CEO Interview: CWT’s Kurt Ekert on Making Life Better for Business Travelers


Skift Take

Better personalizing booking and travel tools for business travelers is something of a holy grail in corporate travel. Time will tell if Carlson Wagonlit Travel's newfound focus on technology will be effective.

Editor's Note: A year ago, Skift expanded its coverage of corporate travel with more frequent stories and a dedicated newsletter. The Corporate Travel Innovation Report focuses on the future of corporate travel by examining the big fault lines of disruption for travel managers and buyers, the innovations emerging from the sector, and the changing business traveler habits that are upending how corporate travel is packaged, bought, and sold. In this series of stories and one-on-one interviews, we explore some of the latest trends, technology, and external forces causing corporate travel to evolve. You can read the rest of the articles in this series here. For Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), one of the giants in corporate travel, the last year has been a period of transition. When president and CEO Kurt Ekert took the reins in mid-2016, he knew the venerable travel management company had some work to do in order to better compete in a rapidly evolving marketplace. While the com