Meet our experts
Our corporate travel industry experts are available for media interviews, appearances and events.
Jessica Azoulay
Vice President, Global Client Team, Centricity & Life Sciences Center of Excellence Senior Lead, BCD Travel
Olivier Benoit
Principal and Vice President, Global Air and Intelligence & Analytics Practices, Advito
Jessica Azoulay is a public health, business travel, and meetings expert with more than 17 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. She leads BCD Travel’s Life Sciences Center of Excellence (LSCOE) in its pursuit to provide more than 100 customers with comprehensive Health Care Professional and patient-centric solutions that drive strategy and value while adhering to complex compliance and regulatory requirements.
Jessica has designed new patient travel and logistics models that enhance transparency while realizing the benefits of corporate programs, a paradigm shift in clinical trial management. She is certified in Good Clinical Practice (GCP) and participates in pan-life sciences conferences to further refine her expertise and identify future solutions.
In addition to overseeing BCD Travel’s LSCOE, Jessica leads the Traveler, Attendee and Stakeholder Engagement competency area for Progressive Program Management (PPM) customers and sits on both the Sustainability and Communications committees. She previously led Integrated Travel & Meetings leading to significant program expansion and value creation. She also served as Director of Operations at BCD M&E, overseeing a team of 100+, servicing BCD’s largest pharmaceutical account. Under Jessica, the team delivered seamless logistics, compliant HCP contracting, due diligence and payments, improved attendee experience, process improvement, and program expansions. Prior to joining BCD in 2010, she worked at Health Science Communications, a medical communications agency.
She received a Master of Public Health from NYU in 2015, after completing a program intensive at the World Health Organization (WHO) and an internship with Pfizer’s Global External Medical Affairs team. Along with her dissertation, ‘The Role of Patient Consent in Pediatric Clinical Trials,’ she authored “KIDS: Improving Clinical Pediatric Patient Engagement Through Mobile Technology,” an abstract accepted at the 2014 NHLBI mHEALTH Summit. She graduated from University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2001.
Outside of work, Jessica supports community building and charitable activities, having recently led a fundraising effort that granted $100,000 back to local organizations around her home in New Canaan, CT.
Speaker topics:
- Corporate storytelling
- Global Procure to Pay (P2P) solutions
- Integrated Travel and Meetings
- Life Sciences Travel, Meetings & Compliance
- Maturity model evaluations
- Patient Travel & Logistics
- Program design and strategy
- Stipend, expense and reloadable debit card management
- Strategic Meetings Management
- Traveler & attendee engagement strategies
Kathy Bedell
A former agency owner who led the growth of her Ohio-based business from an annual turnover of $3 million to $300 million, Kathy uses her clear understanding of business objectives and corporate cultures to find solutions to every imaginable challenge in building and maintaining effective air, hotel, ground transportation and meetings programs.
She was one of the earliest adopters of modern meetings technologies and the on-site travel service concept.
Kathy enjoys presenting at major trade association events and has appeared in numerous travel segments on The Weather Channel. She resides in Atlanta.
Speaker topics:
- Leisure travel
- Supplier negotiations
- Travel management
- Travel risk management
- Women in management
Olivier Benoit
As Principal and Vice President for Advito, Olivier Benoit sets and executes the direction for the global Air practice and the Intelligence & Analytics practice. Managing a team of business travel, business intelligence and sustainability experts, he develops strategy and implements Advito’s dynamic performance management framework across a diverse range of global clients. Beyond sourcing, this progressive methodology is supported by cutting-edge, cloud-based technology combined with supplier engagement, traveler behavior and demand management to deliver superior savings while increasing traveler satisfaction and reducing clients’ environmental footprint.
Previously, Olivier served as the global corporate sales director for Air France KLM where he was responsible for business development in Europe and North America, as well as emerging market developments in Asia and South America. He also spearheaded the creation of an integrated global contracting process with JV partners for fortune 500 clients. Prior to that role, Olivier was the Commercial Director – Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand for Air France KLM.
Olivier earned a Master of Science in Finance at Université Paris Dauphine and a Master of Business Administration, from Institut d’Administration des Entreprises in Aix-en-Provence, France. He recently earned an Executive Leadership certificate from Cornell University. He is fluent in French and English, and proficient in German. He has previously lived in Singapore, Warsaw, Lyon, Paris and Stockholm. Olivier is now based in Montpellier, France.
Speaker topics:
- Air contracting
- Airline industry trends
- Air Revenue Management Pricing
- Demand & Behavior Management
- Dynamic Program Management™
- New Distribution Capabilities
- Sourcing
- Sustainability
April Bridgeman
Senior Vice President, BCD Travel
Managing Director, Advito
April Bridgeman is a longtime road warrior with unmatched passion for the business traveler experience. She has a clear vision for travel-related solutions that blend into today’s digital and socially connected lifestyles. April loves to collaborate with clients to incorporate unique behavior management strategies and newly available intelligence & analytics to drive corporate travel programs across new horizons.
