Former Cisco global travel manager Susan Lichtenstein has
launched consulting firm DigiTravel with fellow managing partner Jay Roseman, a
long-time executive for American Express, now GBT, and American Express
Meetings & Events, now GBT M&E. The duo is focused on digitizing and
simplifying the managed travel ecosystem, working with direct connections
between buyers and suppliers where it makes sense and mediating through service
channels where there is a business need to do so. Lichtenstein, who was inducted into the
BTN Group Business Travel Hall of Fame in 2017 for consistently pushing
technology to the front of managed travel processes, told BTN that both buyers
and suppliers are ready for the next wave. "For the past year, I have
beta-tested some concepts just to figure out: What could it be like if we could
do this, if we could peel off all these layers of booking tools, expense
processes," she said. "We have the ability to direct connect and pass
the data through. So why don't we?"
Both Lichtenstein and Roseman said the firm has clients in
consultation and involved in active projects. Neither was at liberty to
disclose specific names. Asked theoretically about the clients they are looking
for, Roseman responded, "Companies that are ready to think differently
about how their managed travel is transacted. Companies with CEOs and CFOs and
travel managers who want to know why they are paying so much for travel and who
want to unstack the technology and unclog the pipes. We have the capability to
do that now. It's not just a vision. And once it starts, I think it will go
fast because there's money to save."