Washington, December 12, 2012 – The Honorable Sheila C. Bair, former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), will serve as a featured speaker at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS), January 22-24, 2013, in Los Angeles.

During her five-year tenure (June 2006 – July 2011) as chair of the FDIC, Bair presided over a tumultuous period for the nation’s financial sector.  In response to the financial crisis, she developed innovative and stabilizing programs that provided temporary liquidity guarantees to unfreeze credit markets and increased deposit insurance limits.  She was a strong advocate for systematic loan modifications to stem the looming tidal wave of foreclosures, and led FDIC resolution strategies to sell failing banks to healthier institutions while providing credit support of future losses from failed banks’ troubled loans.  Bair has been a leading domestic and international advocate for common-sense capital and leverage ratios.

She was honored by the Wall Street Journal with the top ranking in their 2008 “50 Women to Watch” list.  That same year, she was named by Forbes Magazine as the second most powerful woman in the world behind German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  In 2009, Bair was named one of Time Magazine’s “Time 100” most influential people, was awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, and received the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award.  In 2010, she was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, along with Mary Schapiro and Elizabeth Warren, as “The New Sheriffs of Wall Street.”  That same year, she received the Better Business Bureau's Presidents' Award for sustained superior performance that fundamentally changed the marketplace and shaped the definition and expectation of trust for all marketplace participants.

A native of Kansas, Bair is a graduate of the University of Kansas and the University of Kansas School of Law.  She is the author of three books, most recently Bull by the Horns:  What Main Street Must Do to Fix Wall Street, a memoir of her career in Washington and tenure as FDIC chair.

Co-hosted by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) and Burba Hotel Network (BHN), the two-and-a-half-day ALIS event features an extensive array of seminars and panels hosted by leading experts and investors discussing important trends and identifying new opportunities.  The conference attracts the lodging industry’s leading hotel executives, investors, lenders, developers, and professional advisory community.  Proceeds from ALIS benefit the educational, research, and training missions of the American Hotel & Lodging Education Foundation (AH&LEF), AH&LA’s nonprofit affiliate.  For information on the Foundation, visit www.ahlef.com.

About the AH&LA
Serving the hospitality industry for a more than century, AH&LA is the sole national association representing all sectors and stakeholders in the lodging industry, including individual hotel property members, hotel companies, student and faculty members, and industry suppliers. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AH&LA provides members with national advocacy on Capitol Hill, public relations and image management, education, research and information, and other value-added services to provide bottom line savings and ensure a positive business climate for the lodging industry. Partner state associations provide local representation and additional cost-saving benefits to members.
 
AH&LEF is the charitable fund-raising and endowed fund-management subsidiary of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Founded in 1953, AH&LEF is the premier organization for scholarships, professional certification, and instructional material as well as funding for hospitality industry research.
 
BHN is the worldwide leader in developing and organizing conferences for the hotel and tourism investment community. With more than two decades of experience, more than 100 events completed or in production to-date, and more than 70,000 international delegates, BHN conferences have become “must attend” events for industry leaders who come together to network, conduct business and to learn about the latest trends. BHN events include: the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles; the ALIS Summer Update in Dallas; the Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit (CHRIS) in Miami; the Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific (HICAP) in Hong Kong; HICAP UPDATE in Singapore; the Hotel Investment Forum India (HIFI) in Gurgaon Delhi N.C.R.; the Hotel Opportunities Latin America (HOLA) conference in Miami; and the Hotel Investment Conference Europe (Hot.E) in London. The BHN website at www.Burba.com is the gateway for information about the conferences BHN produces, as well as a direct link to important players in the hospitality investment world.