As managing director of Advito, April heads BCD Travel’s global consultancy unit, inventing new best practices in corporate travel management. She is known for taking concepts and turning them into reality. Under her guidance, Advito continues to develop new practice areas and deepen analytics that vastly increase travel program value.
As senior vice president of BCD Travel, April is often tapped to meet with clients for her unique skill set, experience and capacity to innovate managed travel programs. Currently, she leads hotel solutions – home to BCD’s comprehensive hotel category management solution, Stay, as well as sustainability. In her previous role as senior vice president of strategic marketing, she led BCD Travel’s product planning, product marketing and emerging technologies teams. April is a highly sought-after speaker and resource across the travel industry. Before joining the BCD Travel team, April was a management consultant with Deloitte for over eight years, providing strategy and operations consulting.
April earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and German, a Master of Health Services Administration and a Master of Applied Economics from the University of Michigan. She is based in Chicago, Illinois.
Speaker topics:
- Demand management
- Emerging technologies
- Hotel category strategy
- Intelligence & analytics
- Marketing
- Digital transformation
- Sustainability strategies
- Supplier negotiations
- Travel consulting
- Virtual collaboration
Christian Dahl
Our commitment to advancing our strong employee experience helps us develop an adaptable and sustainable workforce.
Christian defines and leads our company-wide employee experience initiatives and heads our human resources groups worldwide. In that role, he defines the company’s people strategy, employer branding, learning and development, talent development programs and talent acquisition.
Under his leadership BCD Travel became the first travel management company to reach for and achieve accreditation from Investors in People®, a globally recognized workplace ratings firm. BCD has regularly been included among the companies named to Forbes’ list of America’s Best Employers and FlexJobs’ list of Top Companies with Remote Jobs. The company was selected for a 2017 Stevie® Award for its multi-year Confident Self approach to talent management. That approach links recruitment, professional development and employee satisfaction to increase service quality and client satisfaction.
By strategically enhancing the opportunities for BCD employees, Christian has overseen a rise in employee engagement by more than 5.3% since 2014 and a doubling in the hours per employee spent on training—including the strengthening of BCD’s middle management for better leadership capabilities at all levels.
Christian began his career in the travel industry in 1993 at BCD Travel legacy company DanTransport, covering many roles in operations, marketing, learning & development and finally overall HR. He lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Mike Eggleton
Mike has been a member of the Research & Intelligence Team since 2013. He joined BCD Travel after a career at British Airways, bringing a wealth of experience in business strategy, network planning, competitor analysis, economics, market analysis and forecasting.
At BCD, he is responsible for producing the Industry Forecast and providing insights and thought leadership on a range of trends and issues relating to the business travel industry. Mike has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography from the University of Southampton. He is based in Rickmansworth, U.K.
Speaker topics:
- Airlines
- Competitive analysis
- Economics
- Forecasting
- Industry Forecast
- Market analysis
- Market Insights
- Network planning
Shelley Fletcher-Bryant
Senior Director, Client Relationship Management, Advito
As Senior Director of Client Relationship Management for Advito, Shelley oversees engagements with clients and prospects that help deliver ROI and optimize travel programs. As well as fostering long-term relationships, Shelley develops new business opportunities across EMEA, APAC and North America. Shelley has direct client management experience, having worked as a Managing Consultant in Advito’s successful Traveler Engagement practice before moving to her current role.
Prior to joining Advito, Shelley spent 20 years working in destination, leisure and retail marketing and sales roles. As a result, she brings a unique perspective of consumer and retail thinking to the world of corporate travel. She studied Business and Social Sciences with the Open University and Marketing with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Shelley has spoken at several industry events and webinars, including ACTE, GBTA and ITM events.
She is a member of the TAMS Community & Engagement group and was a lead contributor to the published TAMS Return to the Road Communication Plan.
Speaker topics:
- Dynamic Program Management
- Traveler behavior
- Hotel program spend management
- Strategic Sourcing
- Rate negotiation
- Hotel pricing & distribution
Klaus Goddard
Klaus works within BCD Travel’s Global Distribution team and has commercial responsibility for BCD’s relationships with key distribution technology partners, including global distribution systems (GDSs), online booking tools (OBTs) and airlines. He helps translate the many complex technical and commercial aspects of today’s distribution landscape into practical, comprehensible advice for clients.
