real experience, lasting impact
Found Better is a hospitality advisory built by operators who have spent their careers discovering what works, what doesn't, and how to make good businesses run better.
Founded by Rachel Shanahan and Kenny Marrs, Found Better brings hands-on experience across operations, sales, marketing, real estate, and organizational strategy. Together, they've led portfolios ranging from individually operated properties to 230+ unit high-rise aparthotels — spanning boutique stays to traditional hotels, short-term rentals, and high-end hospitality.
Found Better works with hotel owners, property management companies, growing hospitality brands, and independent operators who need experienced support without adding another layer of corporate complexity. Whether the challenge is improving day-to-day operations, building scalable processes, strengthening a team, evaluating a property or market, or simply figuring out what needs to change next, the approach stays practical — grounded in real operating experience, not theory.
Based in New Orleans and Nashville and focused primarily on the Southeast, Found Better was built around a simple idea: you don't always need to reinvent the playbook. Sometimes, the better way has already been found.
meet the team
Rachel Shanahan
Rachel Shanahan is Co-Founder of Found Better and a hospitality leader known for turning strategy into strong, consistent execution.
Based in Nashville, Rachel has built her career leading properties, teams, and markets through growth and change. She brings a deep understanding of what it takes to deliver great hospitality every day — from developing leaders and creating accountability to strengthening property performance and ensuring the guest experience doesn't get lost in the numbers.
Rachel has a particular talent for bringing order to fast-moving environments. She understands how to take an idea from the conference room to the property level, build the structure around it, and get teams genuinely invested in making it work. Her passion is making all the little details come together and bringing the magic to an experience.
At Found Better, Rachel brings a people-centered operating perspective that keeps recommendations grounded in what can actually be executed — not just what looks good on paper.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Kenny Marrs
Kenny Marrs is Co-Founder of Found Better and a hospitality operator who has spent his career making complex businesses simpler, stronger, and more scalable.
Based in New Orleans, Kenny has led hospitality operations across multiple markets and built a reputation for finding the gaps between how a business is supposed to work and how it actually works. His experience spans operations, financial performance, real estate, technology, guest experience, and organizational design — often at the intersection of several at once.
He has led major operational transformations, developed new service models, navigated portfolio growth and contraction, and located effeciency opportunities and implemented changes that generated millions in annual savings. Kenny tends to gravitate toward the messy problems: inefficient processes, unclear ownership, growing pains, and businesses that know something needs to change but aren't quite sure where to start.
At Found Better, he brings that same approach to helping hospitality businesses find a clearer, more practical path forward.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner