Our panel cited Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who now works at MIT and is director of the W3 Consortium web standards body, as worthy of inclusion for “opening up the world via the internet” and “bringing countless opportunities in the travel arena”. Oxford graduate Berners-Lee invented
the World Wide Web while at the European particle physics laboratory CERN in 1989, where he developed the first web browser. In 2009, Sir Tim was asked to join the UK Government’s Public Sector Transparency Board, a body designed to open up access to government data.
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JIM DAVIDSON CEO, FARELOGIX Our panel of experts saw Farelogix as “a disruptive force in the airline distribution model” thanks to its development of direct- connect technology to bypass the traditional global distribution system (GDS)-TMC relationship. Farelogix technology is used by both Air Canada and American Airlines, carriers at the forefront of the current battle. At the company’s head is someone who knows a lot about distribution. Prior to Farelogix, Jim Davidson was president and CEO of Amadeus Global Travel, North America, head of sales and marketing at System One and vice-president of marketing at Reed Travel Group/OAG.
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BRIDGET BLAISE-SHAMAI MANAGING DIRECTOR, DISTRIBUTION AND MERCHANDISING STRATEGY, AMERICAN AIRLINES
Blaise-Shamai sits at the centre of one of the most interesting and perhaps game-changing battles to affect the sector in recent years – she directs the team responsible for setting distribution policy at AA, whose parent company went into Chapter 11 in November. The panel cited her team for “tackling the lock the GDS giants had on the aviation sector, and coming up with a new distribution model, changing the role of distributor, intermediary and end user, their cost structures and ultimately their survival”.
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PATRICK GRADY CEO AND CHAIRMAN, REARDEN COMMERCE If ever there were a tech company that liked to disrupt existing travel markets, it’s Rearden Commerce. The company has formed partnerships with more than a hundred TMCs including American Express and Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) and has developed an e-commerce platform called Deem that brings together inventory from the likes of ITA, Farelogix and other direct-connects. The company’s founder, CEO and driving force is Patrick Grady, a true web visionary when it comes to the next generation of business travel.
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JON REEVE DIRECTOR, TRADE RELATIONS, EVOLVI Rail has become an increasingly important channel for TMCs in recent years and this growth can be largely placed at the door of the technology companies that have made rail easier to manage. Evolvi, which provides rail booking services for eight of the top 10 TMCs, grew out of the predominantly leisure travel agency Harry Weeks.
As one of the original design team behind
the Evolvi tool, company director Jon Reeve earns a deserved place in our top 20.
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JOHN T CHAMBERS CEO, CISCO For many years, the name of software and network services provider Cisco was barely known to the general public but, more recently, awareness of the company has grown dramatically. More recently, CEO John Chambers has spearheaded the organisation’s development in other areas and it’s this diversification that wins him a place in our panel’s hearts. Cisco’s development of the immersive video-conferencing technology Telepresence and the acquisition of web- conferencing company Webex looks set to shape the business travel agenda markedly in the near future.