Strong financial leadership can shape the success of any organization, and Amy Butte, CFO of Navan, exemplifies this with her vast expertise and emboldened vision.
Amy joins host Jack McCullough in a conversation that dives into the evolving role of CFOs, the importance of mentorship and strategies for building a world-class finance team. Amy shares her career journey from how she got her start on Wall Street to why she accepted the CFO job at Navan last year after serving a short time as a board member. She also explains why young CFOs should take every opportunity to network.
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We have an awesome guest. Amy Butte is the CFO of Navan. Navan is a travel and expense management platform that streamlines travel, booking, expense tracking and financial reporting for businesses. Amy, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
I’m excited to have you. I was looking forward to it because we are pretty familiar with Navan, but before we get into it, how is my description of the company?
It’s pretty accurate. The only thing you are missing is that customers love the product. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me or sent me notes after I joined, saying, “I love this product,” and how rare is that? The thing “rockstar” about it, not the only thing, is its high growth. We are in a fast-paced industry, growing like crazy and excited to be here.
I can vouch for that because you probably know you sponsor some stuff with the CFO Leadership Council, my day job. You are sponsoring our conferences and such, and I can vouch for the fact that it’s a very well-received tool.
As I say to people, “How rare is it that a CFO gets to 1) Offer a product to their business that people love to use, and 2) Save them money?” It’s a win-win, which is always hard to find.
Nothing wrong with that at all. We’ll spend a lot of time talking about Navan, but before that, I want to chat a little about your earliest days. Where did you grow up? I’m curious about how that affects your view of the world and the business community.
I grew up outside Detroit, so I’m a Midwesterner, so that has affected my view. It also means I am a real sports fan. Go Lions. I grew up playing sports and also grew up in a community that was very close-knit. My mom still lives in the home that I grew up in. I’m still in touch with people I went from nursery school through high school with. It was a real grounding experience in a community that had a lot of history.
You are still in touch with your friends. That’s amazing. You’ve been able to do that with everything. I’m friends with the kids in my childhood neighborhood. It is weird to think that I have friends who I have known for many decades now. It’s an amazing world that you live in.
It was a stable childhood. Not without its challenges, but a real stable childhood that let me have the confidence to go off and do something different as soon as I had the opportunity to leave and come to the East Coast and come to New York, which is still one of my most favorite places in the whole world. I did, and it’s that stable beginning that has given me the confidence to do new and challenging things.
Career Beginnings
It looks like you probably didn’t do very well in high school, and I’m surmising that because you went to Yale undergrad and then Harvard MBA. Like most good CFOs, you studied political science. You majored at Yale, but I’m curious: Did you see yourself in a career in public service?
Not at all. I graduated from Yale and worked in change management with Andersen Consulting at the time. I figured that I would learn about technology, I would learn how organizations adapt to new technology and I had no interest in coming to Wall Street. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I quickly learned that these consulting organizations were not a meritocracy. I was like a square peg in a round hole, and within six months of starting, they laid off a third of the workforce. I was part of that, and I had the opportunity at that point to go out to Seattle and work for Microsoft. I said, “Wait, I can go to Seattle or I can stay in New York,” and I wanted to stay in New York. I realized that if I wanted to stay in New York, I needed to get into a meritocracy and that was Wall Street.
I had no idea at the time that years later, I would be working at the New York Stock Exchange, right at the center of Wall Street. That was the thesis. It wasn’t the plan, but that’s how it turned out, and ironically, and I’m sure some CFOs will appreciate this, my father was a CPA, and when I joined the New York Stock Exchange as CFO, he said to me, “Can you help me understand this? You had one accounting class as an undergrad, and you had a couple of corporate finance classes at HBS. How did this happen?” No, it wasn’t the plan, but it shows that you can learn by doing, and he gave me the acumen for numbers.
You are at least the 5th or 6th guest who shared that one of their parents was a CPA. Maybe it’s in the blood. It’s interesting because you’ve certainly become a more accomplished CFO than I ever was, but when I talk to people, it’s not like numbers aren’t extraordinarily important, but it’s about problem-solving, communication and leadership. If your skillset is limited to finance and accounting, you’ll be a controller and a chief accounting officer, but if you can bring those other things in, then you can become a CFO and, even more so, an elite CFO.
I agree with you. Some of the skills that I bring to the table: (1) I feel like I solve problems all day long, and for me, that’s energizing. 2) That difference of being someone who thinks two or three steps ahead versus 10 to 15 to 20 steps ahead, trying to stay ahead of that curve is important, and then 3) using numbers to tell the story. What does the story that the numbers tell out of the financial statements, and how do you communicate your company’s story to investors as well? I did that as an equity research analyst, and that’s really where that skillset was honed.
It’s interesting because the CFO is a storyteller. Some people don’t necessarily like that term. It sounds like a fiction storyteller but it is. It’s not just the numbers, and even when you are talking to accountants, they want a little bit of the story behind it. They don’t want raw data.
Numbers are a language. How do you use the language of numbers to communicate what’s important to you, what’s important to your company and what’s important to investors? I like the language of numbers.
