Cendant Travel Distribution Services
(TDS) announced today the appointment of Mitch Truwit to the role of TDS’ CEO and president, Americas Consumer Travel, effective immediately.Ê In this position, Truwit’s responsibilities include operating responsibility for all TDS’ consumer travel businesses in the Americas; Orbitz, CheapTickets®, Lodging.com and the Neat Group. Truwit will report directly to Sam Katz, chairman and CEO of Cendant TDS, and will be based in Chicago, Illinois. Truwit succeeds John Park, Orbitz CFO who had served as acting president for Americas Consumer Travel since the Orbitz acquisition closed in November 2004. Park will be leaving the company in early February to pursue other interests.

“We are extremely fortunate to have Mitch join our team. He is very talented and brings all the right knowledge and experience for this new position, in particular successful integration, organic growth and strategic acquisitions as the C.O.O. at Priceline.com, a leading company in the online travel market,” said Sam Katz. “Mitch brings strong leadership and vision to our consumer travel team and I am confident that he will make an immediate impact in this role as Cendant TDS continues to execute its ‘order maker/order taker’ strategy and becomes the leading travel intermediary worldwide.”

“I am very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with Cendant,” said Mitch Truwit. “Orbitz and Cheap Tickets are very powerful brands with meaningful growth potential.Ê Cendant has clearly demonstrated its commitment to be a leader in the online travel space and I am excited to be a part of the team.”

Most recently, Truwit served as executive vice president & chief operating officer at Priceline.com where he was responsible for supplier relations and personal finance businesses, international, corporate development, operations/customer service and public relations. Prior to joining Priceline.com, he was the director of corporate development for Oxford Health Plans. Mr. Truwit holds an MBA from Harvard and a BA from Vassar College.ÊÊ
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