Jess Conroy, CEO of ROH, on Building the Financial Core Hotels Never Had

Most of us assume that major hotel brands have sophisticated financial systems running behind the scenes. In this episode, Jess Conroy, CEO and co-founder of ROH, explains just how wrong that assumption is — and why she's spent the last several years building the financial core that hospitality never had.What We Covered:The manual payments problem hiding in plain sightWhy the biggest hotel brands have the biggest challengesThe hidden complexity of every hotel transactionWhy the hospitality industry was overlooked by fintechHow ROH got its start in meetings and eventsWhat "AI-first" actually means at ROHHow ROH fits into the existing hotel software stackThe go-to-market reality of a franchise-heavy industryA transaction-based model that aligns incentivesScale and growth: managing over $1 billion across the portfolioThe stale data problem driving bad hotel decisionsThe vision: a financial foundation for every hotel dollarKey TakeawaysHotel payments are a solved problem almost everywhere except hospitality itself — the industry's bias toward "human solves" left it behind.The complexity of hotel transactions (variable pricing, upgrades, OTAs, group contracts) makes automation far more valuable here than in simpler retail or restaurant contexts.Building something that didn't exist before is the hardest sales motion — you're not replacing a known tool, you're educating a market about a problem they've learned to live with.Year-over-year expansion within existing hotels is the clearest signal of product-market fit — customers keep expanding their use once they're on the platform.About Jess ConroyJess Conroy is the CEO and co-founder of ROH, a financial infrastructure platform for hotels. A second-time founder, she has spent nearly 15 years building in and around the hospitality industry. ROH is currently managing over $1 billion in hotel transactions across its growing portfolio.Connect with Fintech One-on-One:Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes