Online travel search provider continues to fuel US growth through talent acquisition in sales, marketing and technology support
BOSTON, Mass. (September 5, 2007) — Online travel-search provider Cheapflights.com (www.cheapflights.com) has announced the promotion of Mona Strick to director of business development. In this newly-created position, Strick will manage Cheapflights’ partner relations initiatives and oversee the company’s growing business development team. Additionally, Cheapflights announced seven new staff additions across sales, marketing and technology support.
“Cheapflights continues to see dramatic year over year growth. There’s been an explosion of interest in travel search from both consumers and advertisers. While Cheapflights is poised for sustained growth, we’ve needed to add resources to keep up with the marketplace In fact, we expect to continue to add more staff over the next several months to keep pace with demand from our advertising partners and from the growing US leisure travel market,” said Michael Bennett, general manager for Cheapflights USA.
Strick, who previously held the position of senior manager of business development, was one of the first employees of Cheapflights USA, which opened in Boston in 2003. As the company’s first business development resource, she has played a key role in expanding the company’s partner network, including signing Expedia.com, one of Cheapflights’ largest partners. In her new role, Strick will apply her 20 years of travel-industry sales and marketing experience and institutional knowledge to further expand Cheapflights’ partner network, and will continue to work directly with Cheapflights’ top partners. Prior to Cheapflights, Strick held positions at Garber Travel, Rosenbluth, Aquarius and Carlson Whelotin.
Cheapflights USA has also expanded its sales, marketing and technology teams with several new hires.
Sandy Johnston joined Cheapflights as national business development manager, bringing with her over ten years of online media sales experience and most recently serving as director of sales development for WeatherBug. In her first few months at Cheapflights, she has signed several new airline partners.
Kimberly Pagliuca also joined Cheapflights as national business development manager. Over the previous eight years, Pagliuca has worked with leading online media companies Yahoo.com, Hotjobs.com and Salary.com. At Cheapflights, she has quickly signed several new travel partners.
Emily Baillieul, online marketing manager, joined Cheapflights from Upromise, where she served as online marketing manager. In her new position, Baillieul will oversee all aspects of display and non-traditional online marketing.
Heather Molina, search marketing manager, joined Cheapflights from Carat Fusion where she served as associate director of search engine marketing (SEM). In her new role, she will manage paid and organic search initiatives.
Erin Mullaney joined Cheapflights as public relations coordinator, supporting the company’s marketing communications initiatives. She most recently worked in public relations at KempGoldberg.
Nicole Meunier, technical service associate, works with the business development team to maintain and manage partners’ Web site accounts. Meunier previously served as newsletter programmer for TechTarget.
John Payne joined Cheapflights as database acquisition officer, assisting the newsletter team to source the most relevant deals for subscribers. He joined Cheapflights from Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, where he was an analyst.
