BTN's Silver Anniversary: Top of the Top 25s

Business Travel News has rung in each of the past 25 years by recognizing the 25 business and government executives whose decisions held the greatest sway over the business travel industry in the previous year. A total of 385 people have been so honored in the past quarter-century, many more than once, 29 of them at least four times. Detailing the influence of those 29 executives paints a picture of an industry that has changed in countless measures since 1984, from globalization to automation to consolidation. These are the executives who propelled that change.

Jack Alexander
Appearances: 6 (1993-96, 1998-99)

In growing WorldTravel Partners, which he founded in 1987, to become the third-largest travel agency in the United States, CEO Jack Alexander reshaped the '90s corporate travel landscape through a merger with BTI Americas and an equity partnership with its Travel Technologies Group—now known as TRX—to create technology solutions. Alexander, now CEO and founder of Geronimo Investments, left WorldTravel BTI in 2001, and the agency rolled up into the current BCD Travel in 2006.

Ron Allen
Appearances: 4 (1991-92, 1994-95)

Delta Air Lines' former chairman and CEO Ron Allen kicked off one of the most critical 1990s trends by capping domestic agency commissions as part of his controversial 1994 "Leadership 7.5" cost-cutting effort, named for the number of cents of Delta's targeted cost per available seat mile. Allen also drove to expand Delta's reach by acquiring Pan Am's shuttle and transatlantic routes and partnering with several European carriers. Allen, a Delta lifer, left the carrier in 1997 and now sits on several corporate boards of directors, including that of The Coca-Cola Co.

Juergen Bartels
Appearances: 4 (1985-86, 1995-96)

Juergen Bartels twice engineered explosive growth of hotel chains: In the 1980s as Carlson Hospitality Group president, he guided Radisson's jump from 134 properties in 1985 to nearly 300 in 1989, and, in the mid-'90s, expanded Westin significantly before doing the same with several sister brands—Sheraton, St. Regis, Four Points, Caesars and W Hotels—as the CEO of Starwood Hotel Group. Bartels in 2001 left Starwood to head the Le Meridien Hotel Group, which Starwood would acquire in 2005.

Don Carty
Appearances: 4 (1997, 1999, 2001-02)

Don Carty in 1998 succeeded Robert Crandall as American Airlines chairman and CEO with the aim of improving labor relations, but achieved only mixed results. During his tenure, he also executed the 2001 acquisition of Trans World Airlines, declined to give up more than 200 slots at Heathrow Airport to secure immunity with British Airways and spun off Sabre into an independent company. Carty resigned from AA in 2003, and today is chairman of Virgin America and Canada's Porter Airlines.

Robert Crandall
Appearances: 10 (1984-85, 1987-1993, 1996)

The most frequent member of Business Travel News' Top 25, Bob Crandall certainly can stake his claim as the most influential travel executive of the past quarter-century, given his pioneering development of loyalty programs, yield-management concepts and computer reservations systems as CEO of American Airlines. AA also started Super Saver fares and pushed travel agencies toward service fees in 1988 by cutting overrides and incentives. Crandall retired from AA in 1998, and today serves as the CEO of Pogo Jet, a development-stage company that plans to offer travel with very light jets.



John Davis III
Appearances: 6 (1994-95, 1997-99, 2007)

The longtime president and CEO of Pegasus Systems, John Davis III dominated electronic hotel distribution in the 1990s. His company, launched in 1989 by major hotel companies as a switch to connect their inventory with global distribution systems, grew to become a reservation, commission processing and hotel marketing powerhouse. Davis further consolidated hotel distribution switch services in 2007 with the purchases of GuestClick and WizCom before departing Pegasus in 2008. He now is CEO of hotel e-procurement provider Birch Street Systems.

Elizabeth Dole
Appearances: 4 (1984-87)

Long before she served as president of the American Red Cross and as a U.S. senator from North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole was President Reagan's Transportation Secretary. Dole, the first woman to serve as Transportation Secretary, assumed economic regulatory powers for the DOT from the defunct Civil Aeronautics Board and allowed more than 20 airline mergers. She is the only woman with at least four appearances on Business Travel News' Top 25 lists.

