About
About Sean P. Finelli
Sean P. Finelli is an American entrepreneur, hospitality executive, and the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Tour Guy. He is widely recognized for his expertise in experiential tourism, bootstrapped digital scaling, customer-first operations, finance, and building businesses from zero.
Executive profile
Current role
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, The Tour Guy
Industry
Travel, hospitality, e-commerce, experiential tourism, digital marketing
Academic background
Finance & Statistics
Co-founder
Brandon Shaw
The journey: from financial markets to Roman cobblestones
Sean began his career in corporate finance on Wall Street, working in data, finance, and account management. The personalities he met at financial institutions shaped his communication skills and business acumen, but his ambition lay in cultural storytelling and hands-on entrepreneurship.
In 2008, Sean left Wall Street and moved to Rome to explore his Italian-American heritage and master the Italian language. To support himself, he took jobs across Rome’s hospitality industry, eventually taking to the cobblestone streets outside the Colosseum.
Seeing international visitors struggle with overwhelming crowds, generic audio guides, and poor customer service, Sean began guiding tours himself. By treating guiding as an immersive educational craft rather than a scripted commodity, he quickly built a reputation for high-impact visitor experiences.
Scaling The Tour Guy & The Roman Guy
With co-founder Brandon Shaw, Sean turned a local Rome operation into The Roman Guy, expanding from walking tours of the Colosseum and Vatican to full offerings across Florence, Venice, and the Amalfi Coast.
As demand grew across the continent, the company became The Tour Guy, offering curated tours, private VIP access, and logistics coordination in Europe’s major cultural hubs.
Under Sean’s leadership as CEO
- The company has gathered 1 million verified 5-star traveler reviews.
- Direct accreditation with world-class monuments, including the Colosseum Archaeological Park, the Vatican Museums, the Sagrada Família, Historic Royal Palaces in London, and the Louvre.
- An international team of local historians, archaeologists, and hospitality professionals.
- Through the pandemic, led virtual tour initiatives that sent 100% of proceeds to out-of-work tour guides during worldwide lockdowns.
Business philosophy & thought leadership
Sean is a former member of the Forbes Communications Council, where he published insights on digital marketing, high-intent travel SEO, and brand positioning.
His signature management concept, “Smallering” your business, focuses on removing corporate distance as companies scale.
He advocates transparent leadership, direct executive engagement with frontline customer calls, and showing real employees instead of stock imagery.