ABOUT ROB HAYS

Rob Hays is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Ashford Hospitality Trust, a publicly-traded hotel ownership company with more than 70 hotels across the United States. Mr. Hays worked at Ashford for nearly 20 years before his retirement from the company in 2024. He is an investor and a board member in several other companies including ExoStat Medical and Presidio Healthcare.

Mr. Hays is involved in several charitable, formative, and faith organizations. He is the Chairman of the Board of the Aquinas Institute for Catholic Life at Princeton University and the Chairman of the Board of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in Washington DC.

In 2008 he co-founded the Dallas Business Ethics Forum, which meets quarterly to provide business leaders regular formation in ethics, philosophy, natural law, and Catholic Social Doctrine. Every spring in Dallas he puts on the annual Successful Fathers Conference, now in its 27th year.  He and his wife Alicia have hosted over 50 lectures over the past decade in their home, called the Cottonwood Lectures, on topics of faith, family, and culture.

Mr. Hays earned his A.B. in Politics with a certificate in Political Economy from Princeton University and later studied philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, Italy. He and his wife, Alicia, have been married over 20 years and are blessed with 7 children.