4 January 2013, Singapore – AirAsia’s Group Head of Commercial and Senior Vice President of China Kathleen Tan has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia Expedia, the joint venture between AirAsia and Expedia Group.
Kathleen will oversee the Expedia brand, AirAsiaGo and Backick online travel agency businesses in Southeast Asia, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Kathleen previously served as the Group Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Tony Fernandes’s right-hand woman managing AirAsia’s topline performance and overseeing up to fifteen departments across the six AirAsia-branded airlines. In her eight years tenure, Kathleen contributed to the growth of AirAsia’s revenue twenty-fold to over RM10 billion last year and AirAsia’s network has also grown from 20 aircraft to nearly 130. She transformed the brand into its signature cool, bold red with worldwide recognition and also recently received the Top 10 Most Influential Woman Leader in Travel title by WebInTravel as well as dubbed the “aviation legend” by Chinese search engine Baidu.
Kathleen has managed the AirAsiaGo OTA business profitably before it was transferred to the AirAsiaExpedia joint venture which she had a part in driving the formation discussions with the Expedia group.
Taking over Kathleen’s responsibilities as the Group Chief Commercial Officer of AirAsia is Siegtraund Teh. Siegtraund joined the commercial function in 2007 where she played a crucial role of laying down AirAsia’s footprints in North Asia, especially China. She was part of a team responsible in building the vast network and launching new routes. Last year, she assisted in building the commercial and marketing teams of AirAsia Japan as well as her role as Group Marketing Manager.
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