Latest news with #AmyButte
Skift
01-08-2025
- Business
- Skift
Unmanaged Business Travel Still Dominates as SMBs Seek Flexible, Consumer-Style Booking
Despite a rebound in global corporate travel, much of the industry remains stuck in an old pattern — unmanaged, but cheaper employee travel. A recent Euromonitor International report estimates that nearly 65% of global business travel spending, which is projected to reach $2.9 trillion by 2029, is still unmanaged. Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), defined as companies with 1–200 employees, represent 26.1% of the total business travel market and are projected to grow the fastest, at a CAGR of 7.1% through 2029, according to the report, which was commissioned by Navan. Despite frequent travel needs, SMBs remain the least likely to use a travel management company. For travel management companies (TMCs), this represents both a problem and a massive opportunity. Unmanaged Business Travel's Pitfalls and Advantages Eva Fouquet, SVP of Strategic Partnerships at Kayak for Business, sums up the paradox neatly: 'Unmanaged travel sticks around because it feels easy, until it's not.' In practice, unmanaged travel often means employees booking trips themselves on consumer platforms like Kayak, Expedia, or even directly through airline websites. Receipts get lost, reimbursements are delayed, and no one's sure who's where at any given moment. 'You don't know where your travelers are. If they have to change their plans, it's not that easy,' Fouquet said. Still, the perceived flexibility and familiarity keep many SMBs from switching to managed platforms. Amy Butte, CFO at Navan, argues that the problem stems from the fact that traditional travel management solutions simply weren't built with SMBs in mind. 'Legacy platforms often neglect the end user, making the booking process clunky and frustrating,' she said. 'Employees want tools that are as easy to use as consumer apps, and if they don't get that, they tend to book outside the system.' For many SMBs, it's not just about ease; it's also about economics. Butte points out that a large portion of unmanaged travel is driven by cost perceptions. 'They believe managed solutions aren't financially accessible or the cost can't be justified for their volume,' she said. What SMBs Actually Want When asked what small businesses care about most in a travel solution, Fouquet was clear: It's not just about cost, control, flexibility, or simplicity; it's all four, and they're deeply interconnected. Ray Slater Berry, founder and CEO of the content agency DSLX, is exactly the kind of SMB leader TMCs are trying to convert. So far, they haven't succeeded. 'Everyone books their own travel and invoices us after,' he said. The company once experimented with TravelPerk years before its rebrand, but found it clunky and often more expensive than booking directly. 'The user experience just wasn't good enough, and we felt we could find cheaper deals on our own,' Berry said. Today, DSLX's decentralized, do-it-yourself approach works for its size and needs, but Berry admits that if the company scaled dramatically, it might consider switching to a more centralized platform. And that's the catch: most SMBs won't prioritize change unless something breaks. Fouquet sees this pattern repeatedly. 'Travel isn't the first priority for SMBs. Unless something feels broken, they keep the status quo.' For her team, the focus has been on education, showing how platforms like Kayak for Business can offer better travel adoption rates, less manual reconciliation, and real-time reporting, without the pain of a traditional onboarding process. The Future of Business Travel The future of corporate travel, both Navan and Kayak argue, isn't necessarily tightly managed in the traditional sense. It's smartly optimized. That means lighter controls layered over flexible, self-serve platforms. 'The future is mirroring consumer travel,' said Fouquet. 'Employees should be able to book wherever it's easiest, whether that's on our platform, on the United app, or by calling an agent, and have it all sync into one system for the company.' Butte agrees: ' Businesses are recognizing that an unmanaged approach doesn't deliver the savings, efficiency, or traveler support they need in today's environment. There's a huge opportunity to show SMBs how easy it is to switch, and how quickly they can benefit from smarter, more efficient travel management.'
