14 November 2008

Expedia Europe boss quits

ExpediaÃ¢â¬â¢s Europe president Dermot Halpin is leaving the company at the end of the year as part of a top-level restructuring.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœAfter year-end, Dermot will assume new business interest and board positions in organizations outside Expedia, Inc," said the companyÃ¢â¬â¢s CEO and president Dara Khosrowshahi.

Head of partner services group Paul Brown is also leaving the online travel giant to join Hilton Hotels Corporation as global brands and shared service president.

The company is restructuring its teams around worldwide operations for the Expedia.com, hotels.com, and Expedia Distribution divisions.

This change allows the businesses to align with worldwide brands and technology, rather than align based on geographic regions, according to Expedia.

Khosrowshahi said: "Our objective is to build the world's largest and most intelligent travel marketplace.

"Improving our organizational structure will allow us to react more quickly to evolving global markets, more flexibly address traveller needs and better leverage the expertise of our leaders."

Leading the worldwide teams are:

*Eric Grosse, president, Expedia Worldwide. This group is responsible for Expedia.com in the US, all Expedia worldwide sites, and the Media Services Group. Grosse was previously president and co-founder of The Hotwire Group. Prior to founding Hotwire in 2000, Grosse was with Morgan Stanley and also worked in Internet research at DMG Technology Group, where he helped lead the Amazon.com IPO.

*David Roche, president, hotels.com worldwide and Venere.com. This group is responsible for the global hotels.com points of sale, including the recent acquisition of Europe-based Venere.com. Roche joined Expedia in 2003 to lead the hotels.com and Expedia Distribution businesses in the Europe, Middle East & Africa regions. Prior to joining Expedia, Roche founded companies in both the marketing and technology spheres.

*Henrik Kjellberg, president, Expedia Distribution Worldwide. This team provides private label booking solutions for travel suppliers looking to enhance and extend their product offerings. Kjellberg has been with Expedia since 2001 and most recently led the Asia Pacific region. His other roles include leading the Europe, Middle East & Africa team for the Partner Services Group.

by Phil Davies