At COO (Boardroom Media) we track over 1,000,000 startups and over 5,000,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based COO’ operating in the Travel space. If you think a COO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on [email protected].
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Peter Ombres
COO and Co-founder of Curated
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About Curated: Curated is a provider of collaborative online shopping service intended to assist shoppers with high-consideration purchases.
Mohit Saxena
Founder & COO of Rizort
Mohit Saxena is the Founder of Rizort, Rizort is a first of its kind luxury vacation marketplace that enable users to plan and book a memorable vacation, designed and curated around specific intent and experience to create perfect memories. Prior to Rizort Mohit, was the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at InMobi. He oversaw all things tech, including infrastructure, application management, and IT during its growth and scale phase. Before InMobi, Mohit managed technology operations at Virgin Mobile, designing and deploying their post-paid billing system and their pre-paid revenue recognition system. Mohit earlier worked at AT&T and has contributed to many patents filed in the telecommunications area. Fascinated by small ideas that turned into global powerhouses, and innovation, simplicity, and the potential of technology have always been his passions. InMobi is a both a passion and a dream come true for him. Mohit has a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Mohit’s passion for technology doesn’t stop at work and is always on the look-out for ways that he can use it to make his life easier.
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About InMobi, Rizort: Rizort is a luxury vacation marketplace that brings immersive vacation planning and booking services for travelers.
Hari Viswanathan
Co-Founder and COO of ZeroDown
Hari Viswanathan is the co-founder and COO of Zerodown. Previously, Hari was a staff software engineer at Zenefits. He holds a PhD. in computer engineering from Rutgers University and a bachelors in electronics and communication engineering from PSG College of Technology.
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About ZeroDown: ZeroDown is a real estate startup that focuses on providing an affordable homeownership solution.
Richard Castle
Co-founder & COO of Cloudbeds
Richard Castle is the Co-founder and COO of Cloudbeds. Together with Co-founder Adam Harris, Richard has led Cloudbeds from a small startup to a company that powers over 20,000 properties in 135 countries worldwide. Richard’s first travel experience was with a backpack after high school when he traveled from Wakkanai, a city on the Northernmost tip of Hokkaido, Japan, to Okinawa, staying in parks, train stations, karaoke rooms, and homes from the occasional encounter with a Japanese citizen who would lend him a room for the night. Richard fell in love with travel and has been traveling and living abroad ever since. Having lived for years in Japan, Brazil, and the United States, Richard believes in incorporating different cultures and perspectives into the fabric of Cloudbeds. Richard wrote the first line of code for the Cloudbeds booking engine in a Brazilian hotel room two years before the 2014 World Cup to fix a problem he had as a traveler trying to find and book a pousada while traveling in Northern Brazil. Richard holds degrees in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Japanese Language from the University of California, Berkeley. He was also a Blakemore Fellow and completed the 2006 – 2007 Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies Program in Yokohama, Japan. He later earned an MBA from the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego in 2013. Richard speaks English, Portuguese, and Japanese. He splits his time between San Diego and São Paulo with his wife Tania.
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About Cloudbeds: Cloudbeds is a vertical SaaS business that creates cloud-based hospitality management software.
Jewel Li
COO of AutoX
Jewel Zhuo Li is the COO of AutoX, a startup creating full-stack A.I. software solution for autonomous driving. An expert in A.I. and machine learning, Dr. Li was a postdoc researcher at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and received her PhD from the University of Delaware.
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About AutoX: AutoX is a self-driving car startup that offers AI drivers to enable universal access to transportation for the people.
Martin Tschopp
COO Prosus Ventures of Prosus & Naspers
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About Prosus & Naspers, Prosus Ventures: Prosus is a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world.
Liz Ribot
COO of Outsite
Liz Ribot is the COO at Outsite.
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About Outsite: A collection of unique work+play accommodations that cater to the growing community of entrepreneurs, business travelers.
Laura Simkins
COO of AFAR
Digital media professional with over 16 years of experience. Special expertise in launches and start-ups. Adept at executing on a vision and communicating across all management levels in an organization. Able to build collaboration among key stakeholders. Strong background in developing long term marketing strategies for building sales while maintaining brand integrity. Proven analytical capabilities. Proactive about identifying solutions to business challenges. Broad experience in operations, consumer marketing, business management, and research.
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About AFAR: AFAR is an online travel guide powered by a community of travelers who share travel experiences through photos and videos.
Andy Atherton
COO of Regher Solar
Andy is currently COO of Regher Solar. Previously Andy held SVP and GM roles at Healthline Media and AppNexus A well-known and respected executive in digital advertising, Andy previously spent four years as COO and Co-Founder of Brand.net, a pioneer in programmatic reserve technology and a leading digital media buying solution for top brands. Prior to Brand.net, he was Vice President of Pricing & Yield Management for Yahoo!, responsible for maximizing monetization of a global portfolio of display inventory worth $2B annually. Before Yahoo!, Andy was President and Co-Founder of Optivo, a venture-backed startup that developed price optimization software for e-commerce retailers. Andy received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from M.I.T.
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About Regher Solar: Regher Solar is developing cutting edge silicon solar panels to power the future space economy.
