Roman Pedan

Roman Pedan is the Founder and CEO of Kasa, a technology-enabled hospitality brand that bridges technology and real estate operations. Since founding the company in 2016, Roman has scaled Kasa to over 80 properties and more than $150 million in annual booking revenue. The platform has raised significant venture capital from investors including Silver Lake Waterman, Ribbit Capital, and Citi Ventures. Kasa serves as a key industry case study for how AI can transform pricing, operations, and asset management across the built environment.

Prior to Kasa, Roman was the eighth team member of KKR & Co.’s Real Estate Private Equity group. He was part of the team that helped build the nascent platform from the ground up; today, the group manages over $85 billion in AUM and includes more than 140 professionals globally. During his tenure, Roman executed transactions totaling over $1.5 billion in enterprise value across the hospitality, office, multifamily, and retail sectors. Earlier in his career, he was an early team member at Juniper Square, a Real Estate Private Equity investor at Walton Street Capital, and the founder of Bridge The Void, a profitable textbook price-comparison platform that facilitated over $15 million in transactions.

Roman is an active educator in the PropTech and hospitality sectors. He has served as a guest lecturer at The Wharton School, Cornell University, and NYU, covering topics such as hospitality technology, entrepreneurship and real estate development. At Stanford University’s School of Engineering, his lectures on “Opportunities in PropTech and ConTech” were voted “Best Guest Lecture” by students for three consecutive years (2023–2025).

Roman holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He earned a B.S. in Economics with concentrations in Finance and Real Estate from The Wharton School, and a B.A.S. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating Magna Cum Laude from both institutions.

He lives in New York City and is an avid skier, traveler, and reader with a longstanding interest in hospitality organizations, history, and urban development.