NBC News
22-07-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Businesses are cautiously spending on corporate travel as trade uncertainty looms
Corporations are continuing to spend on business travel, but are being strategic about how they allocate those dollars amid ongoing trade uncertainties, according to new reports from the travel and expense platform Navan and the Global Business Travel Association. Corporate travel spending activity increased 15% year over year in the second quarter of 2025, according to a business travel index published Tuesday from Navan. Navan's index, backed by Nasdaq, is derived from millions of corporate business transactions on its platform. It examines the amount spent and number of transactions relating to airline travel, hotel reservations and expense transactions from corporate cards. Amy Butte, Navan's CFO, said during an interview that from talking with other chief financial officers over the past few months, she never got the sense that corporate leaders would stop spending on business travel altogether. Instead, they are in 'wait and see' mode. 'If you're making choices about where you're being cautious, we're not seeing people be cautious in the area of relationship building, either with their customers or with their teammates. We're still seeing the spend allocated towards travel as a key component of any business strategy,' Butte said. But while global business travel is expected to reach a new high of $1.57 trillion in 2025, according to a Monday report by the Global Business Travel Association, that total represents 6.6% year-over-year growth, which is less than the 10.4% increase that was previously predicted. GBTA cited trade tensions, policy uncertainty and economic pressures as the reasons for the more moderate growth. A string of sentiment polls by GBTA also shows that corporate travel optimism for the rest of 2025 appears muted. The percentage of respondents who said they were optimistic about the overall outlook for the business travel industry in 2025 dropped sharply from 67% in November 2024 to 31% in April and declined slightly again this month to 28%. The findings from both reports, grouped together with commentary from airline CEOs last week, show C-suite leaders are still largely left in wait-and-see mode amid President Donald Trump 's fluid tariff policies, but companies appear now to have a better read on how they will manage the uncertainty. 'Historically, corporate travel has been the first thing, one of the easiest things, to minimize if you're a company,' Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said during the company's earnings call this month, adding that corporate travel on the airline has been flat on a year-over-year basis. But Butte said that Navan has not seen a drop-off in business travel. Instead, businesses are shifting how they are spending. For example, Butte said businesses are continuing to commit to individual, face-to-face meetings, rather than spending on large group outings. The Navan index shows that spending on personal meals, meaning one-on-one meetings held over a meal, was up 9.8% from last year, while spending on team events and meals was the only category in the report that declined. Navan did see some compression earlier in the year in the share of higher-priced airline tickets purchased that were first class or business class, Butte said, but she added that the platform has since seen an acceleration as uncertainty has lessened. Airfare prices have also declined so far this year, which means business and consumers alike are spending less on plane tickets. Airfare fell 3.5% in June from a year earlier while inflation overall rose, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang said during an interview that CFOs have not cut travel spending off entirely, but are looking for efficient ways to get employees on the road. This may look like booking multicity trips, scheduling multiple meetings per trip or booking fewer trips per month, she said. Neufang said the business travel industry has been focused over the past five years on making sure every trip has a purpose and delivers a return on investment. 'Gone are the days when there's really frivolous business traveling,' Neufang said. Airline executives weigh in The new findings on business travel spending also come as airlines are reporting their quarterly earnings. When Delta reported earnings on July 10, Bastian said he expects both consumer and corporate confidence to improve in the second half of the year, creating an environment for travel demand to accelerate. Delta and other airlines saw travel demand come in weaker than expected at the beginning of the year, especially from price-sensitive customers traveling domestically. Bastian said back in April that Trump's trade policies were hurting bookings. Bastian took a more positive tone this month, telling CNBC that corporate travel has stabilized as businesses have more clarity and confidence than they did earlier this year. But he said corporate travel is in line with last year, not the 5% to 10% growth Delta expected at the start of the year. Meanwhile, Delta President Glen Hauenstein said on an earnings call this month that corporate travel trends are 'choppy' and overall corporate volumes are expected to be 'flattish' over last year. United Airlines reported earnings last week. CEO Scott Kirby said during the company's call with analysts that so far this month, the airline has seen a double-digit acceleration in business demand as uncertainty has declined. Andrew Nocella, United's executive vice president and chief commercial officer, added that the business traffic growth is 'across the board' and not restricted to any singular hub or vertical, which he said reflects lessening macroeconomic uncertainty.
