ProcureCon Travel 2026
June 1 - 2, 2026
Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center
DAY 2: Wednesday, May 15th, Tomorrow’s Business Traveler
7:20 am - 8:35 am Women In Travel Procurement Breakfast
The ever-popular ProcureCon Women in Procurement Breakfast returns to provide an intimate setting for executives to discuss the challenges women in travel & procurement face and celebrate their successes. Participation provides you with access to a growing network of peers you can connect with throughout the year.
7:35 am - 8:35 am Breakfast in the Solutions Zone
8:35 am - 8:45 am
Chairperson Opening Remarks
Ron Shah -
CEO,
BIZLY Inc
8:45 am - 9:25 am
Keynote: Case Study Interactive: Duty of Care: From Paper to Reality
Judy Payne -
Director, Meetings and Travel,
GameStop
Samantha Vogel -
Senior Manager, Meetings & Travel,
GameStop
What do you do? You have an active shooter scenario. A natural disaster impacts your travelers. There’s an accident that sends dozens of travelers to emergency rooms. Are you ready? What are your responsibilities? In this session, we will explore real life scenarios of how to transform traditional risk & safety plans, while preserving the emotional well-being of travelers.
9:25 am - 9:50 am
Case Study Interactive: Traveler Satisfaction; Finding The Balance Between Experience, Productivity, and Cost
Leslie Hadden -
Global Travel Manager,
LinkedIn
There’s ways to find balance between your travelers satisfaction and savings. Employees want the freedom and ability to travel the best possible way to make them most productive. Having the ability to fly business class, lounge passes, adding ancillary fees , and paying for amenities makes life on the road easier for your road warriors is key to retaining your talent. When is the right time to give more to your traveler? At what cost? Leslie Hadden will share her recent strides to quantify happiness and productivity with her travelers at LinkedIn.
Key takeaways include:
• Understanding your traveler and identifying your company’s culture
• Measuring and evaluating feedback from stakeholders
• A framework to launch your own experiments
9:50 am - 10:25 am
Keynote Presentation: Live Debate - Travel Risk Management – Is A Gender Agenda Appropriate?
Josephine Hutton -
Travel Security Specialist,
Maiden Voyage
In an era where we strive for equality in the workplace, this thought-provoking talk will explore the relevancy of a gender-based approach to travel risk management. Josephine will guide you through the specific issues impacting both female and LGBTQ travellers and how your organisation can meet its duty of obligations, appropriately, sensitively and effectively.
10:25 am - 11:05 am
Morning Networking Break In The Solutions Zone
11:05 am - 11:30 am
Fireside Chat: NDC And The Future Of TMCs - How Disruption Will Change The Way You Work
David Jonas -
Co-Founder,
The Company Dime
Ann L. Dery -
Global Category Lead, Director, Travel & Meetings of Global Travel,
S&P Global
It’s not if, it’s when… When will NDC make an impact on the world of corporate travel? How can the TMC get into the collaborative space? It’s imperative that buyers fully understand what is really going on. It’s no longer theory, its change in the making. Ann Dery will discuss her POV and knowledge on the subject.
• New Distribution Capability overview
• How do Global Distribution Systems play a role?
• Limitations and benefits.
• Reinventing how TMCs handle airline content
11:30 am - 11:50 am
Smart Decision Making In The Age Of AI
Bryan McArthur -
Enterprise Customer Success Manager,
AppZen
Today’s procurement teams do not have the information and data they need to be successful. While required to develop and negotiate contracts with suppliers, they have little insight into how (if at all) those contracts terms are being enforced across the organization when it comes to pricing, delivery dates, expiration dates, etc. During this presentation, AppZen’s Bryan McArthur will discuss how to optimize decision-making in the age of artificial intelligence in order to:
•Establish effective supplier management
•Negotiate the best pricing and terms for your company
•Ensure terms are upheld
•Source the best suppliers
11:50 am - 12:30 pm
Panel: Politics Of Procurement: Should They Stay Or Should They Go?
