Michelle Denogean Chief Marketing Officer

How did you get started working in travel technology?

I’ve worked in technology my entire career across several industries, but I’ve only been in travel tech for about a year and a half, all with my current company, Mindtrip. The team is made up primarily of people I’ve worked with for over a decade, starting in the automotive industry, where we built a commerce platform together and created a culture we loved being part of every day. Over our careers, many of us have moved across different verticals, but we’ve always shared one trait: an obsession with deeply understanding a new industry and its customer pain points before we build. When generative AI emerged, we saw an opportunity to create a consumer-facing experience unlike anything on the market. We chose travel because it’s a big, emotional decision and one of the most fragmented industries in the world, the perfect place for AI to connect the dots and bring the entire journey into one seamless experience.

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What advice would you share with women pursuing careers in a male-dominated field like tech?

My best advice is to find and protect your voice. Don’t be afraid to speak up, even in environments where it’s not encouraged. My philosophy is “honesty with care,” so when I’ve encountered resistance, I’ve spoken a little louder or made my role as a decision maker clear. Know what you uniquely bring to the table and own it. For me, that’s building strong customer relationships and being the voice of the customer, while also looking for problems no one else is solving, even outside my job description. These days, I’m upfront about my style—I ask a lot of questions, and I don’t stay in my lane. If that works for you, great. If not, I’m not the right fit, and that’s okay.

Where do you see the biggest opportunity for technology to improve group travel planning?

AI has the potential to transform group travel planning, whether it’s a family of four or a group of 10 friends. Instead of juggling endless group texts and spreadsheets, AI can gather input from everyone, merge their preferences, and create one cohesive plan that works for the whole group. On Mindtrip, for example, each person can take our travel quiz to share their preferences, then join the trip and ask the bot for recommendations tailored to everyone’s travel persona. It can even explain why a place was suggested based on the combined preferences in real time.

What inspired you to write the book, “GrowUp” – and who is your intended audience?

After decades of working with founders, I kept coming back to one truth: what makes founders great at starting isn’t always what makes them great at growing. I’ve seen incredible ideas stall, not because the market wasn’t there, but because the leadership team didn’t shift to what the business needed next. In my experience, the cure to business failure is people—building the right team and empowering them to do their best work. But blind spots can make it hard to bring those people together. I wrote Grow Up because I wanted to help founders see those blind spots and make that transition from launching to scaling without losing what made their company special in the first place.

What’s behind Mindtrip’s “start from anywhere” approach to building itineraries?

Our “Start Anywhere” approach comes from the belief that travel planning should begin the moment inspiration strikes, not when you’re ready to sit down and plan. With Mindtrip, you can go from inspiration to action by starting an itinerary from almost anything: a photo you took, an article you saved, a YouTube video or Instagram Reel you watched, a place a friend mentioned, or even a simple question typed into the app. Our AI understands the content and context of what gets shared, then extracts the places mentioned and turns it into a list or a personalized, editable trip plan.

What travel-planning feature do you think will surprise users most in the next year?

I think the biggest surprise will be how much smarter and more autonomous AI becomes in travel planning. With advances in deep research and agentic AI, we’re moving toward assistants that can plan, decide, and act on your travel goals while remembering your preferences and refining recommendations over time. Instead of simply answering questions, AI will be able to manage complex, multi-step planning by factoring in your preferences, points, and perks, then adapting in real time to create a true end-to-end travel companion.