Alex Zoghlin, of Orbitz and G2 SwitchWorks fame, today was named Hyatt's first global head of technology. After breaking from the travel industry for a few years, Zoghlin "will be responsible for all aspects of Hyatt's technology platform and systems," according to the company.
Zoghlin during the last decade was a key figure on the evolving airline distribution scene. In 2000 he was the first employee at Orbitz and served as its chief technology officer before founding G2 SwitchWorks. In August 2004, amid a Northwest Airlines-Sabre spat, G2 became a new name in airline distribution, a realm that started getting pretty interesting, even if some efforts were doomed to fail.
But by 2008, Travelport bought some of G2's tech assets and the company faded away. Zoghlin seemed to vanish from the market. In 2009, he surfaced outside the travel industry as CEO of VHT, a real estate marketing firm.
Now, at a global hotel company, he'll dabble in an indutsry that mixes travel and real estate. He reports to Chuck Floyd, group president for Hyatt's global operations center, who described Zoghlin's background as "utterly unique."
Hyatt's recent tech projects include automating responses to electronic requests for proposals for meetings, internalizing revenue management, beefing up its proprietary sales database and building a real-time billing and tracking system for group events. The company also is a founder of the Roomkey hotel booking site.