Ed Gilligan
Appearances: 5 (1996, 1998-2000, 2003)

American Express' purchase of fellow mega travel agency Rosenbluth International in early 2003 was the pinnacle of a years-long initiative, led by American Express Global Corporate Services president Ed Gilligan, to prove that Amex's commitment to corporate travel management innovation and service was just as strong as its dedication to corporate and personal cards. Acquisitions, partnerships and technological development in the travel management and corporate card spheres marked Gilligan's tenure, which continues today as vice chairman of American Express, following a 2007 promotion.

Gerald Greenwald
Appearances: 4 (1994-95, 1997-98)

United Airlines' Gerald Greenwald, who headed the carrier from 1994 to 1999, was one of the primary commission-cutters of the late '90s, installing a $50-each-way international-fare cap in 1998 and cutting domestic commissions to 8 percent for domestic bookings. He embraced electronic ticketing, online booking and the expansion of the Star Alliance, but also pushed the ill-fated low-cost airline-within-an-airline concept. Greenwald today serves as managing director of the Greenbriar Equity Group.



Darryl Hartley-Leonard
Appearances: 5 (1987-88, 1990-91, 1995)

Darryl Hartley-Leonard's term as Hyatt Hotels' president and CEO was marked by aggressive expansion and technological development of the checkin process, the reservation system and the standardized property management system. He also helped found the Travel Business Roundtable and chaired the U.S. Department of Commerce Travel and Tourism Advisory Board and the Travel and Tourism Government Affairs Council. After retiring as Hyatt CEO in 1996, Hartley-Leonard was CEO of event production giant PGI until 2005 and today sits on the board of directors of real estate and financial firm Jones Lang LaSalle.

Robert Hazard Jr.
Appearances: 4 (1986-87, 1989-90)

In his 15 years as CEO of Choice Hotels International—and its predecessor, Quality International—Bob Hazard presided over one of the industry's most dramatic growth bursts, multiplying the 350 properties the company owned when he took the helm by 10 by the time of his 1996 departure. Hazard also pioneered brand-segmentation strategies, especially in the economy and budget tiers, and most recently served as chairman of developer, owner and operator Creative Hotel Associates.

Jeff Katz
Appearances: 5 (1993-95, 2002-03)

As president of the then-Sabre Travel Information Network, CEO of the late Swissair and president and CEO of Orbitz, Jeff Katz spent 15 years at the vanguard of corporate travel and distribution technology, overseeing Sabre's evolution into a truly global distribution system and, at least for a while in the early part of this decade, positioning Orbitz's Supplier Link program as a potential GDS alternative. Katz, who left Orbitz after Cendant acquired it in 2004, now is president and CEO of educational toy manufacturer LeapFrog Enterprises.

Herb Kelleher
Appearances: 8 (1988-89, 1991-94, 1998, 2001)

Colorful Southwest Airlines co-founder Herb Kelleher is one of the all-time most influential figures in the aviation industry, as his low-fare, no-frills, anti-hub-and-spoke airline remains a corporate travel powerhouse today. During his 30-year term as chairman and CEO, Southwest became one of the largest, most stable carriers in the United States, setting the business-travel fare-pricing agenda in every market it enters. Kelleher retired as Southwest's chairman in 2008.



Al Lenza
Appearances: 4 (1996, 2000, 2003, 2006)

Well-known for his perpetual efforts to lower airline distribution fees and redefine relationships with global distribution systems, Al Lenza landed on this list four times during his lengthy tenure as a Northwest Airlines vice president. Lenza blazed a new trail after GDS deregulation, as Northwest in 2006 became the first major network carrier to sign a full-content deal with a GDS, transforming entirely the relationships among carriers, GDSs and travel management companies. Lenza in 2009 began working for United Airlines.

