Andres Fabris, Co-founder and CEO

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While writing a whitepaper about network effects in graduate school, Andres conceived the idea of a web-based travel proximity alert service that would allow him to stay in better touch with his classmates (who he knew would spread out across the globe after graduation). He figured that if he proactively knew of everyone's upcoming travel plans and could be alerted in advance of any future overlaps there was a much greater chance he'd actually be able to see more of his classmates in person. This idea eventually became Traxo.

Andres was born in Argentina and moved to the United States as a child. Inspired by his international heritage and a love for travel, Andres has spent his entire 13-year career in the travel industry and has held several key leadership positions including VP of Business Development at Travelocity.com where he was responsible for establishing and negotiating the company's major distribution, content and technology partnerships, CFO / COO at World Choice Travel and Director of Emerging Businesses, Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Sabre.

Andres holds a B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and a M.B.A from Harvard Business School.

Andy Chen, Co-founder and President

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Growing up in a traveling ex-pat family, Andy attended elementary school in Bangkok, Thailand and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, middle school in the United States and graduated high school from an international boarding school in Leysin, Switzerland. Having friends across the globe, Andy immediately saw the usefulness of Traxo in helping him to reconnect with friends and bring them closer together.

Andy has held a variety of travel marketing and business development roles with Sabre and Travelocity. Most recently, Andy served as Director of Business Development for True.com, a leading online dating site, where he led all strategic partnership activities. Andy started his career with Northrop Grumman as an Aerospace Engineer and an Associate in the company's Corporate Leadership Development Program. He also worked as a Senior Consultant with Cambridge Management Consulting where he assisted distressed Fortune 500 companies in implementing operational turnaround plans.

Andy holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University and a M.B.A. with distinction as a Sord Scholar from the University of Texas at Austin.

Chris Stevens, VP - Site Operations

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Chris was born and raised in rural Iowa and now lives with his wife and daughters in Flower Mound, Texas. He has been a private pilot for more than a decade and he enjoys exploring the nation with his family in their red, white and blue Mooney aircraft. Traxo makes it easy to make the most out of each trip, no matter how big or small the destination.

Chris has held engineering, product management, and leadership roles within the aerospace and defense industries and serves as a technology consultant developing scalable, high-performance web applications. Prior to joining Traxo, he introduced a real-time flight reservations and e-commerce platform for the private air travel industry.

Chris holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University and a M.S. in Management of Technology from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Nelson Hsu, VP - Product Marketing

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Over the summer, Nelson achieved one of his life goals of visiting all 7 continents before he turned 40. Having just returned from a 3 month Asia backpacking trip with his wife, he wishes he had had Traxo to not only keep track of his travel details, but to let his wife's family know which swine flu hotspot they were in.

Nelson has spent his career managing global product launches and multimillion dollar marketing campaigns for companies as diverse as Newell Rubbermaid, Lucent Technologies, and Remy Martin Cognacs, as well as starting an internet e-commerce art company, eArtGroup.com. He also worked for McKinsey & Company advising technology firms on their business strategies.

Nelson holds a B.S. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford, as well as an MBA from Kellogg Business School where he was an Austin Scholar.

Bijal Modi, VP - Engineering

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Bijal lives in Mumbai with family and enjoys travelling around the world. He believes that everything is possible with software and is excited to build at Traxo a new generation of connected web and mobile applications.

Bijal has 15 years of research and software architecture experience in the web, mobile and telecommunications industries. He founded Rinira, a software application company in addition to being the Director of Application Development at CollabNet: focused on web based collaboration and the Director of Software at Lasso Technologies: online consumer trading platform.

Dr. Modi received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

John Ackermann

John Ackermann has been a leading presence in the travel industry for over 30 years. He began his career in the industry while living for several years in Argentina. Upon his return to the United States he became a member of the SABRE development team at American Airlines, a group that pioneered travel agency automation in the mid-1970s. He was also instrumental in helping develop the business travel industry as part of the senior management team of Woodside Management, the first association of travel agencies dedicated to helping large corporations manage travel budgets.

While at Woodside, Mr. Ackermann and his team created the first automated system that connected disparate reservations systems of major industry suppliers, allowing companies to cross market and share reservations data. The division headed by Mr. Ackermann was purchased by Citicorp Information Management Systems in 1984.

