David Manning

Since founding Manning Technology Consulting in 2026, I’ve worked as a fractional IT Director and delivery partner to hospitality, leisure and experience-sector businesses - bringing senior-level technology leadership without the overhead of a permanent hire, across embedded board-level engagements and structured project delivery.

Selected engagement - Everyman Cinema. Independent technology consultant to one of the UK’s leading premium cinema groups, brought in by the Technology Director to bring commercial focus and structure to a transformation programme running a new CRM platform, website, app and expansion pipeline in parallel.

I led the client side of Everyman’s Bloomreach CRM implementation - customer data schema, migration from the Azure data warehouse, email authentication and warm-up, lifecycle journeys and template framework - consolidating customer communications from separate systems into a single activation layer. I also shaped and ran the F&B pre-ordering proposition from concept through multi-site trial to live rollout, and provided independent challenge on vendor selection, delivery governance and the team’s planning and prioritisation framework.

As Director of IT & Digital I held full technology ownership reporting to the CEO and board. The headline programme was a brand-new mobile app, delivered with a digital agency alongside internal full-stack and front-end resources, with deep integrations into Salesforce, Micros Simphony, and the venue’s events and restaurant booking platforms - putting membership, dining and event journeys into a single product.

I also oversaw the technology behind new restaurant and bar openings within the venue, from hardware and infrastructure through to software and payment systems implementation. Alongside the build work I stabilised a fragmented inherited IT estate and put in place the DR and BCP frameworks the business had previously lacked.

As Group Head of IT, I held full technology ownership across The Doyle Collection’s ten-site UK, Ireland and US estate - eight luxury hotels plus two corporate offices - reporting directly to the CFO with full P&L accountability. I defined and executed a multi-year technology roadmap spanning three countries, and led a group-wide network refresh, including a site-to-site SD-WAN rebuild across every property that improved reliability and cut circuit costs.

The standout delivery was securing £1.5m in board and owner investment to replace end-of-life door locks across all eight hotels with Vingcard RFID Bluetooth locks - owning the full lifecycle from business case through vendor selection, Opera PMS integration and phased delivery across 400+ doors per property. I also led the cybersecurity and GDPR programme to a zero-critical-findings audit, and worked with Sales & Marketing to overhaul the CRM and customer data strategy - all while controlling CAPEX and IT P&L at group and hotel level.

Engaged as Soho House’s senior technology programme delivery lead, I worked across 42 member clubs, hotels and offices spanning Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia - reporting to the Head of Global Delivery and the CIO. I directed the launch of Soho House’s mobile app loyalty programme, using member data and personalised content to drive engagement and commercial outcomes globally.

Alongside that, I led programmes spanning network standardisation, cloud migration and security improvements across the estate, and delivered infrastructure consolidation and vendor renegotiations that realigned technology spend with strategic priorities - all without disrupting the day-to-day experience members and staff relied on across four continents.

As Programme Director, International at BirchStreet Systems - an enterprise SaaS provider of procurement and supply chain platforms for hospitality - I was the senior client-facing programme lead for two of its largest global accounts: Hilton Supply Management and Marriott International, across EMEA and global markets.

I owned end-to-end programme delivery and the full software DevOps lifecycle for both accounts - sprint planning, QA, release governance - while managing client-dedicated delivery teams across the US, Europe and India, maintaining client satisfaction and contract retention through structured governance against enterprise SLAs. It gave me a vendor-side view of hospitality technology most in-house IT leaders never get.

As IT Programme Manager for YOTEL’s global new-build programme, I owned the full IT delivery lifecycle for international hotel openings across nine properties on three continents - including San Francisco, Miami, Boston, London, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Dubai and Singapore - with every property opening on time and fully operational from day one.

I owned RFP, vendor selection and contract negotiation for the networks, telephony, CCTV and security systems behind each opening, and spearheaded integration of core systems - PMS, POS, payments and mobile - so every hotel could run data-driven from day one. I also developed the CAPEX/OPEX budgets and designed YOTEL’s global technology brand standards and the connected cabin concept, setting the mandated hardware and configuration baseline for the entire global portfolio.

I joined as a commercial analyst in 2010 and was promoted to Director of Commercial Projects & Sales Excellence in 2014 by the incoming Chief Commercial Officer. The commercial planning approach began with a senior commercial leader in the region. I designed and built the tools and templates, took them to every hotel in the group, and coached hotel teams on turning the numbers into strategies and activities that deliver them.

While in role, I was also appointed as Programme Lead for “Insight 20/20”, an ambitious initiative to strengthen Jumeirah’s commercial-wide capabilities. I was tasked with running the PMO, investment case and reporting: five projects, one business case and one customer data standard.

Insight 20/20 case study