Who Will Be Expedia's New CEO?
Skift Take
Facing intense competition and a company in disarray, the Expedia Group board and senior executive Barry Diller have no time to dillydally. No one can forecast what the online travel market will look like in the next five years, but Diller et al need to find a couple of top executives who can quickly figure out Expedia's path forward.
Rest assured that Barry Diller's phone is busy and his email inbox is probably a logjam.
That's because, according to several sources, multiple people have volunteered their names as the successor to Mark Okerstrom as CEO of Expedia Group. Expedia investors are said to be actively involved in offering advice to largest shareholder and chairman Diller given the company's reorganization woes, and lackluster performance in 2019.
In a stunner December 4, the Expedia board triggered the resignations of Okerstrom, who'd been in the post since late-August 2017, and CFO Alan Pickerill, who had been promoted at the same time.
Skift contacted several sources with some knowledge of the search, and multiple others to handicap the succession race.
If Diller follows his past practice and taps a new Expedia CEO who has Expedia/IAC Travel/Microsoft ties, then two names prominently mentioned that would fit that scenario include Zillow Group co-founder and former CEO Spencer Rascoff, and former Orbitz Worldwide CEO Barney Harford.
Both have roots in the so-called Expedia tree.
Rascoff co-founded Hotwire when 24 years old in 1999, and sold the Priceline Name-Your-Own Price rival to Diller's Expedia/IAC four years later for $685 million. Hotwire remains an Expedia Group brand, although it has struggled in recent years.
Harford spent more than seven years at Expedia, starting in 1999, in roles ranging from director of investor relations to president of Expedia Asia-Pacific.
Here's our handicapping of various potential hires who have Expedia/IAC Travel/Microsoft ties, or travel industry experience outside of the Diller orbit. None of them would comment or could be reached for comment.
Spencer Rascoff
Spencer Rascoff left his post as Zillow Group CEO earlier this year as Expedia founder and former CEO Rich Barton reoccupied his prior Zillow Group CEO role at the online real estate outfit. Barton retook the reins to execute a business model shift. Rascoff remains on the Zillow board, which is stocked with Expedia, TripAdvisor, Liberty Media, Microsoft, and HotelTonight veterans, including Barton, Eric Blachford, Amy Bohutinsky, Lloyd Frink, Jay Hoag, and Gregory Maffei.
One source described Rascoff as charismatic, adding that he capably headed for several years Zillow Group, a complex public company with multiple brands. Zillow Group, from that perspective, has some parallels to Expedia Group's brand panoply. Rascoff served as Expedia's vice pre
