As President and Chief Executive Officer at accesso, Steve Brown leads the day-to-day operations of the company.
Like many attractions industry veterans, Brown’s early theme park career began during college as an hourly employee at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. After a break to pursue his MBA, he returned to Disney where he held a variety of roles with increasing responsibility in financial planning and pricing strategy including development of revised multi-day admission offerings to incorporate the opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. In 1999, Brown was named Director, Walt Disney World Ticketing where he led all aspects of the Resort’s ticketing process across its nine gated attractions including pricing strategy, fulfillment operations, training and financial management.
In 2002 he was named Vice President, Revenue Management for the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Brown successfully drove dramatic growth in park admissions and hotel revenues through significant changes to strategic and promotional pricing, the introduction of new ticket options and by leveraging technology to expand sales distribution channels. In this broad based executive role, he held primary financial accountability for the Resort’s hotel and ticket revenues, led all promotional and strategic pricing efforts, and managed the attendance forecasting and visitation research functions. In 2005 his role was expanded to encompass line-of-business responsibility for the Disneyland Annual Passholder program including acquisition and renewal marketing, passholder experience optimization, CRM and pricing strategy. Brown’s contributions were key to the Disneyland Resort’s 2005 – 2006 record financial performance during the celebration of the landmark attraction’s 50th anniversary.
Prior to joining accesso, Brown served as the corporate Vice President of Ticket Strategy and Sales for Six Flags. While at Six Flags, he led a 220 person sales force responsible for driving nearly 35% of the company’s admissions revenue. Brown championed an overhaul of the company’s eCommerce process, which doubled the already significant online sales and established Six Flags’ national partnerships with major distributors including Expedia, Travelocity, Best Buy Reward Zone and Costco. He led a comprehensive, research based review of the company’s ticket pricing and developed the strategic plan for 2007 price adjustments across the company’s North American theme parks and water parks. The implementation of this plan contributed significantly to 2007 attendance growth and the company’s positive cash flow results for the first time in its history.
Brown received his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta and graduated with a BS in Marketing from the University of South Florida in Tampa.
