The People
Behind Moda.
Behind every Moda project is a trusted team of hotel specialists, creative thinkers and collaborators who understand hospitality from the inside out — bringing sharp strategy, creative instinct and genuine care to every brief.
OUR FOUNDER
Meet Danelle.
Described as ‘wildly talented’ and ‘world-class’, Moda founder Danelle Ayers is fuelled by curiosity, creative instinct and a drive to help hotel and hospitality brands reach their potential.
With two decades of operational and strategic hotel experience spanning New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the US and the Middle East, Danelle brings a rare mix of commercial thinking, brand leadership and hands-on hospitality understanding to the work. She has led strategy, shaped brand narratives, orchestrated campaigns, influenced stakeholders and built creative teams across some of the region’s most distinctive hotel brands.
Prior to launching Moda, Danelle led the iconic QT Hotels & Resorts brand as Head of Brand & Marketing, overseeing a portfolio of 10 hotels and 18 signature food and beverage venues across Australia and New Zealand - delivering breaking results during her tenure.
Her career began on the floor and behind the bar, before moving through restaurant management, front office, conferencing and events, corporate sales, revenue management and national brand leadership. That breadth gives Danelle a deep understanding of how hotels really work - and how brand and marketing can make a meaningful commercial impact.
Our Team.
Justine.
Justine brings a savvy, commercially minded approach to hotel marketing, with a natural ability to connect brand thinking with practical delivery. She’s thoughtful, customer-focused and brilliant at shaping work that is genuinely effective and results driven.
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Her background spans hotels, destination marketing organisations and global travel brands, including several years working alongside Danelle at Rydges. That shared history gives Justine a strong understanding of the balance between brand building and performance - and how to create marketing that connects with customers while supporting revenue growth.
Practical and highly collaborative, Justine works across integrated marketing strategy, digital, content, campaigns, partner marketing and data-led optimisation. She’s known for delivering work that is considered, commercially useful and she always goes above and beyond. She’s a great human.
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Lisa.
Lisa has a sharp commercial brain and an instinctive understanding of what makes hotel sales and marketing work. Extremely capable, deeply trusted and unflappable, she helps turn big plans into clear action and measurable results.
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Having worked alongside Danelle for more than seven years across the Rydges New Zealand and QT Hotels & Resorts brands, Lisa brings a deep understanding of accommodation, hospitality and tourism.
Lisa moves easily between sales strategy, B2B campaigns, content, social, email marketing and analytics - always with clear thinking and a strong sense of what needs to happen next. Clients trust her for her collaborative style and ability to keep things moving without the noise.
A joy to have on the team, Lisa always makes the work better.
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Christine.
Christine is the person you want beside you when there are lots of moving parts. She brings calm, structure and practical hotel experience to Moda projects, helping keep the work moving and the details under control.
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Having worked alongside Danelle at Rydges Hotels & Resorts, and more recently at QT Hotels & Resorts as her project manager, Christine knows how to deliver great outcomes without the fuss.
She is highly organised, dependable and has a brilliant ‘get things done’ attitude - the kind of person every project needs. Christine brings strong attention to detail, practical hospitality experience and a generous, solutions-focused energy to the team.
She’s a delight to work with and someone you can always count on.
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Mikaela.
Mikaela brings a practical, operations-minded view of how hotels show up and sell online. She understands what drives bookings, especially across OTA platforms, and helps hotel teams present a stronger, sharper version of their brand.
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Mikaela and Danelle first worked together at Rydges Wellington, before Mikaela joined Rooms Online as Operations Team Lead.
It was there she developed a practical understanding of how accommodation providers can perform better across online travel agent platforms - from optimising listings to improving the content that helps convert browsers into bookers.
Mikaela is passionate about helping hotel teams reduce the time spent on OTA management while improving the quality and consistency of their online presence. She is a superstar - organised, solutions-focused and always one step ahead.
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Our Partners.
Moda works with a handpicked network of creative and strategic partners - specialists we know, trust and genuinely love working with. Together, we build the right team around each brief, bringing the best mix of thinking, craft and capability to the table.
Ginni
Post.
Ginni Post is the founder of GP Communications, a specialist PR and communications consultancy with extensive experience across hotels, tourism, hospitality and travel.
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Ginni is Moda’s go-to communications partner, bringing sharp media instincts, strong industry relationships and a clear understanding of what makes a hospitality brand worth talking about. Together, we’ve partnered on the launch of Hotel Indigo Auckland and Bistro Saine, Pullman Auckland Airport, and a number of other hotel and hospitality client relationships - connecting brand, marketing and PR in a way that feels genuinely story-led and commercially smart.