Mr. Ackermann then shifted direction from the travel industry and joined Digital Equipment Corporation where he became Director of Product Management for the Telecommunications Business Group. While there he was responsible for products developed, marketed and sold to public telecommunications providers located around the world. He spent three years in France, managing the team responsible for organizing and developing the global headquarters for the business group.

Upon his return to the United States in 1994, Mr. Ackermann founded E-Travel, Inc., the groundbreaking online corporate travel management service. The company developed the first online system allowing business travelers to book air, car and hotel reservations in compliance with corporate travel policies. E-Travel became the industry leader in online booking systems used by large corporations. One customer, Oracle Corporation, saw the value of adding E-Travel's product to its own suite of business products and purchased the company in 1999. Mr. Ackermann continued to manage the Oracle e-Travel subsidiary until his retirement in 2001.

During his retirement he has worked with a number of early stage companies in fields ranging from medical products, telecommunications and travel related companies.

Mr. Ackermann earned a B.A., with Highest Distinction, from Penn State University. He is a member of the National Honor Societies of Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa.

Don Birch

After a career working in most aspects of travel and in particular travel distribution, Don Birch has turned his hand to applying his industry experience by investing in and mentoring internet based travel start-ups and travel businesses that are striving to leverage the wonders of Web2.0 and the on-going evolutions thereof.

Originally a true blue airline professional with 20+ years at Cathay Pacific, in the last decade or so Don has boarded the internet rocket ship and has gained experience with the hype (founder: hotelrezexpress.com), with the technology (SITA) and with the important travel agent segment (CEO of Abacus). He has owned and operated hotels and over the years has become a well know industry commentator. In this guise he is a frequent chairman of travel distribution conferences in Europe and Asia.

He gets his enjoyment from learning new things every day and from aspiring that others can benefit from his input and guidance. He is currently Managing Partner at China Opportunity Partners Ltd, a Hong Kong based boutique advisory practice.

Ninan Chacko

Ninan Chacko is now the CEO of the international PR Newswire Association LLC., the global leader in news and information distribution services for professional communicators. Ninan previously spent 13 years with AMR and Sabre Holdings, most recently as Senior Vice President of Emerging Business, followed by four years as Chief Commercial Officer for Worldspan. A native of Malaysia, Mr. Chacko was educated in Asia, Europe and the United States, earning a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kansas. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.

Scott Hyden

A graduate of the Duke University Fuqua School of Business as well as a 20 year accomplished veteran in the travel industry, Scott Hyden currently serves as Vice President of Sales for the United States at Travelport. Scott's depth and breadth of travel industry experience includes positions as President of STA Travel, General Manager of Travelocity Business, General Manager of Travelweb and Managing Director for AA.com. Scott's peers commend him for his "strategic perspective, and his incisive and inspirational leadership style."

Ellen L. Keszler

Ellen serves as president and CEO of Clear Sky Associates, a management and strategy consulting firm focused on the technology and travel industries. Previously, she was president of Travelocity Business, launching this new online oriented corporate travel business in 2003 and growing it to over $30 million in revenue in less than four years, with operations in the US and UK. Prior to that, she led the North American division of Sabre Travel Network, a $1B revenue business. In these leadership roles she had responsibility for sales, account management, software product management, marketing and operations in the global distribution system, corporate booking tool, and corporate travel agency businesses.

Ellen serves on the board, audit committee and nominating/governance committee of PROS Pricing, a NYSE company. She is on the board of Farelogix, a privately held travel distribution technology company. She serves on the advisory board of Traxo, a technology company that helps travelers organize, manage and share the details of their travel, as well as Zoom and Go, a provider of user centric mapping capabilities. She is a lifetime member of the Advisory Council of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a board member of KERA, North Texas Public Broadcasting, where she chairs the finance committee. Ellen is a member of the board of Trustees of Preston Hollow Presbyterian School, where she serves on the executive committee. She was on the board of the National Business Travel Association Foundation for three years, a foundation dedicated to delivering education and research to the corporate travel industry, and served for two years as its chair. She participated on the editorial board of Business Travel News, the leading corporate travel industry publication. She has twice served as a mentor at Menttium, an organization dedicated to improving professional performance of high potential female executives through mentoring. She was also named one of the 100 most powerful women in Travel by Travel Agent Magazine for four consecutive years. Ellen received her B.S. in Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jeffrey Lavender

