UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The 2025 Penn State Hotel & Restaurant Society (PSHRS) Industry Awards and Reception will be held on Tuesday, April 8, at the Nittany Lion Inn.
The event, a tradition of PSHRS and the Penn State School of Hospitality Management since 1960, will honor Reggie Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Cvent, with the Hospitality Executive of the Year Award.
Aggarwal founded Cvent in 1999 with the simple goal of making meeting planning easier for his peers in the business community. Since then, Cvent has become a global-leading provider of meetings, events and hospitality management technology, reflecting the company’s broad industry impact. Today, Cvent’s global marketplace connects more than 300,000 hotels and venues with a network of over 145,000 event planners who sourced $18B+ of group business around the world in 2024 alone. Cvent technology has become synonymous with event success, powering millions of meetings and events for thousands of organizations, including half of the Fortune 500.
Under Aggarwal’s leadership, Cvent has grown to more than 5,000 employees and 24,000 customers worldwide. In June 2023, Cvent was acquired for $4.6 billion and became a private company under Blackstone, one of the world’s largest private equity firms.
The PSHRS Industry Awards and Reception is the marquee fundraising event of scholarships for students studying hospitality management at Penn State and programming support for the School of Hospitality Management by its dedicated alumni society.
For sponsorship opportunities, please contact Ben Jellison, director of industry and alumni relations, at bdj101@psu.edu or 814-865-6728. The following corporate sponsors and individuals are gratefully acknowledged as of March 11:
Nittany Lion
- Cvent
- Marriott International
Blue
- Hilton
- Rockbridge Capital
White
- Morgan Stanley
- Penn Entertainment
- PepsiCo
Patrons
- American Express
- American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA)
- Ecolab
- HEI Hotels & Resorts
- Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG)
- International Food & Beverage Technology Association (IFBTA)
- International Foodservice Manufacturers Association (IFMA)
- LWH Advisors
- Noble Investment Group
- Northstar Travel Group
- PNC Bank
- PwC
- Renaissance Il Ciocco
About the Penn State Hotel & Restaurant Society
The Penn State Hotel & Restaurant Society was founded to strengthen all hospitality professions and enhance the reputation of the Hospitality Management program (HM). PSHRS is an Alumni Group of the Penn State Alumni Association and the College of Health and Human Development Alumni Society.
PSHRS provides a means for achieving closer fellowship among alumni, faculty and students. PSHRS serves those who are currently attending Penn State in HM or who are graduates of the program, as well as those who work within the HM industries and have attended Penn State or are "friends" of the program.
About the School of Hospitality Management
Established in 1937, the Penn State School of Hospitality Management is one of the nation’s earliest and most respected schools of hospitality management. Its top-ranked undergraduate and doctoral programs prepare global leaders with a rigorous, diverse curriculum focused on engaged scholarship, featuring partnerships with Penn State's Hospitality Services, Housing and Food Services, and top global hospitality brands. It’s also home to the oldest Penn State alumni program group, the Penn State Hotel & Restaurant Society. New to the school’s portfolio is an innovative and focused Master of Professional Studies in Hospitality Management graduate degree program.