Leora Halpern Lanz, ISHC

Assistant Dean of Academics, Faculty Chair of the Graduate Programs,
Associate Professor of the Practice
Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration

Leora Halpern Lanz, ISHC is the Assistant Dean of Academics, Faculty Chair of the Graduate Programs, and Associate Professor of the Practice at Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration (BU SHA). She teaches the school’s senior-level Experiential Marketing course and the graduate Digital Marketing Strategies for Hospitality class. She serves on the University’s Faculty Affairs Council, as Faculty Advisor for the University Hillel, and Faculty Advisor for the Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity.

Prior to joining SHA in 2015, Leora served as principal of LHL Communications, assisting hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and destinations with branding and marketing strategies and solutions, including media relations, digital and social media advisory, and online reputation management, including: development of internal and external position statements; content creation and story-telling for audience engagement and connections; media training, and “branding” and “solutions” sales training. Her clients included hospitality management and ownership companies, consulting firms and advisory services, regional investment conferences around the globe, and a lodging brand owners association.

For 15 years, Leora served as Global Director of Marketing & Communications for hospitality consulting giant HVS. She was responsible for overseeing the internal and external marketing communications for the organization’s offices, services, conferences, articles and research. She directed the firm’s global business teams for marketing and communications, graphic standards, internal communications, social media, conference branding and the Market Connections annual event. She also managed and edited the firm’s weekly newsletter, the Global Hospitality Report and was the company’s primary media contact.

Simultaneously, Leora directed HVS’s Sales & Marketing division, working directly with hotel owners, properties and companies, hospitality-related services, and other entertainment and recreational venues. Leora and her team of experienced marketing communications specialists provided strategic planning, innovative sales training and action planning, social media marketing and publicity, and big-picture branding consultancy.

Prior to joining HVS, she worked for nearly ten years as Director of Public Relations & Advertising for the ITT Sheraton Hotels of New York and for five years as Director of Public Relations for the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau (now Meet Boston).

A member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC) and the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI), Leora is a member of the Hotelier’s Guild Academy of Hospitality Arts and is a member of the Americas Advisory Board for HSMAI. She was named one of the Top 100 Powerful Leaders of Hospitality in the US in 2022 by the International Hospitality Institute (IHI)). The IHI also named her one of the Top 25 Influential Hospitality Educators for 2021 and Top 30 in 2022and appointed her as one of its five Educational Advisory Board Members. In February 2017, HSMAI’s national leadership awarded Leora as one of the Top 25 Extraordinary Minds of Hospitality Sales & Marketing. She was also honored as Professor of the Year for 2016-2017 by the students at Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration.

In November 2019, she was named one of the “18 Women Paving the Way in Hospitality” by Lodging magazine; in early 2020 she was nominated as a Massachusetts Lodging Association Business Partner of the Year; and in 2010 Hospitality Marketing Executive of the Year by the Big Apple (Greater New York) chapter of HSMAI.

Leora earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a master’s from Boston University, writing her master’s thesis on hotel crisis communications. Over the years, she has written for dozens of industry publications including BU SHA’s Boston Hospitality Review.