Travel search engine iXiGO.com appoints Saurabh Srivastava as VP, marketing & product strategy

Gurgaon-based travel search engine iXiGO has appointed  Saurabh Srivastava as vice president, marketing and product strategy. This is the third senior executive appointment in two months. Prior to Srivastava,  iXiGO.com  hired Ernesto Cohnen as VP- products and Abhishek Sharma as VP,  operations and product platform.

The company is now focusing on scaling up and accelerating brand awareness creation. In this role, Srivastava would be leading customer development and brand strategy for iXiGO.com.

Srivastava, who has 11 years of experience in media, marketing and retail, previously worked with Goodyear. He also had stints with Maruti Suzuki, Dainik Jagran and GroupM. A Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad (MICA) alumnus, Srivastava holds certificates in strategic marketing & leadership from ISB, Hyderabad and a diploma in business finance from ICFAI, Hyderabad.

"My focus will be to continue listening to our users and shape the consumer insights into our product evolution consistently. This would enable us to establish iXiGO as the most trusted and informative travel brand, helping users make better decisions for planning their travel," Srivastava said on his new role.

Aloke Bajpai, CEO & co-founder iXiGO.com said in a statement, "Saurabh will be building and leading our product marketing team with his seasoned and professional approach towards brand management and product growth strategies. I am confident that with his skills and acumen for creating, executing and managing a systematic brand strategy, we will establish iXiGO as the leading brand for travel information and research in India."

Launched in June 2007 by Bajpai, iXiGO.com is an online and mobile travel search engine. iXiGO.com searches across multiple airlines, hotels, trains, bus booking sites and online travel portals to find the best travel deals. Lately, it has been sprucing up its senior  management and also added some new features like Trip Planner and flight search tool for Facebook and Twitter. Private equity firm SAIF Partners picked a majority stake in the five-year old company last year when it co-invested with  MakeMyTrip Ltd in Le Travenues Technology Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates iXiGO.

(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)