CNBC
22-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Businesses are cautiously spending on corporate travel as trade uncertainty looms
Corporations are continuing to spend on business travel, but are being strategic about how they allocate those dollars amid ongoing trade uncertainties, according to new reports from the Global Business Travel Association and travel and expense platform Navan. Corporate travel spending activity increased 15% year over year in the second quarter of 2025, according to a business travel index published Tuesday from Navan. Navan's index, backed by Nasdaq, is derived from millions of corporate business transactions on its platform. It examines the amount spent and number of transactions relating to airline travel, hotel reservations and expense transactions from corporate cards. Amy Butte, Navan's CFO, said during an interview that from talking with other chief financial officers over the past few months, she never got the sense that corporate leaders would stop spending on business travel altogether. Instead, they are in "wait and see" mode. "If you're making choices about where you're being cautious, we're not seeing people be cautious in the area of relationship building, either with their customers or with their teammates. We're still seeing the spend allocated towards travel as a key component of any business strategy," Butte said. But while global business travel is expected to reach a new high of $1.57 trillion in 2025, according to a Monday report by the Global Business Travel Association, that total represents 6.6% year-over-year growth, which is less than the 10.4% increase that was previously predicted. GBTA cited trade tensions, policy uncertainty and economic pressures as the reasons for the more moderate growth. A string of sentiment polls by GBTA also shows that corporate travel optimism for the rest of 2025 appears muted. The percentage of respondents who said they were optimistic about the overall outlook for the business travel industry in 2025 dropped sharply from 67% in November 2024 to 31% in April and declined slightly again this month to 28%. The findings from both reports, grouped together with commentary from airline CEOs last week, show C-suite leaders are still largely left in wait-and-see mode amid President Donald Trump's fluid tariff policies, but companies appear now to have a better read on how they will manage the uncertainty. "Historically, corporate travel has been the first thing, one of the easiest things, to minimize if you're a company," Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said during the company's earnings call this month, adding that corporate travel on the airline has been flat on a year-over-year basis. But Butte said that Navan has not seen a drop-off in business travel. Instead, businesses are shifting how they are spending. For example, Butte said businesses are continuing to commit to individual, face-to-face meetings, rather than spending on large group outings. The Navan index shows that spending on personal meals, meaning one-on-one meetings held over a meal, was up 9.8% from last year, while spending on team events and meals was the only category in the report that declined. Navan did see some compression earlier in the year in the share of higher-priced airline tickets purchased that were first class or business class, Butte said, but she added that the platform has since seen an acceleration as uncertainty has lessened. Airfare prices have also declined so far this year, which means business and consumers alike are spending less on plane tickets. Airfare fell 3.5% in June from a year earlier while inflation overall rose, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang said during an interview that CFOs have not cut travel spending off entirely, but are looking for efficient ways to get employees on the road. This may look like booking multicity trips, scheduling multiple meetings per trip or booking fewer trips per month, she said. Neufang said the business travel industry has been focused over the past five years on making sure every trip has a purpose and delivers a return on investment. "Gone are the days when there's really frivolous business traveling," Neufang said. The new findings on business travel spending also come as airlines are reporting their quarterly earnings. When Delta reported earnings on July 10, Bastian said he expects both consumer and corporate confidence to improve in the second half of the year, creating an environment for travel demand to accelerate. Delta and other airlines saw travel demand come in weaker than expected at the beginning of the year, especially from price-sensitive customers traveling domestically. Bastian said back in April that Trump's trade policies were hurting bookings. Bastian took a more positive tone this month, telling CNBC that corporate travel has stabilized as businesses have more clarity and confidence than they did earlier this year. But he said corporate travel is in line with last year, not the 5% to 10% growth Delta expected at the start of the year. Meanwhile, Delta President Glen Hauenstein said on an earnings call this month that corporate travel trends are "choppy" and overall corporate volumes are expected to be "flattish" over last year. United Airlines reported earnings last week. CEO Scott Kirby said during the company's call with analysts that so far this month, the airline has seen a double-digit acceleration in business demand as uncertainty has declined. Andrew Nocella, United's executive vice president and chief commercial officer, added that the business traffic growth is "across the board" and not restricted to any singular hub or vertical, which he said reflects lessening macroeconomic uncertainty. Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines are scheduled to report their quarterly results this week.
