Exclusive: the 2,1 billion dollars commercial travel starter engine appoints a CFO

Melamud is the new Denver CFO, a startup of travel technology supported by Telescope Partners, Blackstone, Elefund and Permira. He leaves the headquarters of investors to join the full -time management team at Motor, which serves more than a million business travelers, according to the company. It exceeded 1,000 employees – from 700 at the beginning of 2024 – and quickly developed while strategically using AI to fuel growth.

Melamud’s first connection with the engine was at the level of the board of directors. In 2024, although Director General of Permira, a global investment company specializing in investment capital and credit, he decided to join the engine board of directors. “During my 16 years of investment, I had never met such a huge tam (total addressable market) from Greenfield Opportunity,” he said, referring to the many small and medium-sized businesses with unabled travel reservation, that of management themselves instead of using a third party.

The financing of Melamud’s C series, with an investment of Permira of $ 140 million, which pushed the engine assessment at 2.1 billion dollars in September 2024.

The engine is a modern travel platform designed for small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as for groups. Its remarkable feature offers both hotel rates accessible to the public and a wide range of exclusive and owners (“closed”) rates that are not accessible to the general public, Melamud said. These negotiated prices, with average savings of 26%, come from the engine market, partnerships and wholesalers, he said. Companies connect to access this closed ecosystem, keeping these exclusive confidential prices and separated from the public hotel price.

The platform is free, without contract, minimum or expense. Melamud also highlights the direct engine invoice function, which extends a credit line for one to two weeks. This allows frequent passenger companies to pay payments twice a month, as is a bihebdomedary pay check cycle, he said.

Before becoming a prolific investor, Melamud began his career almost 20 years ago as an analyst of the investment bank at Lehman Brothers and Barclays. To assay the role of financial director at engine, he said, was “purely fortuitous”.

“I did not enter this year thinking that I would become a financial director in the middle of the year,” he noted.

At a meeting of the Board of Directors with the founder and CEO of the Elia Wallen engine, they discussed how the company had no CFO at the time. And Melamud has always loved to dive deep into the challenges. Since he joined the engine, he is no longer on the board of directors of the company or with Permira.

Is an IPO the next for the engine? “As long as we are setting up a solid business to tackle this market, we will have some options,” said Melamud. “But right now, it’s not something we are actively thinking of.”

On the risks and opportunities to come, he said: “The current macro environment has much more volatility, which can challenge our customers’ capacity to plan. But the opportunity of the engine is to relieve this friction.”

And during his free time, Melamud focuses on his family. “I have three young children, and they are at the age when everything is still new,” he said.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Classification

Eric Christel was appointed EVP and financial director of Bloomin ‘Brands, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLMN), parent company of brands, including Outback Steakhouse. Christel joined the company on August 4 for a transition period and will assume the role of financial director on September 8. The current director Michael Healy will assume the newly created role of the EVP, strategy and transformation. Christel brings nearly two decades of financial leadership in the food and drinks sector, including his role as vice-directormmermant and CFO of the Campbell company division and several leadership roles at Pepsico.

Michael Graham was appointed financial director of Zoominfo (NASDAQ: GTM), a database and an intelligence platform on companies, from August 1. O’Brien has been an interim financial director since September 2024. Before that, he has occupied various roles in the company since December 2017, more recently as a FP & A VP since 2023. Before joining the company, O’Brien held accounting positions at rainy and Kaseya solutions.

Severe

The most powerful people of fortune 100 in the list of companies 2025 made their debut this morning, featuring agile disruptors, titans of name names, CEO of fortune 500 and electric players behind the scenes. The second annual ranking of the most influential people in the business world represents 28 industries worldwide, including finance, technology, retail and automotive.

This list measures power and influence, and although the net value is a factor, fortune was much more concerned with the capacity of a leader to shape the thoughts and actions of those around them. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. Under the supervision of Huang, she recently became the very first company to exceed a market capitalization of $ 4 billions, driven by the request for the request for her ia chips. This step underlines the pivotal role of Nvidia in the arrow generating AI, transforming the world technological landscape and supplying many other high -level technological companies whose CEOs appear on our list. Jensen’s company faces competition from established companies and startups, but none constitutes a serious threat to the domination of Nvidia – for Yet.

Go further

“Elon Musk keeps the title of CEO best paid in history with a remuneration package of $ 26 billion – and the only thing he has to do is to present himself for two years” is a new Fortune Report by Amanda Gerut.

According to the report: “Tesla’s board of directors approved on Sunday an” temporary price “of 96 million limited shares for the CEO Elon Musk. His mega -accès of Moshot 2018 2018, previously estimated at $ 56 billion, was linked to Delaware Courts in the last seven years after a demuing judge – Tesla has moved to Texas de Texas de Texas de Texas Delaware, and the table was adopted by Tesla in Texas de Delaware, and the Bylaw, Tesla, moved to Texas de Delaware, and the Bylaw, Tesla, moved Tex the investor who wants to challenge Musk to hold 3% of Tesla’s shares.

Heard

“If we could fill the gap for nine major conditions, this would create 27 million years of healthy life per year, or about three additional days in good health each year for each woman on the planet.”

—Dr. Anita Zaidi, president of the gender equality division at the Gates Foundation, written in a Fortune Opinion article entitled “Why invest in women’s health is good for business”.