Her strength lies in finding the hook, shaping the narrative and getting it in front of the right people - across earned media,
influencer partnerships, events,
communications strategy and reputation management.
Chester
Travis.
Chester Travis is an award-winning filmmaker, director, editor and musician with a sharp creative eye and an instinctive feel for storytelling.
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A long-time Moda creative collaborator, Chester brings cinematic direction, editing, music, sound design and a brilliant creative brain to the work. Together, we’ve created brand films, campaign content and documentary-style storytelling for Hotel Indigo Auckland, Bistro Saine, Pullman Auckland Airport, The Clements, WQ Hotels, Coronet Ridge Resort, Astro Hospitality, Kerzner International and Rare Finds.
His background spans music videos for Grammy Award-winning artist Kimbra, television, animation, international campaigns and original music. What makes Chester so valuable is his ability to find the feeling of a place - then turn it into film, music and story that feels distinctive, beautifully crafted and full of personality.
Simeon
Patience.
Simeon Patience is an Auckland-based photographer with an exquisite eye for detail and a gift for bringing out the best in people, places and spaces.
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Sim has worked with us across Hotel Indigo Auckland, Pullman Auckland Airport, The Clements, WQ Hotels and Coronet Ridge Resort, capturing interiors, lifestyle and campaign imagery with care, craft and a quiet kind of magic.
His wider work spans campaign, lifestyle, portrait, product, automotive and motion, with clients including Air New Zealand, Genesis Energy, Mazda, New World, Top Gear, Vodafone, Westpac and The Warriors.
Patient by name and by nature, Sim’s process is creative, considered and always personable. He makes people feel at ease, sweats the detail, and always goes the extra mile to get the shot. His work is beautifully composed and full of feeling.
Credentials.
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Danelle successfully led the brand, marketing and communications functions for the pre-opening of QT Newcastle.
This involved managing the following aspects: Hotel, Restaurant, and Rooftop Bar Visual Identity Development; Pre-Opening Launch Campaign and Activations; Partnerships; Uniform Curation, and the Hotel Launch Event.
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Danelle was tasked with launching a major brand campaign for QT Hotels post-Covid, with the key objective of driving earned media reach and talkability.
As campaign lead, Danelle managed all aspects of the campaign from end-to-end, including agency management, creative input, internal communications, operational SOP roll-out, and owned channel strategy (website, social, app, influencer activity, email marketing, print and OOH media).
Danelle also led the secondary phases of the campaign, the charity auction for the Lamps of Chaos and the production of the Curious Currencies book.
The campaign generated 600 entries and 75 pieces of earned media coverage across print, radio and digital, resulting in $1.5M ASR and a reach of 29 million customers across Australia and NZ with 100% positive sentiment.
The campaign also took home the GOLD Award in the Promotional Activity category at the PR Awards Asia 2023, and a BRONZE Spike in Brand Experience & Activation at the Spikes Asia 2023 awards.
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Danelle proposed a collaboration between QT and technology game-changer Dyson, presenting an end-to-end plan to implement this across the QT Hotels portfolio of 10 hotels.
After 12 months of negotiations and planning, ‘Engineered for Chaos’ was launched – an iconic partnership between QT and Dyson that elevated the QT guest experience and made QT a market leader in in-room hair styling tools.
This partnership achieved extraordinary earned-media coverage, with a reach of over six million customers across Australia and NZ and 100% positive sentiment.
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Over the three years that Danelle was brand guardian for QT Hotels, she championed a content-led approach to seasonal campaign activity and key occasion campaigns.
This brand led approach saw the development of rich video content, based on a story-telling approach.
The success of this strategy showed not only in the increased reach and engagement across owned channels, but also delivered year-on-year campaign revenue growth.
The following video-led campaigns were executed during Danelle’s tenure:
Room Service by QT
You Live Here Now
Never Going Home
Stay Your Way
Indulgence, Served.
House of QT: Partners of Pop
Merry Everything
Down to Party
The following PR-led Valentine's Day campaigns were also executed during this time:
Love is Blind
You, Plus Two
Get a Room!
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qtQT is an urban rooftop oasis with unique cabin accommodation situated at QT Gold Coast. This was the first sub-brand created for QT Hotels & Resorts.
Danelle led the brand development, visual identity development and roll-out, and also oversaw the website build, the photography and videography, and the marketing and communications launch campaign activity.
This launch generated exceptional earned media coverage across print and digital, resulting in a reach of over ten million customers across Australia and NZ with 100% positive sentiment.
