Barney Harford Named Lola Board Chairman…and Other Company News.
I have quite a bit to share.
For starters, we added a Chairman and two additional board members. We’re fortunate that former CEO of Orbitz Worldwide, Barney Harford, has joined our board as non-executive Chairman. Barney led an incredibly successful turnaround of Orbitz Worldwide culminating in a sale to Expedia for $1.6 billion, or $12 per share, up 10x from the low the share price hit just after he joined in 2009.
While he’s a deeply experienced leader with a track record in scaling businesses, he’s a product person first, and brings a ton of energy, creativity and online travel experience to Lola. He’s also a passionate ski mountaineer and surfer. Prior to Orbitz Worldwide, Barney spent eight years in a broad range of roles at Expedia, most recently leading the company’s entry into China, Japan and Australia as President, Expedia Asia Pacific.
Joel Cutler of General Catalyst and Harry Nelis of Accel have also joined Lola’s board. Lola CTO and Cofounder, Bill O’Donnell and I have successfully worked with Joel and Harry continuously for more than ten years; both served on the board of my previous travel company and were the lead investors behind Blade. They bring an unrivaled track record in travel to our board, and I look forward to continuing our long partnership.
We also officially completed our Series A funding of $19.7M including the remaining funds from our tech foundry Blade and additional investments from General Catalyst and Accel.
-Paul, CEO and Cofounder
