Priceline hires former Starbucks and Microsoft exec to be CEO of Booking.com

September 26, 2011 By 5 Comments

Darren Huston, ex-coffee guy and most recently vice president for consumer and online at Microsoft, is the new CEO of Booking.com.

He replaces Kees Koolen who moves to become chairman of Booking.com after serving as CEO since September 2008.

Huston has spent eight years with Microsoft, most recently being responsible for its consumer and advertising businesses in 40 countries.

From 2005 to 2008 he was president and CEO of Microsoft Japan.

A former McKinsey consultant and advisor to the Canadian government, before joining Microsoft, Huston was senior vice president of Starbucks Corporation where he was in charge acquisitions and product development.

Huston joins the Priceline-owned Booking.com at a critical time for the company as it looks to continue its rapid growth of recent years, establishing a portfolio of 165,000 hotel properties in 43 countries, and run from 50 offices around the world.

Related posts:

  1. HomeAway hires PayPal exec, works on payment, booking initiatives
  2. For Priceline, Booking.com, Agoda — it’s a sharing and marketshare thing
  3. Family reunion as Expedia and Microsoft launch travel browser for Internet Explorer
Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , ,
Kevin May About Kevin May

Kevin May is editor of Tnooz. He joined as a co-founder in August 2009 after spending nearly four years as editor of UK-based business publication Travolution.

Passionate about the business of travel and the internet, Kevin played a major role in establishing Travolution in print, online, events and with an annual awards programme, as well as becoming a regular speaker and moderator at industry events.

Prior to Travolution, Kevin was web editor at Media Week (UK) and also worked in regional newspapers for two years at the Essex Enquirer. He started his career in journalism at the Police Gazette at New Scotland Yard in London.

Comments

  1. Dennis Schaal Dennis Schaal says:
    September 26, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    It was obviously no accident that Booking.com chose a new CEO with experience in Asia.

    Reply
    • Jonathan Alford says:
      September 27, 2011 at 11:42 am

      The work he did in C&O at MSFT was pretty impressive considering the political, economic and organizational challenges inherent in the role. With any sort of clear charge and autonomy, I’d anticipate seeing good things out of Booking.com here, particularly in Asia, as well.

      Reply
  2. Luxury Resort Hotels says:
    September 27, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    Our site is powered by Priceline.com /Booking.com it will be interesting to see the changes he’ll bring.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Booking.com view from the top – new CEO on Big Data, social, flash sales and Google | China Hotel E-Marketing Strategies says:
    March 13, 2012 at 9:53 pm

    [...] attendees to the PhoCusWright conference at ITB Berlin given the first major public appearance of new Booking.com chief executive Darren Huston last [...]

    Reply
  2. Booking.com view from the top | BOOKING.COM.hr says:
    May 22, 2012 at 4:10 am

    [...] attendees to the PhoCusWright conference at ITB Berlin given the first major public appearance of new Booking.com chief executive Darren Huston last [...]

    Reply

Speak Your Mind

*