Klaus has 30 years of travel industry experience in product management, project management and technology consulting. He has held commercial roles in sales and distribution partner management.
Klaus joined BCD in 2007. Prior to BCD, he worked for Amadeus and Sabre. Klaus has lived in Germany and Canada and presently resides in the United Kingdom.
Speaker topics
- Airline content strategies
- Content aggregation
- Distribution disruptions
- Fragmented distribution
- Global Distribution Systems (GDS)
- GDS content strategies
- IATA NDC
- Low-cost carrier (LCC) content
- NDC readiness
- NDC certifications
- NDC technologies
- NDC-OBT integrations
- Online Booking Tools (OBTs)
- Recovering distribution costs
- Untangling NDC complexity
Yannis Karmis
The future of business travel will be shaped by digital technologies which improve traveler experiences while providing more intelligent services for corporations.
Yannis works on the forefront of travel and technology at BCD Travel. He leads a global team that sets the vision and manages the development for all aspects of BCD’s products, platforms and solutions, including TripSource, DecisionSource and SolutionSource.
Yannis has over 20 years of experience building global travel technology businesses across the eCommerce and corporate travel industries. Prior to his role at BCD Travel, he held senior-level positions at Sabre, GetThere and Travelocity. He is based in Southlake, Texas.
Speaker Topics
- Innovation and Digital Transformation in Corporate Travel
- Building Platforms, Open Systems and Developing Agile Teams
- Technology Trends in Travel, including NDC, Payments, Big Data, AI and Personalization
- Digital and CX Trends to Engage Travelers
Laura Kusto
Vice President & Global Hotel Practice Leader, BCD Travel & Advito
Laura Kusto is Vice President and Global Hotel Practice Leader for Advito and Stay by BCD Travel. In this role, Laura leads a global team of consultants in delivering innovative hotel sourcing and program performance management solutions. Additionally, her teams manage the BCD Global Hotel Program and strategically integrate its offerings within client programs.
With a reputation for driving industry innovation and thought leadership, Laura leads our consultancy in employing methods that achieve savings beyond sourcing. She focused on right-sizing the negotiated program and simultaneously optimizing the tools and technologies available that inspire positive traveler behavior. The result is a client-driven, empowered approach to modern hotel program management.
Laura is a well-known and sought-after industry spokesperson and thought leader. She regularly contributes to numerous industry publications and has spoken at several events including GBTA, ACTE, BTN, TripBAM’s BAMCON, and ProcureCon Travel.
Speaker topics:
- Dynamic Program Management
- Traveler behavior
- Hotel program spend management
- Strategic Sourcing
- Rate negotiation
- Hotel pricing & distribution
Jorge Mesa
Jorge ensures the safety of business travelers and helps companies fulfill their duty of care obligations by assisting clients in the development of travel risk management plans, monitoring traveler exposure to risk during trips and ensuring rapid intervention if an incident takes place.
His team provides 24×7 support service, incident monitoring, crisis communication and coordination with third-party security providers. He also helps companies evaluate their travel risk management program’s maturity and provides benchmarking against industry standards.
Joining BCD Travel in 2007, Jorge is one of the founding members of BCD’s Global Crisis Management department, established in 2011. In 2012, he took responsibility for the department’s operations. Before joining BCD, he served as Groups Operations Executive for Axis & Globe Travel. He also has worked in sales at International Travel Consulting, ITC, and in distribution for Giorgio Armani.
He began his career as an executive account manager at Carlson Wagonlit Travel in Barcelona. He holds degrees in Hospitality and Tourism from University of Girona and in Marketing from EADA Business School. And he is Co-Chair on the Global Business Travel Association’s EMEA Risk Committee.
Jorge received the 2022 GTBA Business Travel Service Award. He was recognized for his outstanding contribution to GBTA, their EMEA region and to the business travel profession.
Speaker topics:
- Duty of Care
- Travel Risk Management
- People Risk Management
Miriam Moscovici
VP Partnerships & Research, BCD Travel
Miriam works on the forefront of product and service improvements that deliver value for companies of all sizes by driving effective corporate travel programs. In her role as Senior Director, Research and Corporate Innovation, Miriam leads research and introduces concepts aimed at engendering a culture of innovation throughout the organization. She draws deep foundational insight into the buyer’s perspective from her eight years spent as a corporate travel manager.
Her industry experience and technology savvy, combined with a provocative communication style, keeps her in high demand as a speaker, panelist and judge, including at ACTE, GBTA, and the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit. Miriam uses a curriculum she developed to teach students at Metro State University in Denver, where she is enthusiastically grooming the next generation of talent. She was named a 2018 Corporate Travel Innovator by Skift, a global travel industry publication.
