Melanie Colton has joined Convene Hospitality Group as Chief Product & Technology Officer, the company confirmed August 26. The appointment places a media-industry technology executive at the helm of the meetings and events operator's engineering, data, infrastructure, and product functions across 38 global locations.
The Hire's Significance
Colton brings more than 25 years of product and technology leadership, most recently as CTO of Axios Media, where she built the editorial, commercial, and consumer technology stack and was among the first media technology leaders to deploy AI across newsroom and business workflows. She also led technical due diligence for Axios's $525 million acquisition by Cox Enterprises — a credential that signals a strategic operator rather than a purely infrastructure-focused hire.
For hospitality operators watching how venue and event companies structure their technology leadership, the move reflects a broader shift: technology is increasingly being treated as a direct revenue driver rather than a back-office cost center. Colton has said her focus will be on delivering "intuitive tools that drive revenue while ensuring our digital infrastructure remains efficient and sustainable."
AI and the Event Floor
CHG, the parent of the Convene and etc.venues brands and the largest provider of dedicated meeting and event spaces in the U.S. and UK, is explicitly targeting intelligent AI automation as a near-term operational priority. Colton's mandate includes identifying new revenue streams through the company's enterprise platform, a critical lever for a group managing more than four decades of venue expertise across a portfolio backed by Ares and Brookfield.
For operators across restaurant and hospitality technology, the CHG appointment illustrates a talent pipeline opening between media-tech and hospitality-tech, where skills in large-scale data architecture, audience personalization, and AI workflow automation translate directly to guest experience design and yield management. Ryan Simonetti, President and CEO of CHG, framed the hire around data creativity: "We look forward to how she reimagines our digital experiences and powers the next generation of meetings and events."
What Operators Should Watch
Colton's track record of building unified platform strategies for enterprise organizations suggests CHG may be preparing to consolidate its technology stack in ways that could influence how the company prices, packages, and delivers its event services globally. As the broader hospitality industry accelerates AI adoption, her cross-industry background offers a case study in how operators can recruit innovation leadership from adjacent verticals rather than competing within a tight hospitality-native talent pool.
Colton holds a Master of Science from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland. She is headquartered at CHG's New York City office.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
