Meet the Travala.com Team
Behind every great brand is a team of experienced, dedicated, and passionate professionals, and Travala.com is no different.
The Travala.com team is the foundation of the business. An incredible group of individuals who are truly passionate about improving the way we will book travel services. While the core team operates out of Vietnam, our team hails from around the world and we would like to introduce you to the people making Travala.com the world’s leading crypto-friendly travel booking platform.
Executive/ Management Team
Juan Otero – Co-Founder & CEO – Linkedin
With a wealth of experience in some of the largest tech companies in the world including Oracle and Booking.com, Juan is responsible for overseeing and driving all Travala.com operations, business activities and resources and for ensuring that all corporate decisions align with the overall strategy and mission.
Matthew Stevens – CFO – Linkedin
A Chartered Accountant and London Business School MBA, Matt has over 10 years experience in accounting and finance. He has worked in a variety of roles in M&A advisory and business valuations, investment management, and venture capital. Matt is responsible for Travala.com accounting and reporting that supports management decision-making.
Sam Woollard – CMO – Linkedin
A veteran of the travel tech space with over 20 years’ experience with household names such as Accor Plus, British Airways and Qatar Airways, Sam has joined the Travala.com team to lead the company’s marketing strategy and spearhead our next growth phase.
Kent Pham – CTO – Linkedin
As Travala.com‘s executive lead for Technologies and Operations, Kent is responsible for outlining the technological vision, implementing technology strategies and ensuring that technological resources meet the company’s short and long-term needs.
Subhanshu Saxena – Chief Product Officer – Linkedin
A seasoned product and analytics leader with over 14 years’ experience building and managing product portfolios of globally recognized travel and technology brands, including Agoda, eBay and MakeMyTrip, Subhanshu has joined the company as newly created role to help make Travala.com’s user experience faster, sleeker and more intuitive
Jin Yang – Chief Security Officer – Linkedin
With years of experience at technical giants like FireEye and Google, Jin is focused on understanding the security challenges in the current and future state of Travala.com’s business operations, and to prepare Travala.com with the right tools, skills, resources, relationships and capabilities against growing information security risks.
Cécile – Head of Human Resources – Linkedin
As a Senior HR Manager with over 15 years of HR Management experience in Tech start-ups to large-scale global companies, Cécile consults the BOD and partners with Business Managers to ensure all HR-related matters are dealt with professionalism and consistency, and, all employees have the most enjoyable experience throughout their journey at Travala.com.
Radka Wilson – Global Operations Manager – Linkedin
Radka joins Travala.com as Global Operations Manager with 14 years travel industry experience at global travel organisations such as Flight Centre Travel Group. Radka will be responsible for management of all areas of customer and operational support.
Shane Sibley – Head of Business Development – Linkedin
Leveraging a decade of business development experience from multinational financial firms to fast growing startups, Shane is responsible for overseeing the growth and health of Travala.com partnerships with the goal of organically enhancing market presence and user adoption.
Andy Vu – Product Manager – Linkedin
As Business Analyst/ Product Manager at Travala.com, Andy uses his years of technical experience and customer research to harmonize the interests of stakeholders to bring the best quality products to customers.
Menka Chaman – Product Manager
Menka is a Mathematics Honors graduate with over 5 years’ experience as a Product Manager in areas including FinTech, e-commerce and payments. Working prominently in India and Southeast Asia, she has been involved with several early-stage startups, delivering B2B and B2C products for mass audiences. As a startup enthusiast, Menka enjoys taking ideas from concept to market and loves the way even the smallest of changes can make a significant difference.
Hilary Vu – HR Admin Manager – Linkedin
As the HR Admin Manager, Hilary is responsible for operating the office and all HR administrative functions including personnel records management, payroll processing, and compensation.
Marketing Team
Rob Angus – Performance Marketing Manager – Linkedin
Rob has over 14 years’ experience in marketing, having developed and implemented the marketing strategy for many local, national and global brands. He’s specialized in the travel industry for the last 6 years, including areas such as online retail, loyalty and closed-user travel brands.
Claire – Marketing Manager – Linkedin
As the Marketing Manager, Claire will plan and oversee the exciting marketing campaigns from start to finish working closely with internal and external stakeholders. With experience in customer engagement in fast-paced organizations like the Vancouver Canucks, Claire brings valuable insight into the world of Marketing, Social Media, and Partnerships.
