Business Travel News went into its third decade of publication in 2004. The corporate travel landscape had continued to evolve towards how we see it today. Explore the list of BTN’s third decade of official Travel Manager of the Year award winners to learn about some of the travel buyers who optimized their resources, conquered various challenges within their respective companies, enhanced business practices, and made significant contributions to the industry.
[Editor’s note: BTN pulled images from the actual time period in our archive, or as near as possible.]
2004: Susan Finkbeiner Susan Finkbeiner was vice president and manager of travel services at Goldman Sachs. In overhauling the firm’s travel program, she refined processes like bulk purchasing, hotel room allocation, and traveler tracking. Her other achievements included moving the group from WorldTravel BTI to American Express and launching PeopleTracker for real-time traveler data. After her tenure with Goldman, she served as global head of travel and entertainment at Jeffries until retiring in 2017. She passed away in October 2018.
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Richard Wooten
2005: Richard Wooten Richard Wooten worked with Lockheed Martin’s travel partners to create automated real-time pre-trip approvals and alerts and unused-ticket exchange technology. Besides his efforts to consolidate global policy, he grew his travel program beyond the U.S., Canada and U.K. to include 23 other countries. He also convinced a low-cost carrier to offer corporate discounts and content to global distribution systems, both firsts for the carrier.
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Duane Futch
2006: Duane Futch Wal-Mart’s Duane Futch led the flight-testing of a global approach in which the company integrated strategic supplier contracts, Sabre GDS services and UATP to form a unique U.S. point-of-sale structure. It pushed the envelope for Airlines Reporting Corporation accredited CTD practices and removed barriers to the worldwide financial settlement of the ticketing process.
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Donna Kelliher
2007: Donna Kelliher Donna Kelliher, director of travel services for energy firm Dominion, organized travel buyers and local business leaders to gain and retain LCC service. She advocated for a diverse air portfolio to improve business travel not just for her company, but also for and with her peers. Additionally, she set up a way to calculate optimal timing for advance ticket purchases, greatly lowering Dominion’s annual U.S. booked air spend.
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Janice Chang
2008: Janice Chang Janice Chang steered the upgrade of Northrop Grumman’s internal hotel RFP process. With her team, she built an automated tool to streamline hotel negotiations, improve negotiated rate accuracy, expedite auditing, and help consolidate supplier data. Ultimately, it reshaped the industry’s standard RFP template. The tool also empowered Janice’s team to conduct its own rate audits, and through the new RFP collection and rate-loading process, rate accuracy exceeded 80 percent.
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Susan Lichtenstein
2009: Susan Lichtenstein Susan Lichtenstein, then director of travel, meetings, and events for Cisco Systems, transformed the company’s travel program by contracting and arranging air, hotel, meetings and agency services. With industry knowledge and innovation, she laid out plans to improve how processes were structured. Susan continues to thrive in the business travel industry as vice president of sales for corporate mobility solution HQ, which she joined in 2022. She was inducted into BTN’s Business Travel Hall of Fame in 2017.
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Maria Chevalier
2010: Maria Chevalier Johnson & Johnson’s Maria Chevalier handled global contracts across all categories to remove ancillary fees, globalized a fragmented meetings and travel program, and centralized a database of traveler and trip information. She also strived to advance J&J crisis management and enhance hotel rate-loading accuracy. Since then, she has taken on other roles with companies like HP, Hilton, IHG, and PredictX. She is now global director of travel and expense for investment firm Pretium.
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Michelle De Costa
2011: Michelle De Costa Michelle De Costa was named 2011 Travel Manager of the Year for utilizing social media to strengthen managed travel communications across Sapient, where she worked at the time. After Sapient, Michelle held leadership positions at KPMG US and Liberty Mutual Insurance. In 2024, as current head of Takeda’s global meetings and travel center of excellence, she was inducted into BTN’s Business Travel Hall of Fame.
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Kevin Maguire
2012: Kevin Maguire Kevin Maguire was the University of Texas at Austin travel manager for intercollegiate athletics. He consolidated UT’s ground transportation sourcing, where he helped form a program from scratch. He was also lauded for consolidating to a single tool for chartered air services, working with a major airline to streamline the check-in process for large groups, and creating a task force of over 100 buyers to sway hoteliers to reserve space during high-demand periods. Kevin also served as president and chairman of the Global Business Travel Association. The industry mourned his death in 2020.
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Karoline Mayr
2013: Karoline Mayr In 2013, Deltek’s Karoline Mayr managed a solicitation for purchasing cards and e-payables, which was part of a revamp of the software firm’s global purchasing approach. Moreover, she collaborated with IT to develop automated travel agency data feeds into its enterprise systems. With suppliers, Karoline also launched two internal contests to engage Deltek’s corporate travelers and reduce travel costs. Over the years, she moved on to Workday, Uber, Nvidia, Deem, and Get Travel Solutions. She is at present global travel and expense director for Brink’s.
