Proven Under Fire. Told at the Table.
30 years of high-stakes operational resilience meets the architecture of hospitality storytelling.
Patrick Dunn didn’t learn leadership from a textbook, a spreadsheet, or a wellness seminar. He built his career from a small, working-class town in West Gardiner, Maine, into a global operational resilience leader who has managed crisis rooms across four continents.
As a veteran operational resilience executive, Patrick spent 30 years leading global business continuity teams through 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy for companies like Gilead Sciences, SunGard, Capgemini, and Broadridge. He specializes in Structural Resets—bringing logic, triage, and redundancy to organizations running on fumes.
Long before he entered a corporate boardroom, however, Patrick served as an interpretive ranger at six National Park Service sites. That was where he mastered the discipline of narrative craft—studying under Stephen King and folklorist Sandy Ives at the University of Maine—learning to read a terrain, navigate changing elements, and connect people deeply to a place.
Every Place Has a Vianarra. Not Every Place Knows How to Tell It.
Today, based in Sparks, Nevada, Patrick bridges these two worlds. A WSET Level 3 certified wine connoisseur, an active member of premium wine clubs, and a dedicated lifetime Rotarian, he is the founder of Vianarra—a hospitality storytelling practice built for winery owners, winemakers, boutique hotel GMs, and premium restaurateurs across Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Amador County, and the Lake Tahoe basin.
The name is coined from the Latin via (journey) and narra (to tell): the story found along the way. When a front-line hospitality team cannot articulate terroir, heritage, and identity at the table, the business loses wine club conversions, guest loyalty, and word-of-mouth advocacy every day. Vianarra fixes that operational drift through guest experience audits, staff storytelling training, and deep narrative architecture.
Whether delivering a high-stakes leadership keynote based on his book, Stop Leading on Empty (Archway/Simon & Schuster, April 2026), or auditing the guest experience flow of a boutique estate, Patrick’s standard remains unyielding: real-world readiness, structural logic, and insights worth defending at dinner.
The Foundation
30 Years of Global Resilience: Led global crisis management and business continuity across four continents through 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy for Gilead Sciences, SunGard, Capgemini, and Broadridge.
Narrative Architecture: Trained in narrative craft under Stephen King and folklorist Sandy Ives at the University of Maine; former National Park Service interpretive ranger at six national sites.
Elite Performance: Three-time NCAA Division I All-American. Son of a WWII Veteran and POW (Battle of the Bulge). Built from the ground up from West Gardiner, Maine.
Hospitality Authority: WSET Level 3 Certified. Active member of elite Sonoma and Napa wine clubs. Founder of the Vianarra hospitality storytelling practice.
The Framework: Lead with Soul
Out of 30 years of leading teams through high-stakes disruption, Patrick Dunn built the Lead with Soul framework—four unyielding pillars designed to sustain hospitality leaders, operators, and premium organizations under real-world pressure. These are not concepts; they are survival tools.
Presence: Grounding yourself to read the terrain and navigate crisis before you speak to the room.
Purpose: Anchoring operational decisions in structural logic and clear, non-negotiable standards.
Renewal: Systemic risk mitigation that prevents frontline burnout and operational drift.
Service: The dedication to service above self that defines premium hospitality and true leadership.
The Book
Stop Leading on Empty is the first book in the Lead with Soul series by Patrick Dunn, published by Archway Publishing (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) on April 1, 2026. It expands the Lead with Soul framework into a practical guide for sustainable, values-driven leadership when energy is low and expectations are high. Patrick’s next book, The Story in the Glass, is currently in development and focuses strictly on the architecture of premium hospitality storytelling
Recent & Upcoming Engagements.
- NGI Global Leadership Conference — Workshop Host (June 26-27, 2026)
- CAHF/QCHF Summer Conference — Workshop Presenter (July 19-22, 2026, San Diego)
- DRJ Fall 2026 — Main Stage Presenter (September 27-30, 2026, Gaylord Texan, Grapevine TX)
- MISHRM State Conference — Speaker (October 21-23, 2026, DeVos Place, Grand Rapids MI)
What Audiences Say
Work with Patrick
Whether you need to book a high-stakes leadership keynote based on Stop Leading on Empty for your next industry conference, or you want to secure a Vianarra guest experience audit to drive wine club conversions at your estate, let’s start the conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Patrick R. Dunn
Q. How does a Vianarra guest experience audit impact wine club conversion?
A: Brand loyalty isn’t built on generic marketing speak; it’s won or lost on the tasting room floor. Vianarra conducts deep, ground-level audits for estate wineries and boutique hotels across Napa Valley, Sonoma County, and the Reno-Tahoe corridor. We identify exactly where your front-line execution is drifting, aligning your heritage narrative directly with measurable business metrics like membership retention, guest spend, and word-of-mouth advocacy.
Q: What industries do you specialize in for high-stakes leadership keynotes?
A: Patrick Dunn’s frameworks are built for high-performance, high-pressure environments. While his 30 years of operational resilience experience spans global corporate crisis management across four continents, his primary speaking and advisory focus is tailored for hospitality operators, winery owners, premium restaurateurs, and regional tourism bureaus who need to protect their cultures from systemic burnout and operational drift.
Q. Do you offer hands-on storytelling workshops for frontline hospitality staff?
A: Yes. Telling a compelling story at the table is a discipline, not an accident. Vianarra provides tailored, onsite narrative architecture and guest-experience training for luxury properties and tasting rooms throughout Amador County, Tahoe, and California’s premier wine regions. We equip your team with the structural logic needed to read a room, articulate terroir, and anchor a premium guest connection.
Q: What is the core focus of the "Lead with Soul" leadership framework?
A: Developed from three decades of managing large-scale global disruptions (including 9/11 and major hurricanes), Lead with Soul is a readiness framework designed for organizations running on fumes. It rejects academic wellness trends in favor of four unyielding operational pillars: Presence, Purpose, Renewal, and Service. It provides hospitality executives and team leaders with tactical survival tools to maintain structural resilience under real-world fire.