Twenty-five years ago, an industrial engineer walked the floor of a steel plant in Ohio, measuring tolerances and watching machines convert raw metal into finished parts. He could not have known that the analytical instincts he sharpened there would one day help move more than one hundred billion dollars’ worth of the world’s travelers through search engines, jet bridges, and hotel lobbies. The travel industry does not often celebrate its engineers, yet it depends on them completely.
Greg Schulze is one of those rare executives whose influence can be traced through nearly every major transformation the travel industry has experienced this century. Today, he serves as a Member of the Board of Directors at Traveloka, Southeast Asia’s leading online travel platform. Before that, he spent more than two decades helping build and reinvent Expedia Group’s commercial organization, culminating in his role as Chief Commercial Officer from February 2024 to May 2026.
An Engineer’s Eye on a Trillion-Dollar Industry
Before travel, there was steel—and there were airplanes.
Greg began his career as an Industrial Engineer at Worthington Industries, where he worked from June 1996 to July 1999. He then joined American Airlines in Revenue Management, spending six years mastering the complex science of yield management, seat inventory, and pricing optimization. It was there that he learned to view travel not simply as an experience, but as an interconnected system built upon thousands of precise decisions.
That systems mindset became the foundation of his career when he joined Expedia Group in August 2005 as Director of Analytics and Revenue Management. Over the following two decades, he progressed through some of the company’s most influential commercial leadership roles, serving as Vice President of Air, Senior Vice President of Global Partnerships, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Commercial Strategy and Services in Singapore, Senior Vice President of Strategic Travel Partners, and ultimately Chief Commercial Officer.
Scaling One of Travel’s Largest Commercial Organizations
The scale of Greg’s journey mirrors the transformation of the online travel industry itself.
When he joined Expedia, annual gross bookings stood at approximately $13 billion. By the time he became Chief Commercial Officer, that figure had surpassed $120 billion, representing more than a ninefold increase.
As Chief Commercial Officer, he led a global organization of more than 3,000 employees responsible for travel partnerships, commercial strategy, and revenue generation, including Expedia’s rapidly expanding advertising business. Together, these operations formed the commercial engine behind a company generating approximately $15 billion in annual revenue.
Throughout his tenure, Greg negotiated multibillion-dollar strategic partnerships with many of the industry’s largest travel companies while helping Expedia navigate successive waves of technological disruption—from the rise of online search and mobile booking to the emergence of artificial intelligence and increasingly personalized travel experiences.
His leadership consistently focused on ensuring technology strengthened commercial relationships rather than replacing the human expertise that powers them.
A Career Spanning Three Continents
Greg’s professional journey reflects the increasingly global nature of modern travel.
He has lived and worked across the United States, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, gaining firsthand experience in some of the world’s most influential travel markets.
His years leading Commercial Strategy and Services from Singapore placed him at the center of Southeast Asia’s rapidly expanding digital travel economy, experience that naturally complemented his appointment to Traveloka’s Board of Directors in July 2017. Later, as Chief Commercial Officer, he was based in the United Kingdom while overseeing Expedia’s worldwide commercial organization.
His academic background also reflects this balance of technical precision and business leadership. Greg earned his bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University before completing his MBA at the University of North Carolina, combining analytical discipline with strategic thinking throughout his career.
Leadership Beyond the Balance Sheet
Greg’s influence extends well beyond corporate leadership.
In January 2023, he was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, joining a select group of industry leaders advising the federal government on policies affecting American travel and tourism.
From May 2024 to May 2026, he also served on the Executive Committee of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), helping shape discussions around the future of the global travel industry.
His commitment to service reaches beyond travel as well. Since February 2025, he has served on the Board of Directors of the Planet Water Foundation, supporting an organization that has provided access to clean water for millions of people across more than thirty countries.
In 2026, he also serves on the Professional Advisory Board of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Earlier in his career, Greg served on the Board of the US-ASEAN Business Council and advised the Singapore Tourism Board’s Chief Executive Technology Strategy Committee, further strengthening the connections between government, tourism, and technology.
Seeing the Future Before It Arrives
Few travel executives have witnessed and helped shape as many periods of industry transformation as Greg Schulze.
From the earliest days of online travel booking to the rise of search engines, the mobile revolution, cloud platforms, digital advertising, and now artificial intelligence, he has consistently worked at the intersection of technology and commercial strategy.
Rather than viewing innovation as a disruption to be managed, he has approached it as an opportunity to build stronger partnerships, create more scalable businesses, and improve the traveler experience across every stage of the journey.
His long-standing position on Traveloka’s Board of Directors further reflects his belief that Southeast Asia would become one of the world’s most important digital travel markets long before many global competitors fully recognized its potential.
Building the Future of Travel
For an industrial engineer who once measured tolerances on a factory floor, the scale of the systems he has since managed is almost unimaginable: billions of dollars in annual bookings, thousands of employees, global partnerships spanning continents, and an industry that continues to reinvent how people discover the world.
Throughout that journey, Greg Schulze has remained less interested in chasing change than in building the commercial foundations that allow innovation to flourish—quietly shaping the infrastructure behind modern travel while helping one of the world’s largest travel companies evolve through every major technological shift of the past two decades.
Read more: Umberto di Venosa (The Most Influential Travel Innovation Leaders 2026)
