Newsmaker: Sabre Exec To Become Radius CEO

On July 14, Christopher Vasiliou, former Sabre Travel Network senior vice president and general manager of Asia/Pacific, will become the new president and CEO of travel management company network Radius.

The Radius board of directors has tasked Vasiliou to expand the company's global footprint and acquire travel management companies.

Vasiliou will move from Shanghai to work at Radius' Bethesda, Md., headquarters and will serve on the company's board of directors. His initial contract is a three-year term. Interim CEO Allan Slan will return to his executive vice president role.

Vasiliou succeeds Tony Hughes, who resigned in November after five years in the role and became Qatar Airways senior vice president of the Americas.

At Sabre, which Vasiliou joined in 1983 and planned to leave July 1, he held several executive roles, including Travelocity COO and senior vice president of North and South America for Sabre Travel Network, as well as the Asia/Pacific post.

"We were looking for someone with international travel management experience, which he certainly has working 15 years overseas in Europe, Asia and Australia and working in the U.S. in various GDS and airline capacities, and he started in the hotel industry," said Radius chairman and Omaha, Neb.-based president and CEO Bill Tech, who noted Vasiliou's past M&A and partnership strategy deals, including Sabre's joint venture with Asia/Pacific global distribution system Abacus.

As for acquiring travel management companies, Tech said, "We are looking to start facilitating that by looking for investors that would want to invest in the purchase of agencies so that we can fill some voids in certain parts of the world by buying an agency here or there, while still working with our shareholders around the world as affiliates where we are all individually owned. Radius' goal is to have both ownership and the network that we've developed over the years that we will maintain and develop."