Speaker topics:
- Hotel program technology
- Travel industry start-ups
- Travel manager experience
- Travel technology
Patrick Pickens
Vice President, Global Sales at BCD Travel
Patrick Pickens is a valued member of our Global Sales team with over ten years of experience in sales and international business. As an accomplished leader with a passion for travel, he oversees a portfolio of some of the largest global accounts at BCD.
Prior to joining BCD Travel, Patrick led Delta Air Lines’ global meetings, incentives, conferences and events team and represented Delta’s global sales team with 25 key meeting industry partners, media partners and international organizations. Patrick gained entrepreneurial experience through founding his own luxury skincare company, HiQ Cosmetics. Using his background in chemistry and biology, Patrick formulated, designed, and marketed an all-natural, luxury skincare product line which was distributed internationally. Patrick has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and an MBA in international business.
Patrick was previously on the board of directors of the LGBTQAI+ travel association, IGLTA, and currently serves on the board of AID Atlanta, a nonprofit organization committed to reducing new HIV infections and improving the quality of life for its community. He was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Speaker topics:
- Traveler wellbeing
- Traveler engagement
- LGBTQIA+ travel
- Innovative travel programs
- Travel management trends
- Travel program consolidation
- Air travel trends
Rolando Robles
Rolando uses his enormous wealth of experience and deep understanding of both business travel operations and complex client service needs to develop and implement travel programs that support customer goals and objectives. He is highly skilled at building large, unified and productive teams and in creating benchmarking and reporting protocols to achieve measurable results.
In his current role, Rolando leads business development for BCD Travel in the Latin America region, helping his sales team articulate BCD Travel’s unique value propositions. Over the course of his career he has mastered resource management, program management, transitions and implementations, travel program consolidation, traveler engagement and policy compliance. He enjoys participating in forums that allow him to share industry tips and best practices. He is based in Mexico City.
Speaker topics
- Advanced purchasing
- Benchmarking and reporting
- Business travel operations
- Complex travel programs
- Policy compliance
- Travel program consolidation
- Travel program implementations
- Traveler engagement
Ajay Singh
Ajay Singh leads digital payment strategy and products for BCD Travel globally. He oversees strategic initiatives and new platform investments in payments and cloud capabilities to transform the procure-to-pay spend management process for Travel & Expense.
Ajay joined BCD Travel in 2019. He has more than 25 years of experience in strategy, product development and innovation with Fortune 500 companies like American Express, Intel, HP and Travelport. At American Express, he led a number of digital transformation initiatives and launched innovative software solutions in Europe and Asia. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and M.S. in Computer Engineering from University of Texas at Austin. Ajay lives in Silicon Valley.
Speaker topics
- Digital payment and expense trends in Travel & Expense
- Digitization, automation, and transformation of end-to-end processes
- Innovation and digital transformation
- Invoice management processes
- Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in financial processes for automation and data quality
- Managing Procure-to-Pay spend: Why it matters?
- Travel & Expense Spend Management
Natalia Tretyakevich
Natalia is a member of the Research and Intelligence Team at BCD Travel. She works on a variety of innovative research projects around product planning, corporate strategy and industry thought leadership, exploring a wide range of current business travel trends and topics. She has extensive academic experience and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Lugano, Switzerland, where she is presently a visiting lecturer in corporate travel.
Natalia is a holder of a 3 under 33 ACTE Award for young innovators in the business travel industry. She is based in Madrid, Spain.
Speaker topics:
- Business travel trends
- Business travel stakeholders
- Emerging technology
- Traveler wellbeing
Iain Withers
Vice President, Global Network at BCD Travel
Iain Withers is a proven leader at BCD Travel with 23 years of experience in the travel industry. He currently holds the title of VP, Global Network and drives globalization strategy for more than 75 partner countries across APAC, EMEA and LATAM. Iain oversees global projects and product rollouts to drive innovation for the Global Network.
Iain began his journey with BCD as VP, Support Services for the EMEA Partner Network before transferring his skills to the Asia Pacific region. Iain held several senior management roles in the Asia Pacific region, starting as regional general manager, then moving to VP, Client Management overseeing clients and implementation, and working his way up to VP, Supplier Relations. He developed supplier relations strategies, managed all vendor programs and maintained close engagement with suppliers including air, hotel, car, global distribution systems and travel related suppliers.
Before joining BCD Travel, Iain gained a comprehensive understanding of multi-national and global business travel management working throughout the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia. Having achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree in European business and with additional non-travel industry work placements in France, Iain has extensive international experience in the areas of marketing, communications and business development, and an appreciation for the diversity of different cultures.
Speaker topics:
- Innovation and the Partnership Network
- Globalization in business travel
- Rising business travel markets
- Supplier trends