Travelport appoints new chief product and technology officer

Tom Kershaw was previously director of product management at Google

Travelport has appointed a former Google product management director as its new chief product and technology officer.

Tom Kershaw joins the GDS and travel technology specialist having most recently worked for advertising platform Magnite (formerly Rubicon Project) as chief technology officer.

He has more than two decades of experience in senior technical strategy and innovation roles within both emerging and established organisations undergoing transformation.

While at Rubicon Project, in 2017, Kershaw co-founded Prebid.org, an open-source software organisation that established a new standard for independent advertising exchanges to facilitate collaboration and innovation.

Prior to Rubicon Project, Kershaw was a director of product management at Google where he led the Google Ads and Commerce product team in the APAC region, overseeing all global products built for publishers and buyers.

While at Google, he also led product management for the Google Cloud platform where he focused on infrastructure development and was heavily involved in re-structuring cloud infrastructure pricing.

Kershaw has also held leadership positions at Ericsson, VeriSign, and Unisys Corporation.

Greg Webb, Travelport chief executive, said: “As Travelport+ is the central focus of our strategy, we’re continuing to invest heavily in our global technology and product resources to deliver more value to our customers with next-generation solutions.

“Tom is a proven change-maker, having led significant transformation in the enterprise Cloud space and global advertising sector, and I’m thrilled that he’s embraced the challenge of helping us modernize travel retailing.

“He brings invaluable knowledge and experience to our technology leadership team that will greatly support the evolution of Travelport+.”

Kershaw added: “Progression in any industry requires bold changes and I’m greatly impressed with the direction Travelport is taking to facilitate simplified, modern retailing for the travel industry.

“I’m excited to join Greg and the entire Travelport team at such a monumental time in the company’s transformation journey and look forward to accelerating innovation and delivering products that bring significant and meaningful value to its customers.”