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 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.
Steve Hipwell – Co-Founder & COO – Linkedin
Steve uses his expertise and experience from a decade in travel industry management to manage Travala.com’s day to day business operations and is responsible for ensuring Travala.com’s outstanding customer experience.
Caleb Yeoh – CBDO – Linkedin
As a former board member of Blockchain Australia, Caleb champions digital currency adoption through thought leadership and speaking events. 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 – CFO – Linkedin
As a CFO and CFA charter holder with experience working for the De Beers Group and Christopher Guy in financial strategy, Drew has executive responsibility for managing the financial operations of Travala.com.
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.
Ben Rogers – Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) – Linkedin
With nearly a decade of marketing experience at giants like Google and Flight Centre, CMO Ben Rogers joins Travala.com to help take its next steps towards becoming a household name in the travel space and further promote the use cases of the AVA token.
Matthew Luczynski – Co-Founder & CSO – Linkedin
Matthew is responsible for managing Travala.com’s strategic initiatives, ensuring that the company’s long-term strategy is embedded to all internal and external communications.
Advisors
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.
James Seibel – Blockchain Advisor – Linkedin
Formerly CTO of Airfox and former Head of Engineering at Apperian, James currently manages blockchain and trade engineering teams at the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange and brings considerable value to Travala.com.
Juwan Lee – Asia Advisor – LinkedIn
With decades of experience, Juwan Lee is a veteran CEO and FinTech entrepreneur. He has served as Head of Equities for JP Morgan and co-founded the Blockchain Center of Hong Kong. Juwan is currently the CEO of Arrakis Ventures, and is a great asset for Travala.com in the Asian Markets.
Management Team
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.
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.
Hilary Vu – HR Manager – Linkedin
As the HR Manager, Hilary is responsible for implementing all administrative functions and HR-related tasks including recruitment, interviews, staff salary and compensation regime and works as a link between the management and team members.
Steph Downing – Finance Manager – Linkedin
With previous experience at leading firms including EY, Steph is instrumental in maintaining the financial health of the company and analysing every day financial activities to provide financial advice and guidance to the Executive Team.
Marketing Team
Jason – Digital Marketing Consultant – Linkedin
As a highly motivated technical Digital Marketer, Jason is responsible for overall digital marketing strategies with SEO focus of Travala.com. Having an entrepreneurial mindset and analytical skills, he strives his best for impactful results every day.
Julia Nguyen – SEO / SEM Specialist – Linkedin
An experienced digital marketer, Julia is responsible for optimizing the Travala.com website for SEO and SEM purposes. Her daily tasks include on-page and off-page SEO activities and content development along with conversion optimization.
Customer Experience Team
Jayden Trinh – Support Specialist – 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.
Taro Dang – Support Specialist – Linkedin
With extensive experience in the Hospitality Industry. Taro’s duties at Travala.com include helping to maximise brand awareness and to deliver exceptional customer experiences and interaction.
Eric Lu – Support Specialist – Linkedin
Eric has 12 year of experience in travel industry, including 8 years ticketing experience in Flight Centre. He manages the customer support of our corporate clients. Eric is fluent in multiple Chinese dialects and provides on demand support for key clients in Asia. With his many years of experience, Eric ensures clients with complex multi-stop itineraries get the best price and optimised routes to anywhere around the world.
Design 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.
Benjamin Dao – UX / UI Designer – Linkedin
As a UX/ UI Designer, Benjamin ensures that Travala.com designs align with branding, usability and functions that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to all customers and stakeholders.
Mai Pattie – U
X / UI Designer – Linkedin
Pattie joins Travala.com as UX/UI Designer at Travala.com with over 3 years of experience in graphics design. She is responsible for collecting and evaluating user requirements that helps deliver an outstanding user experience providing an exceptional and intuitive website design.
Development Team
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 front-end 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.
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.
Emanuele Tonello – Lead Developer – Linkedin
Emanuele is a challenge seeker. For the past 5 years, he has worked in over 10 different start-up companies contributing his expertise in software engineering. He often brings a different perspective and work approach to the table. He loves getting involved in building the product as much as coding for them.
Peter Do – Fullstack Developer – Linkedin
With an extensive technical background, Peter is a Travala.com full stack developer. He is responsible for handling all work pertaining to databases, servers and client system engineering.
Harry Tran – Fullstack Developer – Linkedin
With strong competence in system analysis and system design, Harry joined Travala.com as a full-stack developer who is responsible for building and developing the backend platform as well as supporting in building the UI web application.
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.
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.
Abert Nguyen – Backend Developer – Linkedin
As a backend developer, Albert 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.
Sarah Tran – Business Analyst – Linkedin
As a Business Analyst, Sarah is responsible for gathering business and system requirements from the management team and suggesting ideas and providing solutions. She also works directly with the Product Manager to develop the product roadmap in detail and works in conjunction with the development team/QC team for the best product qualification.
Adam Tran – HR Executive – Linkedin
Adam is responsible for all the tasks assigned by HR Manager and COO including recruitment, compensations and benefits, HR administration.
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.
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.
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.
Moon Le – QA / QC – Linkedin
As a QA/ QC Tester, 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.
About Travala.com
Founded in 2017, Travala.com is the leading cryptocurrency-friendly travel booking service with 2,200,000+ hotels and homes in 230 countries and 600 airlines globally. Backed by industry-giant Binance, Travala.com is a champion of cryptocurrency adoption, accepting over 30 leading cryptocurrencies in addition to traditional payment methods. The Travala.com value proposition is bolstered by AVA. As the native cryptocurrency of the platform, AVA can be used for payments, receiving loyalty rewards, discounts and bonuses, among several other use cases. For more information, visit: www.travala.com