Rodrigo Tsutsumi, Managing Director
With over 25 years of hospitality management and hospitality consulting experience, Rodrigo Tsutsumi has worked with clients in the Americas from the US to Argentina. An expert in the LATAM region for both branded and independent hotels, Rodrigo is not only passionate about Latin America, but he is most of all a proud advocate the hospitality business.
Rodrigo began his hospitality career working for Erlandsen/Himmelman & Associates, a hospitality consulting firm based in the Pacific Northwest and worked on hotel consulting projects in the Russian Far East which included projects in Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Rodrigo was part of the first wave of hospitality professionals from the US that consulted in the Russian Far East after the collapse of the Soviet Union. After a fruitful two years based in Seattle and Portland, Rodrigo moved to Florida and began a successful decade-long career in rooms operations with Hyatt Hotels that included managerial positions in front office, housekeeping, and revenue management.
Rodrigo was honored to be named Manager of the Year for the Hyatt Regency Miami in the year 2000.
After ten years with Hyatt, Rodrigo returned to hospitality consulting and had the opportunity to work for NorthCourse Consulting which was at the time the consulting arm of Wyndham Worldwide and Group RCI. At NorthCourse, Rodrigo worked on hotel and real estate projects in Latin America and the Caribbean including in Honduras, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Panama. The projects were as diverse as the locations themselves which included hotel feasibility studies, fractional and whole ownership real estate projects, and hotel operations consulting.
In 2010, Rodrigo joined Preferred Hotels & Resorts, the largest independent hotel company in the world. Rodrigo initially began his career with Preferred as their leader for revenue management for Latin America with a portfolio of over 50 hotels. He was subsequently elevated to the position of Regional Director for Latin America which had hotels situated in a region spanning from Guatemala to Argentina. As Regional Director, Rodrigo not only had the responsibility to manage the relationship with hotel owners and managers, but he also provided his advice to hoteliers on how they could expand their international business.
Rodrigo is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and is presently pursuing his Masters Degree in Hospitality Management at Florida International University. He is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
