Friedlander joins U.S. Travel from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in Washington, DC, where he served as senior vice president of research and economics. At RIAA, he held responsibility for data analysis and market research. The results of his work were frequently used as standard measures of the U.S. music industry.

Prior to his work at RIAA, Friedlander worked in equity research at Prudential Securities. He holds an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.