Good morning What would an experienced technology investor take on the role of the financial officer for the first time? For Alex Melamud it is a deep conviction in the company and his leadership.
Melamud is the new CFO of Denver Motor, a startup startup supported by Telescope Partners. BlackstoneElefund and Permira. He leaves the investor seat in order to join the management team at Engine all day, which, according to the company, serves over 1 million business travelers. It exceeded 1,000 employees – from 700 at the beginning of 2024 – and expanded quickly, while Strategically with AI Fueling growth of fuel.
Melamud’s first connection to the engine was at the board level. In 2024, as managing director of Permira, a global investment company that specializes in private equity and credit, he decided in 2024. “In my 16 -year investments, I never came across such an enormous tam (totally addressable market) of Greenfield,” he said, referring to the many small and medium -sized companies with non -managed travel books – these who deal with dealing with a third party themselves.
Series C was financed by Series C Serie C with a Permira investment of 140 million US dollars, which increased the motor’s assessment in September 2024 to $ 2.1 billion.
Engine is a modern travel platform for small and medium -sized companies as well as for groups. The outstanding function offers both publicly available hotel prices and a wide range of exclusive, proprietary company rates (“closed prices”), which are not open to the general public, explained Melamud. These negotiation prices with average savings of 26%are collected via the marketplace of engine, partnerships and wholesalers, he said. Companies register to access this closed ecosystem, with these exclusive prices are confidential and separated from public hotel prices.
The platform can be used free of charge without contracts, minimum or fees. Melamud also refers to the Direct Bill function from Engine that expands companies a credit line for one to two weeks. As a result, companies with frequent travelers can complete payments twice a month, similar to a two -week salary check cycle, he said.
Before he became a productive investor Barclays. He took over the CFO role of the engine, he said, “purely by accident”.
“I didn’t come this year that I would be a CFO in the middle of the year,” he noted.
During a board meeting with the founder and CEO of Engine, Elia Wallen, they discussed how the company had no CFO at that time. And Melamud always enjoyed diving deeply into challenges. Since entering the engine, it has not been on the company’s board or at Permira.
Is there an IPO next for engine? “As long as we build a strong business that deals with this market, we have some options,” said Melamud. “But at the moment we don’t actively think about it.”
In the upcoming risks and opportunities, he said: “The current macro environment has a lot more volatility, which can question the planning ability of our customers. However, the opportunity for our engine is to alleviate this friction.”
And in his free time, Melamud focuses on his family. “I have three young children and they are at the time when everything is still new,” he said.
Sheryl Scot
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Ranking
Eric Christel was appointed EVP and CFO by Bloomin ‘Brands, Inc. (Nasdaq: Blmn), parent company of brands like Outback Steakhouse. Christel joined the company for a transition period on August 4 and took over the CFO role on September 8th. The current CFO Michael Healy will take on the newly created role of EPP, strategy and transformation. Christel brings financial leadership for almost two decades through the food and beverage sector, including his role as SVP and CFO of the Snacks department of the Campbell company and several leadership roles at Pepsico.
Michael Graham was appointed CFO by Zoominfo (Nasdaq: GTM), a platform for companies and business-to-business database and intelligence, which is effective on August 1st. O’Brien has worked as an intermediate CFO since September 2024. Before that, he had been in the company since December 2017, most recently as VP from FP & A.
Big deal
The 2025 Fortune 100 most powerful people in the business list made this morning with agile disruptors, naming fire titans, Fortune 500 CEOs and power players behind the scenes. The second -year ranking of the most influential people in the business world represents 28 industries worldwide, including finance, tech, retail and automobile.
This list measures strength and influence, and although Net Worth is a factor, the assets were much more concerned with the ability of a guide to design the thoughts and actions of the people around them. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, take first place. Under Huang’s leadership, it was recently the first company that exceeded a market capitalization of 4 trillion dollars that was driven by the increasing demand for AI chips. This milestone underlines the central role of Nvidia in the generative KI boom, changes the global tech landscape and carries many of the other top tech companies whose CEOs appear on our list. Jensen’s company stands in front of established companies and startups, but none is a serious threat to the dominance of Nvidia – Yet.
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Oversighted
“If we could close the gap for nine main conditions, this would create 27 million years of healthy life per year – or about three additional healthy days a year for each individual woman on the planet.”
—Dr. Anita Zaidi, President of the Gender Equality department at the Gates Foundation, writes in A Assets Opinion With the title “Why in the health of women in the health of women is good for business.”
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