Travel management startup Lola has named Tim Knowling as its first VP of partnerships. He will cultivate multiyear relationships, negotiate large-scale partner agreements and work on Lola's partnership with American Express Global Business Travel while forming additional partnerships to expand Lola's content and inventory. He has over 17 years of experience driving new business and partnerships for startups, multinational corporations and consulting firms. Like Lola founder Paul English, Knowling is an alum from Kayak. English co-founded that travel metasearch engine, and Knowling for the past 10 years has directed business development and supplier relations as the company expanded. His most recent role there was SVP of strategic partnerships.
Last month, Lola secured $37 million to double its employee count and enhance its tech development. While not a direct result of the new funding,Knowling's appointment, said business development SVP Krista Pappas, "is emblematic of what the new investment will help Lola do: Expand our footprint in the corporate travel world, identify new channels and growth opportunities for Lola's platform and add new content and inventory to Lola's platform to give our customers as many options as possible and help them save money when booking travel."