plenary ‘I’m Passionate About the Community’ + Top Sites, Take Two WHAT’S YOUR STORY? George Aguel

board for many years, so I knew the organization very well. I knew the staff, the business community, and the leader- ship of the community very well for so many years. I’ve always, as long as I can remember, been active in a volunteer leadership role, as I’m passionate about the community. Orlando is home. Our sons were raised here. We’re definitely going to retire here.

I knew it would be an easy transition since I’m not going to a city where I don’t know anybody, or a job where I don’t know what it entails, or under- stand the nature of the work. I already have the relationships in the industry and community.

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arlier this year, following a 23-year career in executive positions at the Walt Disney Co. — most recently as senior vice president of global corporate alliances and operating

participants — George Aguel was named president and CEO of Visit Orlando. In this role, Aguel assumes leadership of a $31.7-billion hospitality and travel community that welcomed more than 56 million tourists in 2012 and is supported by more than 224,000 direct tourism-related jobs.

While he didn’t initially consider making the move to head up the CVB

— Aguel was actually involved in the process of looking for a replacement for former Visit Orlando President and CEO Gary Sain, who died suddenly in May 2012 — he said it seemed a natural fit and has been an easy transition. “All I had to do was leave my driveway,”

22 PCMA CONVENE AUGUST 2013

Aguel told Convene recently, “and go in a little different direction.”

I was very close to Gary [Sain], and it was a really difficult thing for me personally to lose him as a friend. After several months of considering candidates, I was asked to consider the position myself. I had served on the [Visit Orlando]

Orlando welcomes more visitors than anyone in the country, more than Vegas, more than New York — more than anybody. As vast as that is, everybody gets along here. Everybody will have friendly competition, but everybody is very unified on the importance of tourism to our community and to the economy. So, when it comes to any- thing that involves tourism, everybody comes together. I just saw this role as a great opportunity for me to extend my engagement in what we do in a place that I have a lot of passion for. The team here is amazing.

It’s about partnerships. I can envi- sion the potential for an organization like ours to develop stronger, more compelling partnerships — it’s one of the opportunities that I am looking at, since I’ve had so many years of experi- ence involved in developing those kinds of corporate partnerships [at Disney]. I think you learn a lot about the impor- tance of great leadership in a company like Disney. You learn the importance of having a variety of stakeholders gain equity into what you’re trying to do.

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