Linda Hirneise

Linda Hirneise is Executive Director for the Global Travel and Hospitality Practice at J.D. Power and Associates. The practice area includes the airport, rental car and hotel/hospitality industries. Ms. Hirneise's responsibilities for the global hotel practice, which has a measurement base of 64 countries and 24 languages, include overseeing guest and employee satisfaction tracking and managing on-site quality audit programs. She also oversees proprietary and syndicated tracking for the airport and rental car industries and provides consulting services for the airport practice.

Ms. Hirneise began her career at J.D. Power and Associates in 1982 in the automotive division. She specialized in global client account management, where her responsibilities included overseeing market research and managing large-scale customer satisfaction tracking projects. Ms. Hirneise also worked closely with Japanese and European import car manufacturers. Her expertise was in customer satisfaction with the executive staff in the headquarters office. Ms. Hirneise also developed extensive experience in automotive performance improvement initiatives, similar to her current responsibilites for the global travel practice. Additionally, she led numerous satisfaction training seminars for various Japanese automotive manufacturers at their headquarters.

Subsequently, Linda Hirneise was responsible for the initial program development of the firm's Power Information Network, a unique nationwide data collection system that provides real-time retail sales transaction data for subscribing automotive dealers and manufacturers. She was later responsible for the development of the firm's Certified Retailer Program, a national recognition program based on retail sales satisfaction.

Ms. Hirneise earned a bachelor's degree in business from Oregon State University and a master's degree in education from California Lutheran University.