The Ambio Team
Marc Thornburgh
Co-Founder and CEO
Marc is an experienced entrepreneur and real estate developer with a focus on hotel and second home residential developments. Marc possesses decades of business creation skill and is innovative in setting strategic plans and direction, structuring inventive programs, identifying development and “new idea” opportunities, assembling well-rounded and effective teams, and cultivating and managing financial, joint venture and luxury hotel brand alliances.
During his career, he has been responsible for assembling and leading real estate development projects that include hotel, whole ownership residential condominiums, high-end private residence club, and retail components. He was the first independent fractional developer to forge a strategic alliance with a luxury boutique hotel operator, adding hospitality service value to the private residence club product. This award-winning formula is now considered to be an industry model. Marc also has a depth in entrepreneurial experience in the creation of a diverse range of businesses, primarily focused on the creation, introduction, and marketing of B2B opportunities.
Wayne Dickerson
Co-Founder and Board of Directors
Wayne is a highly accomplished senior executive and operator with over 30 years of experience in the travel, hospitality, and technology industries. He holds a Master's degree in Engineering and has a proven track record of success as a CEO, President, and revenue strategist.
Throughout his career, Wayne has worked with some of the biggest names in Travel and Tech, including IBM, Amadeus IT Group, and PROS Software. He has also been responsible for international P&L accountability ranging from scaling startups with $6 million of investor equity to growing a highly complex IBM P&L in Asia to greater than $1.1 billion of annual revenue.
Currently, Wayne is the President of Abante Partners, where he combines his extensive hospitality, travel-tech, and social commerce strategy experience to advise on M&A and post-acquisition integration, and provide CEO and Board level strategy for revenue scaling and growth. Wayne has led 2 successful startups, and has achieved numerous successful transformations of software and technology businesses.
Cynthia Thornburgh
Co-Founder and CFO
Cynthia has 27 years of operational and management experience in the commercial banking, corporate treasury, real estate development, and hospitality industries, with a focus in the last 14 years on financial management, development operations, and asset management for real estate projects including hotel, private residence club, and whole ownership single-family residential product categories.
She possesses broad leadership skills and a depth of knowledge in key areas including financial operations, lender and investor relations, contract negotiation, project administration, and HOA governance. During her career, Cynthia has provided financial and general management oversight from both an internal company operational perspective as well as on a consulting and new product development basis. Cynthia currently serves as both Asset Manager for the Austria Haus Hotel and CFO of the Austria Haus Development Group, LLP, where she is responsible for hospitality strategic positioning and oversight as well as partnership operations and financial administration.
Kevin Tracy
Creative Director
Kevin Tracy is an award-winning designer with the coaching skills to draw the best out of each client. He brings skills honed by teaching around the globe to help businesses turn complexity into simple and beautiful brand strategy and design. His experience includes corporate brand development, design across media platforms, creative team development, managing concurrent brand systems across multiple industries, international cross-cultural work, teaching and speaking on 5 continents, personal branding, and front-end web development.
Kevin graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute, worked with Willoughby Design Group and Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, served 20 years in ministry, and launched Scrum(dot)Marketing. His design work has appeared in Print Regional Design Annuals and Graphis Logo Annuals. His passion now is to help small businesses navigate a relentlessly complex marketing world by building brands that grow stronger with use and fully reflect the brilliance of the business itself.
Toni Portmann
Advisory Board
Toni is currently co-founder and CEO of Memory Science, a digital platform dedicated to . With more than 35 years of leadership experience in board and executive management, Toni has spent her career in technology-centric companies, ranging from software and hardware to support and services. She brings a wealth of management skills with expertise in board leadership, M&A, strategic planning, process improvement, and innovative sales solutions.
Toni’s corporate leadership includes holding the position of chief executive officer at 5 companies, including DHISCO, a SaaS switch connecting the world’s largest hotels to the world’s largest OTA’s. Throughout her career, she has held executive positions at IBM Corporation and Diebold, Inc. and has served on public, private, and non-profit boards in roles of chairman of the board, chairman of nom/gov; compensation and strategic planning committees and is proud to be on the Advisory Board of Amb.io.
Mick Freeman
Advisory Board
Mick is a mission-driven, visionary leader and Harvard MBA with 25+ years of professional experience in private, public, and nonprofit, public management. An energetic leader and general manager with multi-sector breadth and depth, he is passionate about travel, education, social enterprises, youth engagement, and unlocking capacity and potential in all for the greater good. Accomplished at financing/funding, launching, scaling, operating rapid-growth enterprises and large-scale non-profits, and leveraging a unique combination of Fortune 100 know-how and scrappy entrepreneurship.
Mick has had multiple senior executive roles in technology businesses, including FinTech, AdTech, and EdTech. He currently is an executive with Covered Insurance Solutions, the market-leading digital insurance provider servicing the mortgage industry with comparative insurance quotes from top carriers and serves as a Network Advisor mentoring tech startups with the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network.