Skift
20-06-2025
- Business
- Skift
Navan Moves Toward IPO With Confidential SEC Filing
Navan's first move toward an IPO has been a long time coming. Navan, a business travel tech company, said Friday it has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO – but it was a "confidential" submission and no financial details were publicly available. 'The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined,' the company said. The company was last valued at $9.2 billion during its series G venture capital raise in October 2022, a time when many private valuations were considered inflated. The IPO market has been unusually slow, but analysts believe that several offerings in recents weeks signal that the market is heating up. Navan is a corporate travel agency with a tech platform where employees at client companies can complete bookings and manage expenses. Clients include Lyft, Wayfair, Toast, Thomson Reuters, Zoom, Shopify, and more. Navan CEO Ariel Cohen in May 2024 said the company was "not far" from an IPO, though he noted the timing could be affected by market conditions and geopolitical factors outside the company's control. The company has hired two execs with IPO experience over the past year. Amy Butte joined Navan as chief financial officer last June, and was previously CFO at the New York Stock Exchange during its IPO. Rich Liu, an early chief revenue officer for Navan, returned to the company as CEO of Navan Travel. Liu previously helped two companies go public. Cohen and CTO Ilan Twig founded Navan in 2015. The company now has more than 3,000 employees and more than 10,000 clients, according to its website. The company has raised well over $1 billion in venture capital. Business travel tech platforms have been gaining traction as companies have been looking to streamline various operations post-pandemic. TravelPerk has raised over $700 million, most recently $200 million in January. Expense management platform Ramp has raised over $2 billion, with reports that it's seeking more funding at a valuation of $16 billion. Several others have been raising money to target their respective geographic regions.
Forbes
28-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Amy Butte On Leading With Vision, Precision, And Purpose At Navan
Amy Butte is the CFO of Navan, an all-in-one super app that makes travel and expense reporting easy so that users can focus on being there, not getting there. This travel and expense management platform streamlines travel booking, expense tracking, and financial reporting for businesses. It allows its members to say goodbye to spending hours on the phone trying to change flights or saving stacks of receipts to manually input expenses. Navan empowers people to concentrate on the things that matter most, while providing companies with real-time visibility, savings, and control. Amy and I recently discussed how her upbringing in Detroit influences her worldview, the changing role of CFOs, why she transitioned into her role at Navan after serving on the board, the advice she offers to all aspiring young CFOs, and more. — Amy Butte is more than a CFO—she's a strategist, mentor, and change agent guiding Navan's financial ... More future with vision, discipline, and heart. If someone asked Amy Butte about her upbringing in Detroit, they would be able to summarize it in a few impactful words: loyal, grounded, stable, and rooted in confidence. As someone who is still friends with people with whom she attended nursery school, Butte has always valued the relationships that shaped her. In fact, her long-standing relationships are a big reason why she is where she is today. 'It wasn't without its challenges, but it was a real stable childhood that let me have the confidence to go off and do something different as soon as I had the opportunity to leave and come to the East Coast,' she explained. 'It allowed me to come to New York, which is still one of my favorite places in the whole world. That stable beginning gave me the confidence to do new and challenging things.' A few of those new and challenging things included graduating from Yale with a bachelor's in political science and psychology before getting her MBA from Harvard. Butte's first job was working in change management. Although she discovered that the consulting organization environment wasn't ideal for her, calling herself a 'square peg in a round hole,' it did point her to the next phase of her career. After she was offered the chance to move to Seattle to work for Microsoft, she realized that she didn't want to leave New York and needed to find a company that prioritized meritocracy. Intuition told her that she would find that on Wall Street, and after roles at Merrill Lynch, Bear Sterns, and Credit Suisse First Boston, years later she was working as CFO of the New York Stock Exchange. It wasn't her plan, but it taught her something big, and that was that one can learn by doing. Butte's father was a CPA and passed his acumen for numbers down to her. What Butte brought to the table was more than her aptitude for numbers–it was much broader. 'I solve problems all day long, which I find energizing,' she said. 