Damian Bielinski – Head of Communications – Linkedin
Responsible for overseeing Travala.com’s public-facing communications, Damian ensures the company’s written material is communicated clearly and consistently. He has over 5 years’ experience in both the blockchain and travel industry, having worked with TravelbyBit prior to the Travala.com merger.
Julia Nguyen – Content Manager – Linkedin
An experienced digital marketer, Julia is responsible for Travala.com website content development, SEO and SEM activities, email marketing along with conversion optimization.
Monica Tran – Digital Marketing Coordinator – Linkedin
Monica’s main responsibility is sustainably growing meaningful relationships between worldwide customers and Travala.com with Facebook Ads, SEO, conversion optimization techniques, content marketing and data analytics.
Roger – Performance Marketing Specialist – Linkedin
Over 5 years of working in digital marketing, Roger also had a chance to apply his knowledge and skills in different industries. Now he holds curiosity about travel industry and so excited to join Travala.com.
Polina – Community & Social Media Manager – Linkedin
Polina is an experienced Community and Social Media Manager, leveraging her background in podcasting and running Social media platforms for a global crypto networking community OffChain to drive growth and raise brand awareness for Travala.com.
Charlie Li – Community/ Business Development Manager in China – Linkedin
As a dynamic and self-motivated business development and community manager, Charlie is responsible for managing Travala.com’s Chinese community, as well as developing business partners.
Customer Experience Team
Jayden Trinh – Customer Service Supervisor – Linkedin
An organized and creative professional with rich experience in IT and E-commerce industries for some of the largest brands in SEA, Jayden is currently covering in-depth activities of Travala.com social channels, customer acquisition and services.
Nick Tran – Customer Service Specialist – Linkedin
Majoring in hospitality management, Nick spend 4 years working in 5-star hotel brand to have an overview about the service industry whilst sharpened his complaint handling skills. He joined Travala.com to develop himself comprehensively as well as apply his knowledge to bring out the outstanding service experiences to customers
Kendall Healy – Customer Service Specialist – Linkedin
A highly passionate, caring and attention to detail professional with over 10 years experience in booking travel for customers worldwide, Kendall has joined the Travala team to provide assistance for Travala’s customers for all their flight and hotel booking needs.
Georgie Karas – Customer Service Specialist
With over 7 years’ experience as a travel agent and extensive travel under her belt, Georgie is excited to part of our team and ensure our customers have an amazing experience with Travala.com.
Riccardo Palmitessa – Customer Service Specialist – Linkedin
With over 15 years of international experience in hospitality industry Riccardo is excited to be part of the Travala.com team to provide the best assistance for our customers.
Shelley Hodge – Customer Service Specialist – Linkedin
As the Operations Support Coordinator, Shelley uses her travel experience and administration skills to create a highly productive work environment so our customer experience team can operate at their best.
Angela Lydon – Customer Service Specialist
With over 15 years experience as a travel consultant, Angela is passionate about providing customers with the best possible service, and prides herself on her attention to detail.
Sharna Harrington – Customer Service Specialist
Sharna has a passion for travel, bringing over 7 years of travel industry knowledge and over 15 years in customer service experience to the team, to make sure Travala.com’s customers have an amazing experience from booking to returning home.
Yingshi Liang – Customer Service Specialist
With over 3 years ‘s experience as a travel agent, Lia has join Travala.com team and excited to provide assistance for Travala’s customers for their flight and hotel booking needs.
Maleika Hudson – Customer Service Specialist – Linkedin
With over 9 years for experience in the travel and customer service industries, Maleika comes to Travala.com with an obsession for all things travel, a passion for customer service, and a desire for seamless customer experiences.
Silvia Bocekova – Customer Service Specialist – Linkedin
A hard-working and accomplished professional with over 13 years travel industry experience across a variety of roles including customer service, leadership. system testing, and reconciliation. A passionate traveller herself, Silvia is joining to provide the best assistance for our customers.
Allan Robinson – Customer Service Specialist – Linkedin
Having worked in different sectors within hospitality for 13 years and for the past 4.5 years with online travel, always trying to find a creative way to keep the standard of service high and relationship at their best.
