Skift Take

Expedia is moving toward simplifying the various brands and organizational units it has acquired over the years, and changes such as these are to be expected.

Longtime Expedia senior executive Aman Bhutani is leaving the company after nine years to pursue another opportunity, according to reports, amid changes in company executive ranks and change in reporting responsibilities.

As President of Brand Expedia Group, Bhutani ran all global business operations of the Brand Expedia Group including the Expedia brand globally and regional brands including Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, eBookers, and Wotif. Prior to this role, he was Brand Expedia Group’s chief technology officer.

No word on where he will go next, though he joined the board of New York Times Company last year.

Expedia is looking at a broader restructuring of the company to simplify and scale the business, as Expedia CEO Mark Okerstrom explained in the Q2 earnings call yesterday. Part of the playbook is to leverage opportunities through cross-selling and brand cooperation among various Expedia brands, Okerstrom said.

As part of that change, “we’ve recently begun a design process with the goal of realigning certain teams across the company to enable us to better connect our operating model with our platform business model and strategy. As part of this process, later this year, Tucker Moodey, John Kim, and Cyril Ranque, current senior executives of the company, will take on new roles overseeing three new organizational groupings,” according to an emailed statement from Expedia spokesperson.

Okerstrom had seemed to trust Bhutani’s insights on strategy. He was known to quote Bhutani’s view that Expedia needed to choose where it was going to play and how how it was going to win before entering a market, such as when explaining why Expedia had basically ceded the domestic Chinese market to Ctrip.com.

Expedia CEO Mark Okerstrom is speaking at Skift Global Forum in NYC Sept. 18–19. Get tickets now

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Tags: expedia, online travel agencies

Photo credit: Aman Bhutani, who led Brand Expedia Group for many years, has left the position. Expedia

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