A global business leader and fluent French speaker, Jeff Lavender spent nearly 18 years of his career in Europe with Amadeus, and with Travelocity Europe as Senior Vice President and President of Travelocity France. Jeff also held interim CEO positions with Travelport in Paris and in Macau, China, with Macau.com. More recently the emerging video, mobile and social-web trends led him to the position as Chief Operating Officer for ZCITYTV, a content production company. Jeff is a graduate of the Travel and Tourism Business School at University of Hawaii and the graduate programs at INSEAD, based in Fountainbleau, France.

Randy Petersen

Randy Petersen is editor and publisher of Inside Flyer magazine, founder of FlyerTalk, an online travel bulletin board and the idea guy behind BoardingArea and several other frequent flyer/biz travel Web sites. An expert in social media and it's applications for the travel industry, Petersen is frequently called upon by news media for opinions about the frequent flyer and travel industry and often referred to by The Wall Street Journal and Conde Naste Traveler as the "frequent flyer guru". FlyerTalk was acquired by Internet Brands in 2008 who have kept Randy at the leadership helm.

Zolon A. Wilkins

Zolon A. Wilkins, Jr is a senior consultant and advisor on broad business issues related to travel and hospitality products and services, including real estate as well as consumer marketing issues. Past clients include a variety of travel companies, private equity investment firms, and global services companies, such as GenaRes, Hicks Holdings, Pontis Venture Partners (Vienna), Synxis, Butler Investments, Maxim TEP, Chartwell Investments, Hotel Prophets (Sydney) GGS.Ltd. (Tokyo), Travel Click, SFM, Pegasus Solutions, getaroom.com, Americas Management Group, TransWorld and MedEvolve.

While working with Getaroom.com (a business founded by Dave Litman and Bob Diener, who also founded Hotels.com) Zolon negotiated contracts with technology providers, global wholesalers, hotel companies, hotel representation firms and staffed the entire global team that managed the relationship with over 3,000 hotels in 35 US markets and 7 European markets. Prior to Getaroom.com, Zolon served as the SVP for MyTravel North America, responsible for overseeing a portfolio of 25 companies (including Lexington Services, ABC Corporate Travel, World Choice Travel, and MyResorts.com) which together represented revenues of $300 million. Prior to MyTravel, Zolon Co-founded and was the CEO of Lexington Services. The Company became the largest third-party representation and reservations provider in the US and second largest in the world, representing more than 4,000 hotel properties in 70 countries. Prior to Lexington Services Zolon was Chairman, CEO, Co-founder with his brothers and family of Lexington Suites, an extended stay all-suite concept that was scaled to over 50 properties and 1,000 employees, with no outside equity investors.

Zolon has a Doctorate of Business Administration in Hospitality Management (Honorius Causea) from Johnson & Wales University and a Bachelors of Science Degree from the Dallas Baptist University. While not working on travel-related ventures, Zolon has enjoyed contributing his time as a board member of several organizations that he is passionate about, including: Las Colinas Bank, Brigham Young University, Dallas Baptist University, Shelton School, Dallas CASA Johnson and Wales University, Baylor Healthcare System.

Peter M. Zuckerman

Peter serves as the President of Z-Media, a print and digital media sales organization with deep relationships with clients in the premium and luxury brands within the travel, fashion, fragrance, automotive and spirits industries. Clients range from brand owners to advertising and media agencies. Z-Media is dedicated to provide each client with tailor made media recommendations based on needs, thus optimizing effectiveness in reaching identified target groups. The consultancy and sales team, proudly offers solutions that go beyond the traditional and pushes the envelope on what you would expect from a media partner by offering integrated campaigns that go beyond print and includes direct mail and digital solutions as well as presenting event opportunities.

Z-Media was founded by Peter Zuckerman in 2002. For Peter, the move from New York to Miami came after 18 years in magazine publishing, the latest being as Advertising Director of The New Yorker. At the New Yorker, Peter led a staff of 26 sales executives in the US and Europe where he grew the advertising by 20 percent, putting the New Yorker back in black and earned the magazine the #4 slot on AdWeeks "Hot List".