Craig Southwell – Customer Service Specialist
Professional, customer focused and detailed orientated individual with over 3 years experience working in the travel industry, specialising in youth travel. Prior to joining Travala.com, he worked for many years in hotels.
Rach Virtuoso – Customer Service Specialist
Travel is an all-consuming passion for Rach. With over 7 years’ experience in the airline and hotel industry, Rach believes in helping people plan their perfect trips to create everlasting memories.
Glendale Lagarto – Customer Service Specialist
With a passion for the travel industry and over a decade of experience, Glendale has developed strong problem-solving skills, honed her ability to manage conflict cases, and polished her communication to provide an exceptional customer experience.
Marwin Jay Talas – Customer Service Specialist
With 8 years of experience in the travel industry working for both leisure and business travellers, Marwin applies his knowledge and skills to provide the best customer service experience to Travala.com’s customers.
Xanthe Pajiji – Customer Service Specialist
Xanthe is an experienced travel consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the leisure, travel & tourism industry. As a strong operations professional with a Bachelor’s degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management, Xanthe is skilled in GDSs, escalations, and mediation.
Product Team
Pink Tran – Lead UX / UI – Linkedin
As a Lead UX/ UI, Pink is responsible for overseeing all Travala.com designs, ensuring consistency across all visual elements of desktop, mobile and mobile apps. She is responsible for reviewing, editing and implementing design requests from the Executive Team.
Logan – UI/UX Designer – Linkedin
After 4 years studying in Information Technology, Logan realized his true passion was in design. He consulted and designed websites and mobile apps for many clients in different industries, including tourism and blockchain. Prior to joining Travala.com, he worked as a UI/UX Designer in some well-known companies in Vietnam.
Jolene – Business Analyst
Graduating from Hanoi University with a major in Computer Science, Jolene joins the product team as a Business Analyst. She has had over 10 years’ experience in the tech industry across various roles, including Business Analyst, Customer Service and Quality Control Executive.
Zom – Business Analyst – Linkedin
Zom has a background in tourism and hospitality, having received formal training and worked in the industry for over 6 years. Her interest in technology led her to pursue a new career path as a business analyst at Travala.com, where she aims to contribute to the creation of high-quality travel products for a global audience.
Crystal – Business Analyst
Extensive experience in the tourism/hotel industry, including travel agency product development, Expedia hotel partnerships management, hotel reception officer, and tourist restaurant services. At Travala.com, Tram is responsible for Improving current processes and develop procedures for optimised efficiency and productivity.
Development Team
Helen Nguyen – Senior Scrum Master – Linkedin
With a strong background and extensive experience in technology, Helen is responsible for facilitating the Travala.com’s Scrum team following Agile methodologies and Scrum practices. Also, she provides all support to the Development team to remove obstacles and reach the sprint goal.
Alan Pham – Senior Backend Developer – Linkedin
As one of Travala.com’s longest-serving team members, Alan is a Technical Lead and a Backend Developer. Alan is responsible for server-side development and database creation, integration, and management.
Chris Pham – Senior Frontend Developer – Linkedin
As a senior frontend developer, Chris is responsible for building Travala.com products by implementing modern, rich web application user interfaces with high requirements for quality and reliability. He works closely with the design team and backend team for the best possible solutions.
Abert Nguyen – Senior Backend Developer – Linkedin
As a backend developer, Abert is in charge of creating, coding the Travala.com server-side application, and databases and collaborating with the front-end developers and other team members.
Alex Tran – Senior Mobile Developer – Linkedin
An experienced Mobile Developer in the information technology and services industry, Alex is responsible for developing Travala.com’s mobile apps on different platforms including Android, Apple and Windows.
Aaron Le – Senior Frontend Developer – Linkedin
Aaron works with other frontend developer team members and works closely with the backend developer team. He implements the user interface, SEO tasks and engineers the experience of Travala.com website.
Frank Le – Senior DevOps Engineer – Linkedin
Graduated from university majoring in computer science, Frank started his career as a Full Stack Developer then wanted to challenge himself and switched to DevOps Engineering for almost 3 years so far. He has relevant experiences in implementing blockchain services on Binance, Ethereum and operating services on AWS, Google Cloud, and Kubernetes platforms.