David Jonas -
Co-Founder,
The Company Dime
Jay Sklar -
Chief Procurement and Real Estate Officer,
HUB International
Jason Cammorata -
Vice President Strategic Sourcing,
MDC Partners
Leslie Andrews -
Global Travel Category Manager,
CDK Global
Kevin Betts -
Strategic Sourcing Director,
The E. W. Scripps Company
Jiten Bhalhat -
Director, Global Business Consulting,
American Express Global Business Travel (GBT)
Travel procurement deals with one aspect that other procurement practitioners do not… Human emotion. Real people make real trips and deal with real consequences set forth in the company travel policy. Delays, cancellations, lousy meals, personal space, being away from home and family… are just a few road bumps that can turn a business trip into a living nightmare. This panel looks at how far procurement can go when balancing stakeholder experience versus cost.
• Traveler preferences in flight – navigating the politics of cabin choice
• Computing value and ROI in a happy traveler
• Quantifying value versus cost saving
• Balance finding traveler wants and needs
• How procurement is reacting to Millennials and Gen Z, forcing changes to travel policy
Jiten Bhalhat
Director, Global Business ConsultingAmerican Express Global Business Travel (GBT)
12:30 pm - 12:50 pm
Presentation: Swipe right! Delivering the Perfect Mobile Corporate Traveler Experience
Ian Van Hove -
Regional Director Mobile Sales & Partnerships, the Americas,
Amadeus
How mobile is your travel program? Travel is mobile by definition, so where’s mobile in your travel program? Buying travel becomes more and more complex and so does the servicing all the way through the journey. Why should you cater for the mobile needs of your traveler and how can mobile help to increase your overall travel program adoption and satisfaction? Ian Van Hove will share findings from a recent study on mobile traveler needs and explain how mobile technology can become your ally in maintaining the compliance and loyalty of the modern business traveler. Gain new insights and wow your colleagues with practical takeaways to propel your travel program in a mobile-first world!
12:50 pm - 1:50 pm
Lunch - Hosted by DVI, Inc.
Sponsored by: DVI, Inc.
Track A: Policy, Preferences, Cost and Value
1:50 pm - 2:30 pm Panel: What The Fric…tion? Ways To Keep Your Travelers From Cursing Your Travel Policy
Jason Cammorata - Vice President Strategic Sourcing, MDC Partners Cheryl Benjamin - Manager Travel Services, Dart Container Raymond Williams - Director, G&A Operations, Indirect Sourcing, Starbucks Nimfa Delos Santos - Manager of Travel and Purchasing, Zappos Rishi Singh - Director, Customer Success, TripActionsEnd to end travel is not perfect. When the friction becomes to rough for your road warriors, they’ll get unhappy, burnt out, jet lagged, and start wondering if the grass is greener elsewhere. With the unemployment rate at its lowest point in 49 years… Employee retention is becoming increasingly more difficult. What will you do to remove that friction from your stakeholders and keep them content? What can you to do ensure your travelers hit the least amount of resistance while traveling?
• Pretrip approval, expense reporting, booking process, notifications and how that plays into travelers’ expectations
• Can a great travel policy keep great employees?
• Travelers top priorities and finding the right balance
2:30 pm - 2:50 pm Presentation: Tracking Cost Savings In Air Travel And Adjusting With Procurement
Sandra McMahon - Global Travel Commodity Manager, VSPOptimizing company spend is paramount. Sifting through data and expense reports can be timely to travel managers. Listen to an industry expert breakdown the most effective way to help your company and learn best techniques on this challenging subject.
• Capture cost difference in air travelers
• Maximize online adoption rates
• Utilizing data tools and fine-tuning
• Looking ahead at real time data to find savings
2:50 pm - 3:10 pm Presentation: The Challenge of Change Management in Procurement
Stacy Hirons - Global Travel Manager, The Hershey's CompanyTopic: Much has been written about change management in recent years, but little of it effectively addresses the specific challenges faced by Procurement. Whether deploying a transformational procurement process, attempting to gain stakeholder acceptance in a previously unaddressed category or implementing a game-changing sourcing strategy, Procurement faces some unique hurdles to successful adoption. Learn techniques to assess how change management plans must vary depending on the nature of the change. Understand the various potential steps to ensure stakeholder engagement. Determine critical prerequisites for a smooth transition. Effectively prepare to increase the probability of sustained results and long-term success.
Track B: New Travel Technology
1:50 pm - 2:30 pm Panel: Implementations: Corporate Travel Technology: To Infinity And Beyond!
