Gussing Burgess Appointed New Cornell Hotel Society president

In January, Liv Gussing Burgess ’91 began a 12-month term as president of the Cornell Hotel Society (CHS), the 84-year-old alumni association that represents 13,000 graduates from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration in 56 active chapters worldwide.

After a 20-year career in hospitality operations, Gussing Burgess moved to London in 2010 and founded Ripple, a hospitality consulting and leadership/team building business. She works with a range of clients to enhance performance through engaging and empowering individuals and teams to reach goals.

Prior to moving to London, Gussing Burgess spent 14 years with Amanresorts, a global luxury resort company. Among her many roles with the company, she served as general manager of the Amandari in Bali, Indonesia. Under her leadership, the hotel won numerous awards, including top ranking worldwide in Travel & Leisure’s World’s Best Service Awards and repeated top-ten rankings in Conde Nast Traveller’s Gold List.

Gussing Burgess was also part of the pre-opening team for Amanresorts, establishing resorts in Marrakesh, Morocco; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Borobodur, Java; and Tahiti. Her global hospitality experience also includes being a butler at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City and working for Dusit, a Thai hotel company, where she set up standard operating procedures and opened a hospitality school.

In 2013, Gussing Burgess and fellow CHS executives plan to further define the vision for the School of Hotel Administration’s alumni engagement, build a platform on which to partner with the school to bring the vision to life, bring faculty members to CHS chapters around the world, and use technology to better serve alumni needs.