CarTrawler appoints Peter O’Donovan as new chief executive

Irish travel tech company CarTrawler has appointed a new chief executive, with chief operations officer Peter O’Donovan taking up the role.

Mr O’Donovan succeeds Cormac Barry, who is leaving the business for personal reasons.

He joined CarTrawler six years ago, and has held the COO role for the past four years. Before that, he spent 14 years with Paddy Power in a number of roles, including chief product officer and heading up its online division.

“Due to its industry-leading technology, revenue management and ecommerce capabilities, CarTrawler is ideally positioned to continue to take advantage of the recovery in travel,” Mr O’Donovan said. “I worked closely with Cormac and Patrick and now look forward to leading our talented people in offering great commercial opportunities to our travel partners.”

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Dublin-headquartered CarTrawler makes software used by airlines and travel partners to connect to car rental, airport transfer and lift-hailing providers.

Mr Barry, who remains an investor in the company, has held the chief executive role since early in 2018. “After spending the last 12 years in CEO roles at CarTrawler and previously in Australia, I want to take a break to recharge the batteries,” he said. “CarTrawler has emerged from the pandemic in excellent shape and is now entering the next phase of its development, so this felt like the right time for me to step down and hand the reins over to a proven leader, who is well known by the business and our partners.”

The group said its financial performance remained strong as the demand for travel continued to recover. It is forecasting a 100 per cent increase in revenue for the year ended September 30th 2022 and profitability close to pre-Covid levels.

Founded in 2004, CarTrawler’s customers include American Express, EasyJet, Hotels. com and Emirates.

British private equity group TowerBrook took control of CarTrawler in return for a €100 million cash injection in 2020 after the company was thrown into emergency debt restructuring talks due to the grounding of airline fleets globally amid the pandemic.