Mike Daly - Senior Vice President - Sales, Freebird Daryl Keiper - Senior Manager US Travel Program, Genentech Jessica Banish - Senior Commodity Manager, Travel, Fleet and Living, GE Chad Costa - VP of Sales, TraxoThere’s an overwhelming amount of technology being introduced to disrupt corporate travel, but how can you determine which solutions are best for your company? Through audience engagement, this panel discusses travel tech tools that works for their program and learn from the audience what is working for them. With corporate travel feeling somewhat archaic, how will you source the technology to jet set yourself into the future?
• How tech is being implemented and used by travel managers
• Cost effective tools that save money
• Travel tools that make end to end seamless for travelers
• Conducting proper due diligence on suppliers with a short track record of success
• Risk mitigation in start-up supplier contracts
2:30 pm - 2:50 pm Case Study: AI Technology: Implementing For The First Time
Marc Ensign - Director, Global Category Manager – Corporate, SonocoWith major leaps in technology and innovation, buyers have access to an absurd amount of data. New AI tools in tech are pushing for major cost reduction in your travel program. Marc Ensign will take us through his recent journey to integrate new AI technology at Sonoco. We’ll get insight into
• Does this makes sense for my company
• Benchmarking and expenses; find the right tool
• Dealing with internal pushback
• System integration and rollout
• Findings, savings & results
2:50 pm - 3:10 pm Presentation: Supplier Contract Performance Tracking
Nathan Haydn-Myer - Head of Procurement Operations and Insights, VSP GlobalService Level Agreements are used to monitor and manage relationships with TMC’s, travel suppliers and technology partners. This allows buyers to set standard levels with their suppliers. But how is SLA’s actually measured to benefit travel procurement? Performance measurements are rarely outlined effectively with contacts. This session will discuss the best practices and how to demonstrate a programs value.
•Knowing the industry KPI
•Evaluating criteria and metrics
•Develop and execute
•Tracking SLA’s to contracts
•Data collection and employee surveys
3:10 pm - 3:50 pm
Boozy Baileys Break In Solutions Zone
3:50 pm - 4:50 pm
Interactive Roundtable Discussions: Solutions For Travel and Meetings!
Outdoor tables, allow walking time
Kathy Rust -
Director, Global Travel Services,
NetApp
Jessica Maloney Cowart -
Senior Buyer, Procurement – Indirect Materials & Services,
Reynolds American Inc.
Dana Davies -
Supplier Governance Relationship Manager,
The Standard Insurance
Jennifer Kern -
Procurement Category Manager, Travel and Meetings,
BAE Systems
David Weaver -
Manager Global Travel,
Bechtel Corporation
Kathleen Kaden -
Head of Travel & Fleet Operations,
Formerly Novartis
These interactive roundtable sessions take a deep dive into the specific areas you came to discuss. Opportunities to sit and learn from travel procurement professionals like this won’t come anywhere else. Now is the time to take control of the event for yourself. Ask questions (or answer them!) of other conference attendees who are dealing with the same challenges as you.
• Network with industry peers with very similar challenges, interests and responsibilities
• Take a deep dive into a niche topic in an intimate and informal setting moderated by a subject matter expert
• Don’t miss out on the discussions you want to participate in—you’ll get to select a new topic after 30 minutes
1: TMC Relationship Management and Reporting Hosted by, Kathy Rust – Director, Global Travel Services, NetApp
2: Travel Policy Compliance Monitoring Hosted by, Jessica Maloney Cowart – Senior Buyer, Procurement – Indirect Materials & Services, Reynolds American Inc.
3: Expense Management Tools Hosted by, Dana Davies, Supplier Governance Relationship Manager, The Standard Insurance
4: Applying Strategic Sourcing in Meetings Management Hosted by Jennifer Kern – Procurement Category Manager, Travel and Meetings, BAE Systems
5: Navigating The World of Dynamic Pricing Models To Generate More Savings – David Weaver – Manager Global Travel, Bechtel Corporation
6: Experiences For Travel, Beyond The Booking – Kathleen Kaden - Head of Travel & Fleet Operations, Formerly Novartis
Jessica Maloney Cowart
Senior Buyer, Procurement – Indirect Materials & ServicesReynolds American Inc.
