Justin Hynes and Joe Yarbrough Named Among Hospitality’s Rising Stars

August 28, 2026 | Careers

Justin Hynes and Joe Yarbrough have been named to HOTEL MANAGEMENT Magazine’s 2026 Thirty Under 30, an annual list recognizing young hospitality professionals who are making meaningful contributions early in their careers.

While both work within OTO’s finance team, Justin and Joe bring distinct perspectives to the business. Justin’s role bridges finance and hotel operations, using portfolio analytics to help improve profitability, operational performance and long-term asset value. Joe focuses heavily on the financing side of the portfolio, overseeing lender compliance, monitoring cash flow and supporting financing and refinancing decisions.

Both also share an appreciation for something that can’t always be captured on a spreadsheet: hospitality is ultimately a people business.

Get to know OTO’s newest Thirty Under 30 honorees below.

 

HOTEL MANAGEMENT: Describe your current role.

JOE: I manage lender compliance and covenant monitoring across OTO Development’s debt portfolio of 43 hotels and various lending partners. I monitor cash flow and debt service coverage, prepare accurate and timely reporting for our lenders, and support leadership on financing strategy and refinancing decisions.

I build and maintain financial models that track performance across our portfolio, including operating forecasts, hotel-level profitability and covenant compliance. I also produce financial reports for third-party ownership groups whose hotels we manage.

In addition, I serve as a liaison with our business intelligence team, identifying reporting needs and helping maintain data integrity across our systems.

JUSTIN: My role at OTO Development is a hybrid between finance and operations, with a focus on asset management and strategy optimization. I lead and assist with key processes such as budgeting, portfolio performance, labor and cost analytics, CapEx, executive reporting and operational initiatives that generate returns.

I work closely with senior leadership, regional operations, property teams and real estate to identify performance opportunities, enhance operational accountability and support investment decisions.

My work helps company leadership better understand individual property performance and identify opportunities to increase profitability, owner returns, guest experience and long-term asset value.

 

HOTEL MANAGEMENT: What is one measurable impact you've had on your hotel or organization in the past year? 

JOE: Over the past year, I took on a larger role in evaluating and communicating our portfolio’s hotel-level cash flow, providing analysis that directly informed debt, equity, distribution and financing decisions.

During that time, I supported nearly $800 million in portfolio debt activity, including refinances, extensions and new financing, while also assuming greater ownership of our portfolio cash flow model.

Through that process, I analyzed and forecasted individual hotel cash flows, allocated multimillion-dollar distributions across our portfolio and identified properties facing cash flow or debt issues. Working closely with our CFO, I helped determine the necessary steps to resolve those challenges.

The most measurable impact I’ve had this past year has been providing leadership with a clear view of the financial position of each hotel across our portfolio and giving them greater confidence to make decisions with significant capital implications.

JUSTIN: One measurable impact I had over the past year was leading OTO Development’s annual budgeting process across a 54-hotel portfolio, including both owned and third-party managed hotels.

In a multi-brand and multi-ownership environment, I helped standardize property-level analysis, evaluate labor and rooms expense assumptions, and identify profitability trends to provide a more detailed view of growth opportunities across the portfolio.

The impact was portfolio-wide. I helped create a more consistent, accountable and operationally useful planning process across 54 hotels. By bridging finance, operations and ownership expectations, I helped improve decision-making around staffing assumptions, expense controls, profitability, owner returns and long-term asset performance.

 

HOTEL MANAGEMENT: What is the biggest challenge facing the hospitality industry right now, and how are you personally working to address it?

JOE: The hospitality industry is dealing with rising costs, particularly across labor and other operational areas. For many hotels, those costs are outpacing revenue growth, directly affecting margins and bottom-line performance.

For those of us on the financing and ownership side of the business, we see that margin compression affect cash flow, debt service coverage and loan refinances. This is particularly impactful for OTO as we have a meaningful volume of debt maturing this year.

Our approach has been to prioritize fixed-rate financing wherever possible. My contribution has included building tools to forecast and analyze debt service coverage in advance so we can identify potential issues with specific loans before they become problems.

That advanced visibility also allows us to bring lenders into the conversation early rather than after an issue has already surfaced. As I continue to play a larger role in our banking relationships, I’m focused on understanding what lenders need from us to continue the strong partnerships that have historically helped OTO achieve favorable loan terms and strong business outcomes.

JUSTIN: One of the biggest challenges facing the hotel industry is protecting profit margins while operating costs continue to rise. Labor, utilities and general operating expenses are all putting pressure on margins, while guests, associates and owners continue to expect excellence.

What makes this challenge meaningful to me is that behind every number is a hotel team and a staff member trying to deliver great hospitality. Labor dollars aren’t simply an expense; they represent people serving our guests every single day.

Working between finance and operations has allowed me to see both sides and better understand the impact that cost-saving initiatives can have on a team. Finding a healthy balance between savings and exceptional service is part of what makes this work so unique.

