Cedar Fair appoints Ty Tastepe as new CIO
Posted
From the press release:
Cedar Fair Entertainment Company (NYSE: FUN), a leader in regional amusement parks, water parks and immersive entertainment, today announced that Ty Tastepe has joined the company in the newly created role of senior vice president and chief information officer. He will be based at the company’s office in Charlotte, North Carolina, and will report to President and Chief Executive Officer Richard A. Zimmerman.
“Ty brings tremendous skills and experience to our team, having delivered large-scale digital transformation programs for global brands such as Universal Parks and Resorts, Hilton Hotels, and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts,” said Zimmerman. “That experience will be important as we continue to invest in consumer-facing technologies focused on optimizing the guest and associate experience and improving customer satisfaction. In addition, we’ve placed a high priority on continuing to strengthen our enterprise-wide systems, the control environment behind those systems and data security in general. I’m confident that Ty will help us achieve our goals in each of those areas.”
Prior to joining Cedar Fair, Tastepe served for over two years as senior vice president, chief information and digital officer for Altar’d State, a fast-growing fashion retailer based in Tennessee with more than 120 stores in over 30 states. While there he was responsible for all digital and technology investments, delivery and top-line growth. Prior to that, Tastepe spent nearly two decades delivering large-scale digital transformation programs at global entertainment and hospitality brands such as Universal Parks and Resorts, Hilton Worldwide, and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. During his six years at Universal, he helped transform the digital guest experience with the one of the largest technology investments in the company’s history. At Hilton, he led the development of a next-generation reservation system road map and led technology delivery for the launch of a new customer loyalty program and website. From 2001-2011, Tastepe held technology leadership roles at Disney Parks that included worldwide sales and travel operations, revenue management and marketing. He earned an MBA from Villanova University and received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Drexel University.
Read the entire press release from Cedar Fair.
CreditWh0re said:
curious to see where this leads, and shocked that CIO is a newly created role.
Maybe it reported to the head of operations previously, and is being elevated to a "C-level" role? They surely had a head of IT.
I'm not sure if it's a new role, but maybe an adapted role. I thought they previously had a CTO, which is not exactly interchangeable with CIO, but it depends on the company. The guy from Paramount Parks who was behind a lot of the Gate Central stuff was still there in the Ouimet years, and I believe he saw the rollout of the wider POS infrastructure. CF was pretty late to the game getting card payment at every location.
A CTO is about the technology, a CIO is more about the data, in more traditional terms. It's pretty blurry now. His LinkedIn profile strikes me as more traditional CTO, in charge of delivering technology. He mentions MyMagic+, but it looks like he was off to Hilton before the costs on that project got really out of control, and he was director level then anyway.
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Maybe he'll make it where you don't have to stand in an hour long line to redeem a pass to a food festival you already purchased online at home
I realize this should not need to be something a CIO takes care of, but here is priority #1...
Figure out a way for it to take two or less button presses to let someone use their drink plan or meal plan. Good lord it annoys the piss out of me to watch that trainwreck over and over and over throughout the season.
-Matt
Just go to worlds of fun, soda fountains are plentiful and you can just walk right up and fill whatever cup you bring.
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