Podcast: Scaling a TMC built on modern infrastructure
Spotlight on Bill Tillman: Realizing our core Spotnana vision
August 08, 2023
By Gus Torrey
Categories
Life at Spotnana
Content
As Spotnana’s VP of Sales, Bill Tillman oversees our go-to-market strategy and leads our sales organization.
Bill has more than two decades of travel industry experience. He began his journey in travel technology in 2000 with Outtask, where he helped build an online booking tool called Cliqbook. After Outtask was acquired by Concur and became Concur Travel, Bill spent the next 14 years working at Concur, including several years after it was acquired by SAP.
Bill joined Spotnana for the opportunity to solve decades-old travel pain points with modern technology and a leadership team that deeply understands the travel industry.
An executive culture that inspires new leaders
“Our Founder and CEO Sarosh Waghmar has a vision for transforming the travel industry through numerous innovations including unbiased global content, self-service change management, and an open, global platform,” said Bill. “With Sarosh’s vision and the backing of Steve Singh, Spotnana’s Chairman and the Founder and former CEO of Concur, there is a massive opportunity for Spotnana to succeed.”
Spotnana’s executive leadership team has over 150 years of corporate travel experience. Bill was eager to work with like-minded leaders to achieve a common vision for travel.
“One of the most amazing things about Spotnana is its executive team. We call it the S-Team,” said Bill. “Like many others, I joined Spotnana because of the collective experience, knowledge, and vision of our leaders. Together we are disrupting a trillion-dollar industry that enables billions of people to travel every year. This takes courage, grit, and the ability to innovate at a rapid pace.”
Sharing our story with the world
In order to help companies understand why Spotnana’s modern technology is so disruptive, Bill spends time talking about the limitations of legacy systems during product demos.
“The simplest way to communicate value to prospects is to share how travel suppliers want to build deeper relationships with their customers and provide personalized shopping experiences,” said Bill. “It’s important for customers to understand that the legacy platforms aren’t designed to provide the ability for suppliers to retail their offerings properly. When travelers search for options using our modern platform, they see the same content they will find on a supplier’s site, with the same level of personalization.”
He also loves to update customers about the progress made in a given year. This year, our teams have taken significant strides toward their goals.
“There have been exciting developments this year around Spotnana’s global capabilities, ability to manage unused ticket credits, support for dynamic policies, and deep direct NDC integrations with top airlines. I’ve been working with fellow S-Team member and VP of Marketing Justin Schuster to get ready for the GBTA (Global Business Travel Association) Convention in August,” said Bill. “Global content has been a hot topic, and I’m eager to share what we can provide to corporate travelers who are hungry for change.”
Many large global enterprises are eager for change and have been interested in using Spotnana’s technology in combination with CWT, a global Travel Management Company (TMC) that has a large team of travel agents.
“Our new partnership with CWT, one of the largest TMCs in the world, enables any corporation to launch Spotnana on a global scale,” said Bill. “We’ll have more to share at this year’s GBTA Convention. We’re not just trying to get our name out in the travel industry anymore. We look forward to meeting with mutual customers to discuss bringing Spotnana to their organizations.”
Building trust and transparency
Spotnana’s core vision is to bring freedom, simplicity, and trust to travelers everywhere.
Trust is also a force that drives the relationships between Spotnana’s leadership team and the larger company.
“We host monthly Town Halls so that all of the Spotters can see leaders in action and hold us accountable as we strive to achieve our goals,” said Bill. “At Spotnana, it is also common to see the S-Team on any customer call or internal debrief call. I believe that we have created the necessary channels to enable folks to interface with company leadership and build trust and transparency organically.”
As a global family rooted in the trust we have in each other, our aim is to provide a Travel-as-a-Service platform that is simple to use and fosters transparency. Bill invites anyone who believes in this aim to come work with us and build something generational.
“At the end of the day, we’re building a platform together to bring trust to travelers everywhere,” said Bill. “Already we’re distributing our technology through technology providers like Brex, TMCs like CWT and Solutions Travel, and several other partners that haven’t made announcements yet.”
“We want to innovate with like-minded partners and ultimately be a leading force for driving progress across the entire travel industry.”