My goal is to help our teams make smarter, more balanced decisions — protecting profitability while delivering exceptional hospitality, supporting our associates and creating long-term asset value.

 

HOTEL MANAGEMENT: How has your view of hospitality as a career changed since you first entered the industry, and what keeps you motivated today?

JOE: When I started in hospitality, I didn’t have much frame of reference for the industry beyond knowing that it involved hotels. What I didn’t fully appreciate was how much hospitality operates as a true day-to-day business.

Each room needs to be filled every day, and what has surprised me most is how exposed that makes the business to things completely outside our control. A storm, a local event calendar or a shift in the broader economy can move performance in ways you couldn’t have predicted a week earlier.

Coming from a finance background, I expected to work with relatively stable, predictable inputs. Instead, I’ve learned to build models and make recommendations that hold up even when the underlying assumptions are constantly shifting. Working in hospitality has made me sharper and more adaptable.

What keeps me motivated today is genuinely the people I work with. Between my team and the relationships I’ve built with our lenders and partners across the company, the work feels collaborative rather than solitary. The people make this business, and I’m fortunate to work with so many great people.

JUSTIN: When I first entered the hospitality industry, I understood hotels mainly as businesses. I quickly learned that they are about much more than revenue, expenses, operations and brands.

My view of hospitality changed very quickly because I saw firsthand that this industry is truly built on people. It’s the front desk associate greeting a guest, the housekeeper who takes pride in cleaning a room and smiling at guests walking by, the maintenance team member who solves problems before a guest ever sees them, the sales team building relationships within the community, and the property leaders supporting their teams through high expectations.

I’ve learned that hospitality is the greatest industry to work in because of the people who work in it.

 

HOTEL MANAGEMENT: Who or what has had the greatest influence on your professional development, and how are you paying that forward?

JOE: The greatest influence on my professional development has been Charlie, our CFO. He has led finance at OTO for almost 20 years, yet he continues to take the time to personally teach and mentor me. He genuinely invests in the people who work for him and wants to see us succeed.

When presenting me with something new, he teaches the underlying concept first, explains the reasoning behind the decision we’re facing and then asks for my input before we move forward. That approach has sharpened my critical thinking and made me feel like a real contributor.

He’s someone I feel comfortable going to with any problem or challenge I face, and that combination of investment and trust has shaped how I try to show up for the people I work with.

I try to pay that forward with newer team members and interns in the same way Charlie has with me. I want to teach the technical skills they need, but also explain the “why” behind the decisions we make. It’s important to me that they know they can always come to me with questions or concerns.

I know how much it matters to have someone willing to invest that kind of time in you, and I want to be that person for the people coming up behind me.

JUSTIN: The greatest influence on my professional development has been the senior leadership team at OTO Development. Their example has shaped the way I think about leadership, ownership and the responsibility that comes with making decisions that affect our hotels, associates and, most importantly, our guests.

What has allowed me to grow so quickly is their willingness to trust young professionals at OTO with meaningful responsibility while still providing guidance, perspective and accountability. They’ve taught me to look beyond the numbers, ask better questions and understand the broader impacts of our decisions.

I try to pay that forward by bringing the same mindset to the teams and people I work with every day. Whether I’m supporting property leaders, regional teams or younger associates, I want to be someone who helps whenever I’m asked and is willing to share what I’ve learned — always with the understanding that there is more for me to learn, too.

 

HOTEL MANAGEMENT: Where do you see yourself in five years, and what steps are you taking now to get there?

JOE: In five years, my goal is to be the person at OTO who owns our banking and lender relationships across the entire portfolio. I want to be someone both our internal leadership and our lenders trust to manage that side of the business with full confidence.

Since joining OTO, I’ve learned much more about the hospitality industry and just how capital-intensive and relationship-driven hotel finance is. That has made me understand how important both the numbers and the people are, and I’m actively working to strengthen my skills in both areas.

I’m building the tools and knowledge that allow me to manage debt service coverage, covenant compliance and refinancing decisions with real ownership, while also taking a more active role in lender conversations themselves — not just the numbers behind them.

One of the main reasons OTO receives such competitive terms from our lenders is because of our longstanding partnerships, and I hope to be the person who leads those relationships in the future.

JUSTIN: I see myself continuing to grow as a leader in the hospitality industry, potentially taking on a broader role in portfolio strategy, hotel performance and operational decision-making.

My goal is to continue connecting finance, operations and leadership in a way that drives hotel performance, improves decision-making and, most importantly, provides meaningful support to the people working in our hotels.

The steps I’m taking now are focused on learning as much as I can from the leaders around me, continuing to take on high-impact projects and building a deeper understanding of the hospitality sector as a whole. Through my work in budgeting, performance analysis, CapEx and cross-functional initiatives, I’m developing the financial knowledge, operational perspective and leadership skills needed to make an even greater impact.

Since entering hospitality, I’ve found that growing in a way that allows me to serve others is where I find fulfillment. Hospitality is a people business, and my goal is to become the kind of leader who helps teams succeed — and whose colleagues know he is always just a call away.

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