Mobility exchange platform Karhoo has appointed Vanessa Heydorff, former MD for Western Europe at Booking.com, as its new chief commercial officer.
During her tenure at Booking.com, Heydorff led a team of more than 500 staff responsible for the company’s operations across the region. Prior to this, she was vice president of global sales at Accorhotels, where she worked for seven years.
Based in Paris, Heydorff joins Karhoo with more than 15 years’ experience of managing international commercial teams within the travel industry, along with specialised knowledge in expanding tech companies.
In her new role, Karhoo says Heydorff will be responsible for its business development team, with a mission to develop its portfolio of large B2C corporates such as travel and hotel operators, loyalty programmes, OTAs and MaaS platforms, as well as corporates looking to provide Karhoo’s service for clients and employees.
Heydorff joins the company’s executive team, which includes co-CEOs Boris Pilichowski and Nicolas Andine, CTO and CIO Bill Wilkins, group finance director Gary Ambrose and global general counsel and company secretary Winston Green.
Commenting on her appointment, Andine said: “2020 promises to be a very exciting year at Karhoo as we bring the already healthy list of demand partners to live operations of outstanding quality, expand that list of partners tremendously, as well as continue to expand our network of supply partners beyond the 1,500 cities around the world where we are currently present. We are absolutely delighted to welcome Vanessa to the Karhoo family. With her unmatched experience in growing the international presence of other dynamic companies such as Booking.com and Accorhotels, her drive for performance and her great personality, she was the perfect person for this role.”
Heydorff added: “Joining Karhoo is the opportunity to be part of a market-leading structure that offers a seamless and simple mobility experience to businesses for their travellers. I am very proud to take part in this great adventure and I am convinced that Karhoo has all the ingredients to become the mobility leader of tomorrow. I will put all my experience to the benefit of the support of our customers and suppliers.”
Karhoo recently became an industry partner of the Business Travel Association (BTA) and announced in October that it was planning to expand into the Nordics.
karhoo.com