There are not many startups that manage to sign a partnership agreement with a big brand before they even launch. And there are perhaps even fewer new businesses that get details written into the same deal that include how an exit via an acquisition might look. But that's what happened to Boston, U.S.-based FlipKey, when it secured a partnership with Tripadvisor to help get the vacation rental marketplace off the ground in 2007. This wasn't because it was the wild west of private...

Dean Donovan has one foot in the past and, without doubt, one foot in the future. After a five-year career at the Bain consultancy, Donovan and his business partner (Brian Flynn) played central roles in 2004 to the creation and backing of Volaris, Mexico's first low-cost carrier. DiamondStream Partners, the investment house that they created the year before, has since go on to become an important player in the development of companies and technology in the mobility sector. Transforming "rough...

Stepping into the hot seat of a family-run business that has been operating since the 1920s must be a fairly daunting task. That's what Brett Tollman in 2000 when he became CEO of The Travel Corporation - one of the oldest groups of companies in the travel industry. The business remains privately-owned and now operates in over 70 countries, with over 40 offices and more than 10,000 employees. The Travel Corporation operates 29 brands including specialists in guided holidays, luxury...

The unconventional stories of a company's founding are often the most interesting - rather than the fairly formulaic idea-when-traveling-Y-Combinator-seed-investment-route. After studies overseas, Richard Valtr was back in his home country of the Czech Republic and helping with a family project to renovate and build a hotel, when the concept of Mews was formed. Now powering 2,000 hospitality brands around the world, Mews is a platform to automate and simplify operations for hotels and their...

HolidayPirates was born in 2012 - essentially as a travel hack for people to find cheap air tickets. This came about after co-founder Sebastian Kaatz (now the companys vice president of special products and projects) got increasingly frustrated about the lack of information online for travelers to get secure decent fares. The content site, based in Germany, quickly morphed into a listings service for discounted air tickets and the company has been growing ever since. With a need to add some...

Alex Cruz admits that his career has been centered around people "betting on me" as a leader of businesses. During the course of over 30 years, Cruz worked for American Airlines and Sabre in the 1990s before a brief stint in the world of management consultancy at Accenture. But it was the lure of creating a brand new airline in the guise of low-cost carrier Clickair in 2006 that brought it back to aviation. It was this frenetic period running what was essentially a startup that raised his...

John Guscic is one of the increasingly rare breeds in the travel industry these days. He's an unusually straight-talking company executive who has been in the sector for many years, from the world of global distribution systems to, now, online travel agencies and hotel accommodation wholesaling. The path to the top of Australia-headquartered Webjet is a different one to those that many leaders have taken, having sat on its board of directors since the early 2000s before becoming managing...

The formation of Travel + Leisure Co. in January this year marked an important milestone in the career trajectory of its president Noah Brodsky. The new organization, which came about after Wyndham Destinations acquired the Travel + Leisure brand for $100 million, is now a multi-purpose group with a media arm (Travel + Leisure), membership club, timeshare and new online travel agency in the guise of BookTandL. It's 20 years on from when Brodsky talked his way into a restaurant manager job in...

A common thread in Joah Searman's origin story is one of countering adversity. Localeur was born in 2013 with a mission to help people discover and share the best local places to "eat, drink and play" in destinations around the world. A tough market to crack (there have been many brands that have tried and failed along the way), Spearman's commitment to the cause along the way has seen the company survive and evolve over the intervening eight years. The company has raised (only) a modest $6...

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Juan de Antonio, founder and CEO at Cabify.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Alex Zozaya, executive chairman of Apple Leisure Group.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Rolf Schromgens, co-founder and CEO of Trivago.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Rami Zaidan, founder and CEO at Life House.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Greg O'Hara, senior managing director of Certares.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Steve Domin, CEO and co-founder of Duffel.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Julian Stiefel and Julian Weselek, co-founders and co-CEOs of Tourlane.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Avo Brosh, founder and CEO at Palisociety.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Atle Skalleberg, CEO StudentUniverse.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Jamie Wong, CEO and co-founder a Vayable.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Josh Wyatt, co-founder at Generator Hostels.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Paul Melhus, co-founder and CEO of ToursByLocals

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Alex Mans, founder and president of Flyr.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Tobias Ragge, CEO of HRS.

PhocusWire's Kevin May and David Litwak from Mozio talk to Brad Bao, co-founder and chairman at Lime.