Steven Mandelbaum is to be named 2014 Travel Manager of the Year at the twenty-ninth annual Travel Manager of the Year Reception.
SECAUCUS, NJ USA – The BTN Group named The Advisory Board Co. vice president of business solutions and services Steven Mandelbaum its 2014 Travel Manager of the Year at the twenty-ninth annual Travel Manager of the Year Reception on July 29, 2014, in Los Angeles, California.
“Our mission is to deliver content that advances business travel management and to recognize those who make significant contributions that shape our industry,” said Louis Magliaro, group publisher of The BTN Group. “We’re thrilled to honor Steven for his many accomplishments.”
“This year’s winner is a visionary and a bit of a maverick,” said David Meyer, editorial director of The BTN Group, here during the award presentation. “He leveraged senior management support and internal staff coordination to save the company a significant amount of money and improve the traveler experience by doing things in innovative ways.”
Meyer cited Mandelbaum’s efforts to “build a loyalty program system tied to a card program that tracks and rewards traveler compliance with points earned from air and hotel purchases expensed on a timely basis redeemable for goods, charitable contributions or even the authorization to file such otherwise unsanctioned corporate travel expenses as premium airline and hotel services.”
Mandelbaum also “implemented an unconventional advance-purchase policy that disallows bookings between four and six days out because of data showing that booking window as the most expensive for the company,” Meyer said, adding that Mandelbaum’s team also built a tool “that, after an airline booking, searches for a cheaper fare within the 24-hour void window as long as the rebooking option can get a traveler to their destination within a specified timeframe.”
The BTN Group also named three travel buyers as its 2014 Best Practitioners including Harman International Industries director of global corporate travel Sally Abella for deploying a companywide virtual meetings system that helped to reduce hotel costs in top cities without a mandate; Oracle global travel global process officer Rita Visser for negotiating airline agreements that apply ancillary revenue spending to marketshare shortfalls; and Johnson & Johnson global manager of meeting services Christopher Wall for rolling out a strategic meetings management program in more than 60 countries while improving the quality of his company’s meetings data.
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She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