Johnny Le – Frontend Developer – Linkedin
Johnny is responsible for developing the front-end web application, analyzing and resolving website issues, bugs and proposing new technical features to ensure the customer experience in the most convenient and friendly way.
Otis Nguyen – Frontend Developer – Linkedin
As a frontend developer, Otis is responsible for building website interface including cutting edge html/css based on the provided designs. He also works on other tasks assigned by the CTO/ Technical Lead.
Robert Nguyen – Frontend Developer – Linkedin
Robert has extensive experience in programming languages like Javascript, Java and Solidity. He joined Travala.com from VNPay, one of Vietnam’s top fintech companies, where he was involved in the development of all frontend components.
Harry Nguyen – Frontend Developer – Linkedin
Harry designs websites and mobile apps with organized, user-friendly interfaces and always strives to create light, fast and smooth websites with the cleanest and simplest possible codebase. Prior to joining Travala.com, he worked with both large-sized companies and startups where he gained his experience in fintech, e-commerce and logistics.
Justin Ta – Backend Developer – Linkedin
With a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry, Justin joined Travala.com as a backend developer who is responsible for building and developing the backend platform.
Jacky Le – Backend Developer – Linkedin
With a passion for researching technology trends and helping financial technology startups bring their visions to life, Jacky joins Travala.com as a Backend Developer with his seven years’ experience in architecting backend solutions to solve business problems.
Ethan Nguyen – Backend Developer – Linkedin
With several years of experience as a software developer in global companies such as Samsung and Pentalog, Ethan has developed and refined backend solutions within the payments and communications industries. Through his work, Ethan has improved the performance of various platforms for millions of users.
Quality Assurance and Control Team
Bella Vu – Senior QA / QC – Linkedin
As a Senior QC at Travala.com, a strong background of manual and automation testing as the role will include a mixture of both. With experience in working with automation frameworks such as POM, Cucumber, Rest Assured, Serenity Screenplay, she will ensure that validated deliverables meet functional requirements.
Xuki Pham – Senior QA / QC – Linkedin
With strong QC background, she is responsible for planning and controlling the testing process, setting quality metrics for the Travala.com product and coordinating with the development team to fix bugs.
Enda Trinh – Senior QA / QC – Linkedin
Responsible for taking multi-tasks on web/ performance testing on Travala.com to ensure the most seamless experience for our customers. Her daily tasks mainly involve creating test cases, scenarios and executing tests in IT/ST/UAT level and logging and tracking bugs.
Iris Nguyen – Senior QA/QC – Linkedin
As a senior QA/QC at Travala.com, she has experience in analytics, problem-solving skills, flexible working arrangements and conducting analysis checks on product. So she can perform multiple tasks on many projects of different platforms.
Moon Le – QA / QC – Linkedin
As a QA/QC Tester at Travala.com, Moon works together with other members in QC team to look for bugs in each build. She analyzes project requirements & creates a test plan, makes test reports or on demand as well as communicates with developers, BA and product managers.
Tracy Ngo – QA / QC – Linkedin
As a QA/QC Tester at Travala.com, Tracy is responsible for performing testing based on test cases and working closely with developers and BA to ensure the product quality and system requirements. She reports test results and logs bugs on the system for the development team.
HR & Admin Team
Thishalla – Executive Assistant – Linkedin
With over 20 years’ experience in hotel administration and customer management, Thishalla joins Travala.com as the company’s Executive Assistant.
Advisors
Caleb Yeoh – Business Development Advisor – Linkedin
Caleb champions digital currency adoption through thought leadership, speaking events and networking. Previous companies include Deloitte, Origin Energy, BHP Billiton and Shell. Caleb focuses on the development of the business through building relationships in the industry, identifying opportunities, and completing key business deals.
Drew Currah – Financial Advisor – Linkedin
CFA charter holder with experience working for the De Beers Group and Christopher Guy in financial strategy, Drew has responsibility for advising on the the financial operations of Travala.com.
Alexis Sirkia – Strategy Advisor – Linkedin
Alexis is the founder of the leading blockchain incubator and accelerator Yellow.com and brings his extensive background in IT operations and security, including starting his career at the European Space Center to Travala.com.
Matthew Luczynski – Co-Founder & Strategic Advisor – Linkedin
Matthew advises on strategic initiatives, ensuring that the company’s long-term strategy is embedded to all internal and external communications.