Frank Lorenzo
Appearances: 5 (1985-89)

His name to this day may be anathema to airline labor representatives, but few could deny the late '80s influence of former Texas Air CEO Frank Lorenzo. He turned around Continental Airlines after its first bankruptcy, eventually merging it with several regional carriers. Texas Air acquired Eastern Air Lines in 1986, but after some of the most contentious battles with labor this industry has seen, the carrier folded in 1991, and Lorenzo exited the industry. Today, he is chairman of Savoy Capital Inc.

Norman Mineta
Appearances: 6 (1984-85, 2001-02, 2004-05)

Norman Mineta presided as U.S. Transportation Secretary during tumultuous times for the aviation industry and was a Top 25 mainstay for his successful efforts to liberalize air travel between the United States and the European Union and deregulate global distribution systems. Two decades earlier, as a congressman from California, Mineta chaired the House aviation subcommittee. After leaving the Bush Cabinet in 2006, he became vice chairman of public relations firm Hill & Knowlton.

Kevin Mitchell
Appearances: 4 (1994-95, 1997, 2008)

Former travel manager and current Business Travel Coalition founder and chairman Kevin Mitchell has worked for nearly 20 years as an organizer and advocate on behalf of business travel buyers. In the mid-'90s, Mitchell's Business Travel Contractors Corp. attempted to provide a consortium of buyers with direct net-fare airline contracts devoid of commissions and overrides. That early group of buyers evolved into BTC, on whose behalf Mitchell recently sparred with the European Commission over CRS Code of Conduct revisions and Lufthansa over GDS-booking surcharges.



Frank Olson
Appearances: 9 (1984-85, 1987-89, 1991-93, 1997)

Chairman and CEO Frank Olson held on to Hertz's number-one industry rank throughout his 22-year tenure, while taking a leadership role in seeking to restore corporate car rental pricing to profitable levels by instituting city surcharges and corporate base rates. He also threw Hertz's weight behind cleaning up the industry's sales and advertising practices and called for the abolition of collision damage waivers. Today, Olson is a director of Hess Corp., and only Bob Crandall tops his nine Top 25 appearances.

David Paresky
Appearances: 5 (1988, 1990, 1992-94)

David Paresky is remembered best for his recognition of the need for size and training and technology investment in the evolving corporate travel marketplace. Paresky merged his Crimson Travel Service with Heritage Travel in 1989, then orchestrated the merger of the two companies in 1990 into Thomas Cook, where he took on the roles of chairman, CEO and president of the third-largest agency in the United States. In a final, career-gracing 1994 move, Paresky sold Thomas Cook to the largest agency, American Express, in one of the decade's largest such deals.

John Pino
Appearances: 4 (1995, 1999, 2003, 2005)

The evolution of John Pino's job description from "head of a regional meetings and incentive company" to "technology magnate" was swift after Pino's McGettigan Corporate Planning Services first pioneered meetings consolidation technology, then spun it off into a purely online business. StarCite under Pino's leadership dominated the burgeoning meetings technology industry, triggering round after round of consolidation. Pino served with StarCite as CEO until 2005 and remains on its board of directors. He now is CEO of social networking platform I-Meet.com.

Hal Rosenbluth
Appearances: 7 (1984, 1986-88, 1993, 1995, 2001)

In his first Top 25 appearance in 1984, Hal Rosenbluth was the 32-year-old vice president of a $200 million family business. He would become president and CEO of a multinational mega agency with more than $2 billion in annual air sales, helping to drive innovation like the Dacoda and E-Res systems and its call center technology. Rosenbluth sold the TMC in 2003 to American Express. Today, he is president of Walgreens' Health and Wellness division, which acquired Take Care Health Systems, the convenient-care-clinic company he co-founded in 2008.



