Karen E Rubin

Karen E. Rubin is Principal and Managing Director of Karen Rubin Hotels, LLC, a consultancy and investment platform focused on hospitality asset ownership, advisory work, and education. She brings over 40 years of experience in valuation, litigation support, development, underwriting, market research, investment analysis, feasibility, asset management, and deal execution. Her work spans both existing and proposed properties worldwide, individual properties and multi⿐unit portfolios, and has been provided from the perspectives of various positions: manager, majority owner, JV partner, sliver⿐equity investor, franchisor, buyer, and seller. While centered on hospitality, she has also worked on institutional, commercial office, retail, special⿐use, and mixeduse properties. She holds both the CRE (Counselors of Real Estate) and the Certified Hotel Administrator (CHA) designations, and is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS). She previously held the MAI designation (1996–2022). She has been a licensed general real estate appraiser in the states of Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. She is a published author in her field and has been quoted in the press. She has authored and presented seminars and lectures on hospitality⿐related topics at numerous educational and professional institutions nationwide, and is a sought⿐after public speaker.

Rubin is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Tisch Center for Hospitality, teaching or having taught Hotel Planning, Design and Construction; Hotel Economics; Hotel Statistics; and Investment Analysis and Reporting. She also serves on the school’s advisory board. She co⿐managed the NYU International Hotel Investment Conference until 2023 and has served on the event’s Executive Planning Committee since the 1980s. She is also on Fordham University’s MS Hospitality Advisory Board, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of Greenwich Hospital, serving on its Patient Safety and Quality and Finance and Audit Committees, as well as on the hospital’s Master Planning Task Force. She is an active equity investor in the lodging space, and has had ownership positions in hotels for most of the time since the 1990’s.

From 2000 to 2015, she held senior leadership roles in Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ Real Estate and Development functions, most recently as Senior Vice President of Global Development, Feasibility, and Development Policy. She managed the Global Development Committee and oversaw global underwriting and deal approval for all managed, franchised, JV’ed, and owned deals globally, and across Starwood’s nine brands, collaborating with development, finance, legal, franchise, accounting, asset management, and brand teams.

Previously, Rubin spent more than 18 years at HVS International, working with domestic and international banks, hotel companies, REITs, developers, non⿐traditional lenders, law firms, public agencies, municipalities, and a wide range of private owners and investors. By the end of her tenure there her practice was predominantly focused on litigation support and other dispute resolution assignments. She has provided expert testimony in courtrooms and administrative venues throughout the U.S., including Federal Bankruptcy Court.

She graduated with distinction from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and had seven years of hands⿐on hospitality experience prior to and during her studies.