This is a roundup of announcements related to people moves and business expansions in travel in October 2018.
Wednesday 17 October
OTA boss joins Travel Ledger board
- Fabio Cannavale, CEO of lastminute.com group, has joined the advisory board of Travel Ledger Alliance, a blockchain-based project developing a distributed billing and settlement platform for the travel industry. Cannavale is also co-founder of Boost Heroes, a VC firm specialising in early stage and scalable tech. The release mentions that Cannavale will help the alliance "present our proposition to the investment community, something that will be key as we approach the next phase of our project in order to scale up the business quickly.”
Thursday 11 OctoberAmadeus grows APAC airports team
- The travel tech giant has promoted Sarah Samuel to head of airport IT, Asia Pacific. She joined Amadeus in 2014 and will be responsible for growing the airport IT business in the region, overseeing sales, solution design, delivery, operations, and all commercials. She reports in to head of airport IT, John Jarrell. Elsewhere, it has also named Sunil Ankalgi as head of sales and account management for airport IT APAC. He joins from SITA where he was a senior commercial manager for airport services in the region.
Wednesday 10 OctoberNew EVP for Amadeus' corporate travel unit
- Amadeus has named Ángel Gallego executive vice president of the Corporations segment in Travel Channels, tasked with "helping corporations around the globe power smarter business travel". Gallego has some 15 years experience with Amadeus across different geographies, including president of APAC, VP of distribution in WEMEA and director of Latin America. His CV also includes advisory and board member roles in travel and other verticals including biotech, energy and fashion.
Monday 8 OctoberBidroom's new exec line-up
- Members-only hotel booking platform Bidroom has added to its executive board. Cofounder Michael Ros becomes COO, with Bas Tolmeijer brought in as CEO. Francesco Monaco joins as CCO while John Stoffers is named CFO. Bidroom's other cofounder Casper Knieriem remains as chief development officer.
GetYourGuide- CORRECTED: The tours and activities platform has added Sharon McCollam to its board and not appointed her as CFO as previously stated. Current CFO Josef Gatzek remains in place.The release describes her as "a veteran of several publicly traded companies" and her CV includes senior positions in consumer electronics at BestBuy, kitchenware and home furnishings at Williams-Sonoma and fruit and veg with Dole.
Wednesday 3 OctoberUber nabs another EXPE vet
Monday 1 OctoberNetflights new boss
- Andrew Shelton, who left his role as managing director for Cheapflights after its sale to Booking Holdings (Priceline Group as was), has taken on the same position heading up Netflights.com. The B2C comparison site is part of dnata, the wholly owned B2B/B2C travel unit of Emirates Group. Shelton reports in to dnata Travel Europe chief exec John Bevan.
WizzAir adds digital experience to its non-exec board
- Low-cost carrier WizzAir has named Maria Kyriacou as an independent non-executive director. She is currently president of international at ITV Studios, part of media giant ITV plc, where she oversees its production companies across Europe, Australia and the US, as well as its international distribution arm. WizzAir chairman William Franke noted her experience of "leading a business in a sector that has seen a significant digital shift and which has been at the sharp end of changing customer tastes and the emergence of major digital outlets". He framed her appointment around WizzAir's "moves into the next phase of its digital development" following the appointment of Joel Goldberg as its first ever CDO.
Click here for our round-up of appointments which took place in September.