Navan
Enterprise travel and expense management platform
Senior Director of Event Travel - Navan Events
About the job
- 10+ years of experience managing distributed travel operations teams across spans and layers.
- Experience owning commercial operations, including operating budgets, gross margin or contribution margin, forecasting, pricing, capacity forecasting, cost-to-serve, and productivity.
- A track record of building Product and Operations partnerships that produced measurable improvements in automation, service, and profitability.
- A data-driven and disciplined approach to operating performance.
- Thorough knowledge of the travel industry, fares, suppliers, and markets.
- Familiarity with air booking tools and fulfillment systems.
- Skill leading through organizational and technology change.
- Lead a global organization of directors, managers, team leads, travel consultants, and coordinators, and develop talent and high performers.
- Dissolve the Reed & Mackay and Navan silos by building a unified operating model that leverages Navan technology and Reed & Mackay expertise.
- Own service quality, commercial performance, workforce planning, operational transformation, and the partnership with Product and Engineering needed to rebuild appropriate offline workflows on Navan infrastructure.
- Define and implement the target-state operating model for Event Travel, including the People, Processes, and Systems that deliver Event Travel globally.
- Structure a global service-delivery function using globally consistent tools and processes while empowering local decision-making and experience.
- Ensure the technology stack enables operational scale and act as an agent of change for the platform and technology.
- Provide candid senior-level leadership about operational failures and the cost of fixing them.
- Unify two teams operating on different technology stacks and processes into a single high-performing unit.
- Partner with Flights/Air Product and Engineering teams to build booking tools and capabilities for managing customer Event Travel through Navan.
- Continuously measure and manage performance improvement so the Event Travel team improves client delivery.
- Build and maintain a unified team working together.
About the company
Navan provides an enterprise travel and expense management platform that helps global organizations book, view, and manage business travel and expenses in one cloud-based system. It combines mobile access with AI-driven insights to streamline booking, approval, policy enforcement, and expense reporting, while integrating the Navan card (issued by Celtic Bank and supported by Stripe) to tie travel purchases directly to expense management. Revenue comes from subscriptions and transaction-based charges. Navan differentiates itself with a global, 40-market footprint, a card that embeds expense management into the booking flow, and cost-saving incentives through Navan Rewards that encourage cheaper travel decisions. Its overarching goal is to help businesses run operations more efficiently, enable smarter, data-driven decisions, and strengthen human connections by simplifying travel and expense processes across the organization.
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Palo Alto, California
Founded
2015
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Q2 FY2027 revenue reached $233 million, up 35%, and full-year guidance rose to $933 million.
- Fortune 500 clients reached 45, while RFP volume surged more than 200%.
- Engine, OpenTable, and Gemini Enterprise expand booking distribution and daily workflow usage.
What critics are saying
- Securities fraud class actions target Navan's October 2025 IPO disclosures about sales-and-marketing spend.
- BoomPop, Smartrips, and prior deals demand integration; failures will dilute margins and focus.
- If litigation and integration drag continue, public-market trust erodes and acquisition currency disappears.
What makes Navan unique
- Navan unifies travel, expense, payments, meetings, and events after BoomPop on 2026-09-09.
- Navan's AI protocol supports natural-language spend queries across Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor.
- Navan spans 40 markets, and Smartrips deepens Brazilian enterprise travel coverage.
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Benefits
Flexible Vacation: Take time off when you need it, just work with your manager.
Healthcare: Medical, dental, and vision for you and your family.
Commuter benefits: Pre-tax transit dollars, $70 a month to ease your commute.
Parental leave: All parents (birthing and non-birthing) are eligible for paid leave.
Health and Wellness: Annual wellness stipend and access to a full spectrum of resources.
Fuel for Connection: We provide in-office snacks and lunches*, fostering community and in-person connections.
Pet Friendly: Pet insurance with preferred rates and dog friendly offices*.
401k: We care about your future and offer a 401k retirement plan program and company match.
IATAN: Employees can register and receive access to thousands of travel related discounts.
Connectivity Allowance: We support our employees ability to work seamlessly and confidently while from home and offer a bi-weekly stipend
Learning & Development: Annual Learning and Development allowance to propel professional growth
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -82%1 year growth
↑ 3%2 year growth
↑ 2%Navan has partnered with Engine, a travel and spend technology provider, to expand booking options for its users. The collaboration will integrate Engine's payment and fintech solutions into Navan's platform, streamlining bookings, adjustments and cancellations. Initial offerings will launch this month, with additional features following in subsequent months. The partnership aims to enhance platform stickiness by providing greater flexibility and control over travel plans. The move follows Navan's acquisition of AI-driven meetings platform BoomPop. In the second quarter, Navan reported 45% growth in gross bookings, exceeding $3 billion, whilst revenue reached $233 million, up 35% year-over-year. However, the integration introduces technical risks, including potential disruptions during rollout. Relying on external infrastructure also creates dependency risks if Engine faces operational or financial challenges.
Navan has acquired BoomPop, an AI-powered events platform founded in 2023. The acquisition expands Navan's offerings in meetings and events, providing customers a unified platform for travel, expense, payments, meetings, and events. BoomPop uses AI to help companies plan and manage events end-to-end, from venue sourcing to contracts and payments. The platform has supported events for approximately 250,000 people at companies including Accenture, Amazon, Google, Salesforce, and Shopify. BoomPop estimates it has helped customers reduce event costs by approximately 30% on average. The deal builds on a partnership announced earlier this year. Navan expects the acquisition to have no material impact on its previously issued financial guidance. The combined offering aims to address the meetings and events sector, where most spending occurs outside managed channels.
Navan, the AI-powered business travel and expense platform, has partnered with OpenTable to integrate restaurant discovery and booking into its Navan Edge service. The collaboration aims to simplify dining arrangements for business travellers by incorporating OpenTable's reservation system directly into Navan Edge's chat-driven interface. The integration offers location-aware restaurant suggestions based on travellers' itineraries and preferences, personalised recommendations drawing from past reservations and dietary restrictions, and proactive booking reminders for popular venues. Future updates will include automatic adjustments for schedule changes and access to OpenTable's private and group dining platform for booking private rooms and large tables. OpenTable works with over 70,000 restaurants globally and facilitates 2 billion reservations annually.
Navan has launched its Model Context Protocol, enabling customers to query travel and expense data using natural language through AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor. The initial deployment offers read-only access to programme insights and transaction data, with write-access features planned for later. The launch followed a strong first quarter. Navan raised its full-year revenue forecast to $907 million to $913 million and adjusted operating profit guidance to $76 million to $80 million, citing robust business travel demand. First-quarter revenue grew approximately 40% to $220.2 million, beating estimates of $205.3 million. Gross booking volume jumped 50% to $3.1 billion. The company posted an adjusted profit of 8 cents per share versus analysts' forecast of a 1-cent loss.
BMO Capital has raised its price target on Navan from $22 to $30 whilst maintaining an Outperform rating following strong fiscal Q1 2027 results. The cloud-based business travel and expense management platform reported revenue of $220.23 million, surpassing expectations of $205.27 million, with earnings per share of $0.08 beating estimates of $0.01. The firm highlighted that revenue grew 40% year-over-year, driven by accelerating travel bookings and payments growth. BMO noted triple-digit growth in request-for-proposal activity, indicating strong corporate demand. The company has gained over 12% in the past 30 days, with analysts forecasting more than 36% upside over the next 12 months. BMO praised Navan's AI strategy for supporting efficient scaling and profitability, whilst identifying share-gain opportunities in the enterprise segment.