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QT partnered with the award-winning Four Pillars distillery to produce a bespoke collab gin.
Danelle oversaw all aspects of the production and launch, from the crafting of the gin at the Four Pillars distillery, the naming of the gin, the design of the label and the owned and earned campaign strategy and the partnership launch.
This launch resulted in a reach of over one million customers across Australia and NZ with 100% positive sentiment.
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In Danelle’s role as Head of Brand & Marketing for QT Hotels & Resorts, she had a team of twelve located across Australia and New Zealand.
Danelle planned and implemented a two day ‘Brandcamp’ to bring this group together in Sydney for team building and professional development activities. It was the first time that this wider team had all been brought together in person for an event like this.
This initiative resulted in building a team culture that was tight-knit, focused, passionate and determined to succeed.
A post 'Brandcamp' survey showed 100% positive employee sentiment from the team with regard to the event and the outcomes.
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In 2020, with the added challenge of Covid and lockdowns, Danelle project managed the brand and marketing of the pre-opening of QT Auckland.
This involved managing numerous aspects, including (but not limited to): Hotel, Restaurant and Bar Visual Identity Development; Partnerships; Brand Activations; Uniform Curation; FF&E; Staff Recruitment; and Staff Onboarding Activity.
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Danelle project managed the brand and marketing aspects of the pre-opening of Atura Wellington.
This involved managing the following aspects: Hotel, Restaurant and Bar Visual Identity Development; Content and Asset Development; Local Partnerships; Uniform Curation; and Pre-Opening Launch Activations.
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‘Your Art. Our Rooms’ was an initiative to support local Wellington and New Zealand artists in a nationwide competition to find artists to create bespoke artworks for the walls of 25 new guest rooms at QT Wellington.
Danelle was the project lead on this venture, managing all aspects from initial conception to final completion and launch. This involved liaising with arts advisors, the arts community, the building developers, interior designers, hotel operations, right through to developing the website competition entry mechanism, the marketing and PR, and the launch party.
Danelle also worked on the completion of the final book draft: ‘Your Art. Our Rooms’
Gallery 4 (as it was to be named) also won the Excellence in Marketing and Best Redeveloped Hotel awards at the Hospitality NZ Awards in 2019.
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Danelle project managed the Sales & Marketing functions for the pre-opening of QT Queenstown.
This involved a six-month lead-in time, project managing all aspects of the Sales and Marketing launch requirements, from Photography; to Brand Assets; Sales Collateral; Website Design; Visual Identity Development; Market Research; Sales Pipelines; Partnerships; Distribution; and the Opening Launch Event.
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Danelle created, planned and executed the first EVENT Hospitality & Entertainment New Zealand Showcase.
This was a major event for 80 of EVT New Zealand's top clients and PCO’s. It incorporated The Embassy Theatre, Rydges Wellington and QT Wellington as event locations on the night. The evening was shrouded in secrecy, with guests meeting at Te Papa, experiencing a random ‘flash mob’ welcome, then being transported by a big red London bus to each location to delight in surprise activities at each venue.
The Rydges Wellington event was a take on the ‘Seven Days’ television game show concept, which was renamed ‘Rydges Seven Stays’ and featured the actual stars from the real show.
Post-event saw a large number of conference and event leads generated from the attendees (some attendees still comment that it was ‘the best hotel event they have ever attended’!).
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Danelle was responsible for the conception, project management and execution of this ground breaking technology (at the time in 2016), and worked alongside Lisa to roll this out across the group.
The custom-built virtual reality app showcased to the user a virtual experience of the entire hotel - from public areas, event spaces, accommodation rooms, to the restaurant and bar and leisure centre.
The app was launched at the MEETINGS NZ Tradeshow, where Rydges New Zealand won Best Stand (out of over 350 exhibitors). The judges commented that the app and how it was being used as a sales tool was ‘game changing’ for the industry.
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Danelle won ‘Marketing & Communications Associate of the Year’ at the 2025 HM Awards Aotearoa Pacific.
‘Yours Always’ for Hotel Indigo Auckland won ‘Marketing Campaign of the Year’ at the 2025 HM Awards Aotearoa Pacific.
Danelle is also a five times winner of the ‘Excellence in Marketing’ award category at the Hospitality New Zealand Awards for Excellence.
“Danelle is a dynamo, a wizard and an awesomely creative human. She has a unique capability to come up with creative ideas that shoot the lights out, and the ability to execute flawlessly, and make it look frustratingly easy. Above all else, Danelle puts heart into everything she does.”
— Aimi McEwen, former Business Development Manager | Dyson