Expedia founder joins OneFineStay board
Simon Breakwell, one of the original founders of Expedia and ex-Head of Operations for Uber in Europe, has joined luxury accommodation provider OneFineStay as a Board member. The company, which offers luxury home stays in New York, Paris, Angeles and London, is currently pushing for growth, and earlier this year received $40m in an equity-funding round from investors including Hyatt Hotels.

This article was originally published on

Qunar founder falls into Tripping, Ola shuffles management cards, and more...

This is a roundup of news and announcements for PEOPLE moves in travel, tourism and hospitality for November 2015:

Thursday 26 November 2015:

Qunar founder falls into Tripping

Fritz Demopoulos has joined the board of directors for the vacation rental metasearch company. Qunar co-founder Chinese metasearch service Qunar and is now behind the Queen's Road Capital investment company.

The taxi app brand has hired Rajiv Bansal as its new chief financial officer, joining in January 2016 from Infosys where held the same position. Current Ola CFO Mitesh Shah has moved sideways to become head of strategic finance initiatives.

Ola shuffles management pack

MakeMyTrip woos Goibibo co-founder

Deepak Tuli will be joining the online travel agency as its senior vice president of growth business, with a particular focus on the accommodation segment of the company. Prior to co-creating and having a chief operating officer role at travel search site Goibibo, Tuli worked as part of the founding team of Yatra.

Priceline Group names new CEO for OpenTable

Christa Quarles is promoted to the top job after holding the CFO position since May 2015. She replaces Matt Roberts who became chairman in September (she also has been interim CEO since then). Prior to joining OpenTable, Quarles was chief business officer at Nextdoor and had previously worked for Disney Interactive.

Rob Sikam will join the company to spearhead the travel ancillary delivery platform's services in Asia-Pacific, having held senior positions at DS TAGS and Travelport, as well as roles with with KLM and Martinair. Sinead Finn of Affinnity will act as a consultant for growing the company's European network of clients.

Fusion connects with two new hires

SITA appoints president for the Americas

Randy Pizzi will be based at the company's Atlanta, Georgia office, having joined from Rockwell Collins/ARINC. He was most recently managing director of the company's Asia-Pacific division.

DHISCO announces quartet of new execs

The hires for the hotel distribution company include: Greg Berman as chief operating officer (ex-eRevMax), Noreen Henry as chief revenue officer (ex-Intent Media and Travelocity), Jennifer Mays as VO of product design (ex-Sabre, and Anne Cole as VP of content (ex-SDL).

Rashesh Jethi will head the Research & Development division in the Americas region for Amadeus, having joined from Cisco Systems where he was leader of its portfolio management and marketing. He has held various technology roles at a number of Silicon Valley-based companies including Visage Mobile, and was has previously worked for Lufthansa, Travelocity, American Airlines and Southwest.

Amadeus hires ex-Cisco exec for R&D brief

HolidayIQ appoints new CTO

Vikas Rana joins the company the Indian user review service as chief technology officer from Must See India, where he was CEO and founder for eight years. Proof to that he was a developer and then manger at software company, Trilogy.

Merfat Alfy replaces Tarek Bassiouny as head of operations in Egypt for the company. She previously worked in the same role at British Airways.

Travelport names country manager for Egypt

SITA boss to step down

Francesco Violante will leave the airline and airport IT company during the second half of 2016 after more than 13 years with the company. Geneva-based Violante has previously worked at Telecom Italia and is credited with overseeing a large number of initiatives at SITA including its acquisitions of WorkBridge A/S and Com-Net Software and the development of its OnAir strategy. The company has yet to announce a successor.

Graham Hills will become chief product officer at the company's headquarters in Singapore. Ruwie Rahardjo will take over Hills's role as general manager for the metasearch engine in Indonesia.

Wego juggles exec pack

Revinate unveils new CEO and other exec changes

Major shuffle of the pack and new entrants for the reputation management service, including Jay Ashton stepping down as CEO to become chief product officer, with global vice president of sales Marc Heyneker taking over the role. Kelly Buchanan (Zynga, Lucasfilm) is new VP of people; Kenny Lee (Lithium Technologies, Adobe Systems) is VP of marketing; Dany Bolduc (AirAsia, BlackBerry) is GM for Asia-Pacific.

Simon Breakwell, a well known figure from the early days of online travel, joins the home rental service as a member of its board of directors. The former-head of Expedia in Europe also had a stint establishing operations for ride-sharing service Uber in Europe from 2012 and 2013.