trivago Expands Leadership Team with Three C-Level Appointments
Three leaders who helped build trivago now step up to drive its next chapter, spanning technology, intelligence, and commercial strategy
Düsseldorf, March 12, 2026 trivago N.V. (NASDAQ:TRVG) is growing, and the leadership team is growing with it.
Over the past two and a half years, trivago has undergone a significant transformation. When a new leadership team joined in mid-2023 with a mandate to refocus on the core product, brand, and sustainable growth, the opportunity was clear. So was the work required to get there.
The results have been meaningful. In 2025, trivago delivered 19% total revenue growth and €15.8m in adjusted EBITDA, beating both top- and bottom-line expectations. The year closed with an exceptional fourth quarter, up 27% year-over-year. Our brand has re-established its competitive moat. AI-powered campaigns have now run in 30 countries, with branded traffic revenue growth substantially outpacing overall revenue growth. Product has matched that ambition. Leveraging AI and large language models, the team has built new search and content capabilities, improved every user touchpoint, and made the experience meaningfully more personal. The result is a conversion rate that has increased by more than 37% in two years, a reflection of how much better the product has become. More context is provided in our latest investor presentation.
This is what disciplined execution looks like. The foundations are strong, and the opportunity ahead is significant. For 2026, trivago expects double-digit revenue growth at improved profitability to continue.
That's the context for today's announcement. The trivago leadership team is expanding with three new C-level roles, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Intelligence Officer, and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO).
Why these roles, and why now
Two things are driving this decision.
The first is AI. The pace of change is not incremental. It is a fundamental shift in what is possible in travel search, in how we build products, and in what travelers and partners will expect. Capturing this opportunity fully requires dedicated senior ownership. Dedicated domain leaders in technology, data intelligence, and commercial strategy mean clearer accountability, faster decisions, and senior attention precisely where execution is happening.
The second is strategic focus. trivago has addressed many of its most accessible opportunities. The work ahead is more complex and more exciting, but it demands sharper alignment at the top about where we're going, what we'll pursue, and, equally, what we won't. Leaders who have been part of building trivago bring a quality of judgment to those conversations that cannot be hired in from the outside.
"Every leader joining our executive team has been central to what trivago has become. They haven't just been here. They've been builders. They've helped shape our products, our systems, and our culture, and they've earned this step through their track record. Each has proven they can deliver when it matters most. We are proud to be building this next chapter of the leadership team from within." - Johannes Thomas, CEO
Alexander Volkmann, Chief Intelligence Officer
Alex holds a PhD in Mathematics and that foundation runs through everything he does. Before trivago, he worked at Rocket Internet and founded Markovian, an algorithmic advertising technology company built on the premise that advertising should be transparent and mathematically rigorous. That founding experience reveals a lot about how Alex thinks. He approaches problems from first principles, with a strong bias toward what can be measured and improved.
Over more than eight years at trivago, that mindset has shaped some of the most technically sophisticated parts of the platform. Alex has been a key innovator of trivago's marketplace intelligence. He led the transition of the meta search auction from a first price auction to a second price auction, developed our transaction-based marketplace model, shaped item ranking and search products, and oversaw trivago's advertiser analytics platform. His path from leading marketing data teams to running our marketplace has given him a rare end-to-end understanding of what drives our business.
As Chief Intelligence Officer, a role focused on AI, machine learning, and data strategy rather than traditional IT infrastructure, Alex takes on a broader mandate. He will own trivago's data strategy, analytics, and AI/ML capabilities, with direct accountability for the Hotel Search data science and analytics teams. Beyond Hotel Search, he will build intelligence capabilities, drives AI transformation and data governance across trivago through the Data Council.
Alex is currently on parental leave and will step fully into the expanded role on his return in April.
Sherin Hegazy, Chief Commercial Officer
Sherin understands the travel ecosystem from the inside out, not just trivago's corner of it. Before joining trivago 15 years ago, she was Regional Director at Travelport and Head of Account Management at TripAdvisor. That experience across distribution, metasearch, and hotel partnerships gives her a perspective on what trivago can and should be within the broader travel landscape that very few people in the industry can match.
At trivago, she has been a builder and strategist across the full scope of what commercial growth means. She has led global business development, driven strategic projects across the organisation, and most recently served as Global Head of Partnerships, growing and deepening trivago's relationships across enterprise partners, hotel chains, and independent hotels. On the enterprise side, her focus is on strategic relationships built through joint planning, performance optimisation, and senior engagement. For independent and mid-size hotels, she has designed and built the systems that allow smaller players to compete effectively on the platform.
Her progression to the leadership team reflects a deliberate choice. Partnerships are one of trivago's most important strategic levers, and it belongs in the company's highest-level conversations.
Ioannis Papadopoulos, Chief Technology Officer
Ioannis brings more than a decade of trivago experience to the CTO role, alongside something relatively rare. He knows what it looks like to run a technology-driven travel business from the very top. Before returning to trivago, he served as both CTO and CEO of homelike, a long-term vacation rental platform, an experience that sharpened his perspective on building products, scaling technology organisations, and leading a business through genuine complexity.
At trivago, his path has been deliberately broad. He has led marketing teams, built internal tooling, been a key architect of trivago's auction-based marketing infrastructure, driven strategic projects across the organisation, and played a central role in building the partnership technology that underpins our commercial ecosystem. Few people have operated across that many domains of the company, and fewer still bring the external perspective of having led a travel business as CEO.
Having returned in early 2025, Ioannis has held the CTO role since October. The results of that period speak for themselves. The technology organisation is more focused, engineering standards are sharper, and AI is being embedded into how the team builds. His mandate covers the end-to-end technology agenda, spanning architecture, platform stability, engineering excellence, and AI enablement, with direct accountability for Hotel Search Tech. Through the Tech Council, he sets engineering standards, tooling, and practices across the company.
What comes next
trivago enters 2026 with real momentum and a clear view of where it is going. Brand will continue to compound. Product and member experience will keep improving, with personalisation, conversion, and retention at the centre. AI is not a side project. It is embedded in how we build, how we market, and how we serve travelers, and we are still in the early stages of what that makes possible. On the commercial side, deepening our partner ecosystem and expanding our transaction-based model remain significant opportunities.
We are a company of 600 people with the ambition to generate the impact of a company of 6000. That is not a stretch. It is the opportunity in front of us. There is significant value still to be created for our users, and we have only begun to expand what trivago can truly offer them. A stronger, more decisive leadership team is how we unlock that, for our users and for our shareholders.
These are not external hires brought in to define a direction. They are people who helped build what trivago is today and are now stepping up to take it further. That combination of ambition, accountability, and institutional depth is what will define trivago's next chapter.
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About trivago
N.V. trivago N.V. (NASDAQ:TRVG) is a leading global hotel search and price comparison platform and one of the most recognized travel brands in the world. When price savvy travelers are searching for a hotel, we want trivago to be the obvious choice. We aim to help travelers find the best place to stay and the best time to go. trivago aims to enable them to book with confidence, saving travelers valuable time and money. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, we seek to personalize and simplify the hotel search experience for millions of travelers every month. We provide access to more than 7.0 million hotels and other types of accommodation in over 190 countries.
Forward looking statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Words, and variations of words such as "believe," "expect," "plan," "continue," "will," "should," and similar expressions are intended to identify our forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and important factors that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. For additional information about factors that could affect our forward-looking statements, see our risk factors, as they may be amended from time to time, set forth in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim and do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement in this press release, except as required by applicable law or regulation. As used herein, references to "we", "us", the "company", or "trivago", or similar terms shall mean trivago N.V. and, as the context requires, its subsidiaries.