'There is a difference between being someone who thinks two or three steps ahead versus 10, 15, or 20 steps ahead, so I believe that staying ahead of the curve is important. I also believe in using numbers to tell the story. It's important to question what story the numbers tell out of the financial statements, and how we communicate that company's story to investors. I did that as an equity research analyst, and that's really where that skillset was honed.' Finding her stride as an equity research analyst is largely due to two mentors she had while she was a summer associate at Merrill Lynch. At the time, she knew she did not want to pursue investment banking, but the company encouraged her to pursue other paths. After one equity research sales call, she introduced herself to Mason Reese and found they both were Yale alumni. He encouraged her to sit next to him, and over time, became one of the most influential mentors. While in that setting, Susan Riordan approached Butte and invited her to a research sales call. She found her spark. 'While I was on that research sales call, I had no idea what that was before the day started, but I knew that was what I wanted to do,' she said. 'I wanted to be the expert in the room–a research analyst who knew the subject matter and felt confident talking to investors. I didn't want to communicate with people about what somebody else thought. I wanted to have the conviction from knowing the numbers myself.' Without those two leaders offering their insight and availability, she might have completely missed a part of her career that was a great fit. Those relationships also set the course for the kind of mentor Butte wants to be for others. She believes in the value of relationships that are natural rather than forced, and being willing to allocate time to others. She believes in it so strongly that she started a women's leadership network at Navan. 'It's an opportunity to get to know people throughout the firm, make them smarter on the business, have other people to reach out to and build their mentor-mentee network within the organization,' Butte emphasizes. 'It's about learning from them, and they are learning from me.' The opportunity for reciprocal learning is one she shares with Ariel Cohen, Navan's CEO, and is also one of the reasons why she was chosen for the role–even though she wasn't pursuing it. At the time, she was helping with the search process as a board member. 'When I asked [Ariel] why me, because that wasn't my intention or goal, he said, 'You've helped me think differently on subjects more so than any other finance person that I have worked with,'' she said. 'That was a signal that, as a CEO, he appreciates the opportunity for maturation. That was the moment that I said, 'This could be interesting.'' She decided to take the role as a pre-IPO company for the third time as CFO. As a single mom to her 14-year-old son, her decision centered on how she wanted to live versus what she wanted to do. She considered whether it was the right time and environment. What she found was an ideal combination of qualities that helped to make the decision–and know that she would regret saying no. 'At the end of the day, it's very rare that you find a place that has the characteristics to be a disruptor, can benefit from the capital markets and is ripe for growth. This is an organization that is filled with people who are smart, direct, and passionate. Ariel is a CEO who sets that tone from the top.' Butte had the opportunity to get to know Cohen in her role on the board, an ideal opportunity to develop mutual respect, support, and appreciation for each other's skills. Similarly, Butte notes that as they build a world-class finance team, she seeks to find each person's 'special sauce.' 'We talk all the time about the fact that finance is a team sport,' she says. 'When I arrived, it was important that we remove the silos between FP&A, accounting, tax and treasury so that it was viewed as one team. My finance leadership meetings include my direct reports and their direct reports because that communication is essential. It's also about finding the people that complement each other.' Another priority is elevating–and being an advocate for–female leaders. Although tech can be an industry where women are underrepresented, as Navan is growing exponentially, Butte aims to set an example throughout the organization that there will be more women. She is indeed an example to others through her own extraordinary leadership–she currently sits on three boards of directors and is a founding member of Extraordinary Women on Boards. She's driven by the opportunity to learn as much as she gives. Future financial leadership, according to Butte, will be driven by people who aspire to be seen as advisors and aren't afraid of making decisions to move the organization forward. She also encourages people to embrace the increasingly common roles of motivator and storyteller–key characteristics of strong CFOs. For the younger generation, she urges up-and-coming professionals to find the right company that's the right fit–and the people who will nurture their growth on the rise to the top. 'Make sure that the organization you are joining is the right one for you,' she emphasized. 'If you run fast, you want to find a company where the culture moves fast and is going to reward somebody who goes above and beyond. In addition, find people you connect with. Whether they're officially a mentor or not, add value, ask questions, and be proactive. [If you do those things] your value will show.'