Andres Green
Co-Founder & COO of WanderJaunt
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About WanderJaunt: WanderJaunt offers technology-enabled property management solutions for travelers, homeowners, and accommodations from around the world.
Blake Pridham
Co-Founder & COO of Adventure Bucket List
Blake Pridham is the Product Manager at Yervana.
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About Adventure Bucket List, Dish Cooking Studio, Yervana Services Inc: Adventure Bucket List is a SaaS and e-commerce empowering adventure venders.
Wei Jiang
President & Chief Operating Officer of Citcon
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About Citcon: Citcon is a mobile payment network that enables global merchants to accept payments from consumers.
Jeff Gibson
Founder, COO of Tesseract
Jeff Gibson has a decade of experience in aerospace systems engineering. He first worked as a Senior Engineer at Goodrich corporation on multiple rapid development projects for precision guided munitions. In 2013, he joined Masten Space Systems as the Lead GNC Systems Engineer, where he also served as Technical Lead on the DARPA XS-1 program, and GNC/Avionics/Software Lead for Masten’s effort on the NASA Lunar CATALYST program. Jeff was the pilot/operator for over a hundred VTVL rocket flights and static engine tests. He has extensive experience in design, simulation, integration, testing, and project leadership.
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About Benchmark Space Systems, Tesseract: Tesseract is a provider of cost effective propulsion components and systems for in-space applications.
Tony Lam
President – San Francisco Bay Area Wingstop Marketing COOP of Wingstop
Tony Lam is the President at the San Francisco Bay Area Wingstop Marketing COOP.
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About Wingstop: Wingstop is a chicken-wing chain.
Sebastien Henot
Co-Founder, COO & Head of Digital Assets of Flyion
Sebastien has 15 years of international business operations and strategic marketing experience in the automotive industry, occupying various positions, starting his career building a strong expertise on the “basics” of the OEM business: from Sales Forecasting, Pricing to the management of a region of 5 countries (200Meur turnover per year, >10M regarding sales promotion) He spent 3 years as global chief marketing manager in the Electric cars division, in charge of the strategic marketing of the Personal Electric cars line up of Renault (Twizy, Fluence, Zoe). Working on 2015-2020 topics, in order to create the marketing strategy following the evolution of technology (batteries, range, charging) and the ramp-up in EV adoption. Since Nov 2015, he has been based in California at the Renault Innovation Silicon Valley center with the goal of changing the OEM’s business model. Going to “metallurgy” (produce, ship, sell, maintain) to “services” (example: make money during the use of the car) From electric vehicles to autonomous driving, through connected cars, IoT, and New Mobility services, the manufacturers will have to adapt to survive. Autonomous driving is too often perceived as one final destination, but it is only a milestone in the roadmap to come. All the services around this technology will open new ways of travelling. We will no longer speak in terms of destination but in terms of journey.
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About Flyion, Renault Innovation Silicon Valley: Flyion is a blockchain-powered flight insurance company that invents a new way to deal with travel disruption for leisure and business.
Sheila Merchant
Co-Founder & COO of MARBL Travel
Sheila Merchant is co-founder and COO at Marbl.
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About MARBL Travel: MARBL is hub for ‘all things travel’ including the best content and brands in millennial travel.
Darren Enenstein
COO & Cofounder of Wherefor
Darren is a serial entrepreneur and founder of the law firm, Enenstein Ribakoff Lavina & Pham. Darren’s operations experience includes software companies, a delivery company, and restaurants. He is an avid traveler and enjoys pairing wine with food.
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About Wherefor: Wherefor is a travel startup that shows where to go, for what can spend.
Reneta Jain
Co-Founder and COO of PHIND
Reneta Jain is Co-Founder at RAHI
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About Jainson’s International, NFC, PHIND, Pixearch, Inc., Plantation Bay Hotels, RAHI: PHIND is a mobile search and discovery app that lets users quickly identify places and find key information simply by pressing one button.
Christopher Rojas
Co-Founder / COO of Digitour Media
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About Digitour Media: World’s First Social Media Tour & Music Festival
Nargiz Mashuri
Co-Founder, COO of SOUL OF NOMAD INC.
Nargiza: Co-founder and a chief operating officer who can manage it all. “Smooth Operator” behind the Soul of Nomad: new product launch or customer experience is a breeze as she oversees it all. Nargiza’s vision to unite teams in order to reach the common goals is a hard-earned skill-set from her previous executive role. Nargiza is the past is a senior executive with vast experience in global account management and operations management fused with 12 years of international business development experience. Her “sword” is always sharp and Nargiza can take some serious heat, thanks to the BS and MS degrees in Industrial Technology from the “hottest” school in the US – Arizona State University.
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About SOUL OF NOMAD INC.: An ultra-premium brand for fashion-savvy travelers.
Fareed Rayyis
COO & Founder of Nommery
COO & Founder of Nommery.
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About Nommery, San Francisco Foodies: Nommery is a social restaurant dining network. Join us to meet new friends, build business connections, or even find the love of your life.
Berk Cagatay
COO of PlanItUp
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About PlanItUp, WhatTuDu: The Fastest and Easiest Way to Make Plans With Your Friends.