, Virginia.

Now, here's the backstory on Fran:

• Hometown: Miami, Florida (yes, not everyone retires to Florida, some of us actually started there!)
• Parents: Wonderful in every way. My father worked his whole career at the Miami Herald newspaper and dearly loved his three girls – my mother, my sister and me!
• Favorite TV Show as a kid: I am an avid reader so truthfully I was often in my room reading the next great novel after dinner when the rest of the family was in front of the TV. Now I do love the TV shows The Office and 30 Rock.....though I still find lots of time to read!
• Spent my days as a youth: Playing outside with neighborhood kids with lots of bike riding, tag, swimming, and boy watching, not necessarily in any certain order.
• First "paycheck" job: Answering "I didn't get my paper" calls at the Miami Herald Circulation Department or developing my early customer relations skills.
• First Car: Turquoise & White Metropolitan Convertible – yes, that was a car brand once and sometimes that particular car actually started!
• Personal quote: Two quotes from John Wooden. "Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." and "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"
• Perfect happiness is: Weekends at our vacation home at Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, sitting on the boat or on the dock with my husband, sun shining and children and grandchildren laughing and playing in the water or on the shore close by.