Cendant Names Startup Expert To Run Travelport

Travelport Corporate Solutions looked beyond the travel industry in its selection of the executive director of Northwestern University's Center for Technology Commercialization, David Falter, to be its next president, starting at the end of May. Falter will report to Cendant Travel Distribution Services chairman and CEO Samuel Katz.

"This is another in a list of great positives for Travelport and for the travel distribution business at Cendant," Katz said in an interview today with Business Travel News. "David has a great track record in building up companies in this profile and with these types of assets."

"I've seen the Internet and data transparency hurt profits and margins and ravage industries in the last five to six years," said Falter, formerly a partner with consultancy Acorn Growth Partners, CEO of both Freedrive Inc. and New Logic Inc. and a national accounts manager for Sun Microsystems. "For Cendant, the opportunity to gather that all back together looks like a potential home run, and I still think the biggest changes are yet to occur." Falter called himself a frequent traveler and critic of online self-booking tools. He will move to Seattle from Chicago to take the position.

Travelport also noted year-to-date 2004 revenue growth of 116 percent.