John Davis III

President, Flying Frogs Investments
WHEN: Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 10:25 pm - 10:45 pm
TOPIC: If You Could Start Over Again

In 1994, Davis led the launch of TravelWeb.com, which was the first Web site to offer real-time online hotel reservations. Over the years, the site evolved to offer reservations at more than 50,000 hotels, and its booking engine and content database became the foundation for Pegasus’ successful online distribution business, which now powers thousands of sites, including Hotwire, Expedia and Orbitz. In 2000, Davis led Pegasus’ acquisition of REZsolutions Inc., the hotel industry’s largest third-party marketing and reservation provider. As a result of this transaction, Pegasus grew from 150 employees to 1,200 employees in 12 countries. Through this acquisition of REZsolutions’ Utell business and its RezView central reservations system, Pegasus immediately became the major player in both the CRS and hotel representation arenas. In 2003, Davis led Pegasus in the purchase of Unirez Inc., one of the fastest growing hotel reservations services companies in the world. The acquisition of Unirez allowed Pegasus to expand its U.S. hotel customer base and enhance its technology offerings to small hotel chains and independents worldwide. With the Utell and Unirez portfolios combined, Pegasus now represents more than 1 million rooms in more than 7,000 independent and small hotel properties around the world, making Pegasus the leading provider of hotel representation services. A longtime entrepreneur, Davis co-founded the toll-free ordering company 800-FLOWERS for the floral industry. After selling the company, he founded a telemarketing company, ATC Communications. Within two years, ATC’s sales had jumped from zero to $25 million, and its staff had grown to 1,200 employees. By 1988, Davis had made ATC one of the nation’s largest providers of inbound and outbound telemarketing services. Prior to these entrepreneurial successes, Davis was president of Mid-South Drilling Company as well as the campaign director and treasurer for Senator John G. Tower’s re-election campaign in 1978. Davis serves on the boards of Pegasus Solutions and TRX Inc., and is on the Board of Trustees of Texas Christian University (TCU). Davis is also a member of the International Board of Visitors of TCU’s M.J. Neeley School of Business. Davis holds a bachelor of business administration degree from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. Davis lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and three sons.