Steve Singh
Appearances: 5 (1998, 2002, 2005-07)

Through acquisition and development, Steve Singh in 13 years as chairman and CEO transformed Concur Technologies from a small Washington technology company into the largest, most influential force in electronic expense management and a key player in the quest for end-to-end travel management technology. Singh's acquisitions of Gelco, Outtask and Captura helped consolidate the expense market and allowed Concur to offer online booking, providing a breadth of services that few can match.

Peter Sontag
Appearances: 4 (1985, 1987-89)

Entrepreneur Peter Sontag's USTravel Systems was a comet that shot through the late '80s corporate travel industry, buying dozens of regional travel agencies and becoming one of the largest in the United States when it merged with IVI in 1995 to form BTI Americas. Sontag, who founded the company only after a stint as a consultant that included landing the account to consolidate IBM travel, would launch or purchase several travel-related companies in the following years before joining Orthopedic Development Corp., where he serves today as chairman.

Jean-Cyril Spinetta
Appearances: 4 (1999, 2003-04, 2007)

The co-author of some of the most significant aviation partnership agreements in recent aviation history, former Air France chairman and CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta redefined transatlantic and European air competition during his 11 years at the carrier's helm. Spinetta in 1999 chose Delta Air Lines as Air France's U.S. partner, creating what would become the SkyTeam airline alliance. Then, this decade, he completed a merger with longtime partner KLM and created a transatlantic joint venture with Delta. Spinetta retired as CEO this year, but remains Air France-KLM chairman.

Travis Tanner
Appearances: 4 (1993-96)

Travis Tanner, instrumental in the 1994 merger of Carlson Travel Network and Wagonlit Travel that created the second-largest U.S. travel agency in the nation, served as president and CEO of the newly formed Carlson Wagonlit Travel throughout the '90s. Tanner, who pressed for fee-based travel management pricing instead of rebate checks and the deployment of third-party technology in lieu of in-house development, left CWT in 1999 and worked for National Car Rental and BCD Travel before joining All Seasons Travel in 2007.

Jonathan Tisch
Appearances: 7 (1993, 1995-97, 1999, 2001, 2006)

Few have assumed the mantle of travel industry leadership as ably as Loews Hotels president and CEO Jonathan Tisch, who headed the late Travel Business Roundtable and several other organizations and encouraged the industry to work together to advance public and private interests, including streamlined border crossings and low taxation. Perhaps more than anyone, he has delivered the industry's message to the executive branch and to Congress and seen advocacy turn into results.

Joseph Vittoria
Appearances: 4 (1984, 1988, 1994-95)

Chairman and CEO Joseph Vittoria helped solidify Avis' position as the number-two car rental company. Avis in 1994 introduced the industry's first smart car, equipped with the satellite-based Guidestar Navigation Information System, which became standard in many major markets. Vittoria also pushed flight information to airport renters by giving lot agents handheld computers. He left Avis in 1997 and today is chairman and CEO of Puradyn Filter Technologies and chairman of Great Wolf Resorts.

Michael Whitesage
Appearances: 7 (1991-93, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2005)

Prism Group founder and president Michael Whitesage was at the eye of one of the most notable and controversial developments of the early 2000s, when several airlines required the use of Prism's data-aggregation system to monitor marketshare-based contracts negotiated with larger corporate clients. That controversy would fade as carriers around the world signed with Prism. However, Whitesage's first act was Prism's groundbreaking Travel Manager's Workstation information management system. Licensed to Sabre in 1996, the Workstation was a key milepost in the evolution of corporate travel data management and consolidation.

Stephen Wolf
Appearances: 5 (1985, 1989-91, 1997)

Stephen Wolf landed in the Top 25 five times for his work as CEO of three airlines: The late Republic Airlines, where he restructured the route network to create what became, following a 1986 merger, Northwest Airlines' hub system of Detroit, Memphis and Minneapolis; United Airlines, where he negotiated for Pan Am's London routes; and US Airways, where he grew international operations and bought a Northeast shuttle before leaving as CEO in 2002, after failing to merge the carrier with United. Today, he is chairman of the board of printing company RR Donnelley.