Max Starkov

Max Starkov is President & CEO, HeBS Digital (Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, Inc.) in New York City, the hospitality industry’s leading direct online channel strategy, full-service digital marketing and website design firm (www.HeBSdigital.com).

Max is a published author and recognized "thought leader" in Internet marketing strategies in hospitality, and is a frequent guest speaker and presenter at industry events and conferences.

Max has spent 28 years - his entire professional career - in hospitality and travel. He has an extensive Internet marketing and online distribution experience. He co-founded and served as CEO of three E-Commerce travel companies: Travelbreak.com 1995-2000 ...More (direct supplier-to-consumer online travel marketplace), WhaleMedia.com 2000-2001(Winner of Microsoft’s RAD Award for hotel online booking systems), and HeBS Digital (since 2001). Under Max’s leadership, HeBS Digital has pioneered many of the "best practices" in hotel Internet marketing and direct online channel strategies.

Max received the prestigious HSMAI “Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales and Marketing” honor for 2008. In 2010 Max was appointed to serve on the HSMAI Digital Marketing Council, the highest hotel internet marketing authority in the country, commissioned to monitor and educate HSMAI members about the emerging trends and innovations happening in hotel digital marketing universe.

Since 2001 Max has been teaching, as an adjunct professor, graduate courses on Internet Marketing, E-Commerce and Online Distribution at New York University's Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism Studies.

Max has an MS in Economics of International Tourism and an MBA degree, Beta Gamma Sigma Honors, from Fordham University in New York.