I majored in accounting undergrad, and the first sentence in the textbook was, “Accounting is the language of business.” I couldn’t tell you another darn thing that was in the book, but I remember that 40-something years later.
I didn’t take enough accounting classes to read that book. I apologize.
Connecting With Mentors
It was one of those books that was as dull as you can imagine. I forgot this is a show. No one can see what I did with my hands there. You’ve had an extraordinary career on Wall Street in a board CFO role, and I’m curious, who are some of the key mentors that you met along the way that helped shape the leader that you’ve become?
Mason Reese is my most important mentor, and we are still in touch. I met him in the summer of 1996. I was a summer associate at Merrill Lynch. I had done some work in the investment banking department. I knew I didn’t want to stay in investment banking, but Merrill wanted me at the firm, and they said, “Why don’t you go see if there’s something else you want to do?”
I came out of the equity research sales call that morning, and I walked up to this man who led the research sales desk, and I said, “Hello, Mr. Reese. My name is Amy. I’m sitting on your desk, and I wanted to introduce myself,” and he said, “Great. Where do you go to school?” I told him where I went to business school. He said, “Where’d you go undergrad?” I told him I went to Yale. He said, “So did I. Why don’t you sit next to me?”
As I sat next to him, there was a woman by the name of Susan Riordan, who I’m still in touch with, who came up to me and invited me to come with her on a research sales call. While I was on that research sales call, I had no idea what that was before the day started, but I knew that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be that person, the expert in the room, a research analyst who knew the subject matter and felt confident talking to investors. I didn’t want to communicate with people about what somebody else thought. I wanted to have the conviction from knowing the numbers myself.
That was an a-ha moment. If it wasn’t for Mason saying, “Come sit next to me,” and if it wasn’t for Susan saying, “You are sitting next to Mason, come on out,” I don’t think I would have been able to see or seen that quickly what equity research was and why it was such a great fit for me. We are still in touch. He’s a very important person in my life and someone whose advice I constantly seek out, and we don’t mind that round of golf once or twice a year either.
Good for you. That’s fantastic, but I hope they know the impact they made on you because they changed the trajectory of your entire career, it sounds like.
I’m going to send him this show, but he knows it, too.
One thing that occurs to me is that you articulated how important mentors have been to you, but I have to think that you are a highly coveted mentor as well. What is your philosophy and your approach to being a mentor to the next generation of leaders?
I am much more about mentorship coming naturally rather than being forced. That being said, you have to be open to it, and you have to be willing to allocate time to people that you connect with. Here at Navan, we have already started a women’s leadership network. It’s an opportunity to get to know people throughout the firm, make them smarter on the business, have other people to reach out to and build their mentor-mentee network within the organization.
It’s like setting an example that you want to have that communication, and I’m proud of having started that so soon here at Navan. In terms of the mentors and the mentees that I have worked with, it’s when you are doing some work or you are in constant contact, and you start to build that trust with someone that you know. It’s about learning from them, and they are learning from me.
I have been working with the CFO at a company that I was on the board of, and we probably spoke every other day for six months as he was going through changes at the company. It might’ve only been 5 to 10 minutes a day, but we have been able to build this relationship of trust. When you receive a note and thanks, to your point of, “I hope he knows that Mason knows how important he was to me,” there have been a handful of people from whom I’ve received notes saying thank you. It’s nice when it happens. It’s even nicer when people tell you, and it’s nicest when you get that handwritten note so you can go back to it and remind yourself that you do have an impact. It is a give and get.
People underestimate the impact of a handwritten note. I have practically every handwritten note, and not many people send it, but I just think it’s so different than sending an email thanking people.
It happens naturally. You have to be open to it. You have to be willing to give your time. You have to build trust, and then you have an impact without even realizing it. For example, one of the women that I have hired here, Viscus, joined as SVP of strategic finance and our chief accounting officer. We worked together at the New York Stock Exchange, and she was one of the first people I wanted to join me here at Navan. She will tell people, “Amy’s been a mentor.” I’m not even sure I knew I was such a mentor, but it was because we had that built-in trust and the opportunity to work together and learn about each other by doing.
A Return to the CFO Office
I’m allowed one dumb question each episode, and I’m asking it now, but prefacing that. I have had a relationship with Navan for a while, and I was excited when I saw that you became their CFO. One thing that was intriguing to me is you hadn’t been a CFO for a while. You had this phenomenal career going, serving on corporate boards, and so the dumb question is, what attracted you to the role at Navan? It’s perhaps apparent, but I’ll let you say what was so exciting that you decided to go back to being a CFO after a little bit of a break.
I joined the board of Navan in March, and I was helping our CEO with two subjects, one being working capital and the other finding a CFO to help take them public. After about four weeks, I said to Ariel, “I have a great CFO candidate idea for you,” and he said, “I have one for you,” and they weren’t the same. When I asked him why me, because that wasn’t my intention or goal, he said, “You’ve helped me think differently on subjects more so than any other finance person that I have worked with, and even more so than some of the members of the board.” To me, that was a signal that, as a CEO, he is ready and prime to be a public company CEO and appreciates the opportunity for maturation that comes with the private-to-public process.
That was the moment that I said, “This could be interesting.” I had to ask myself whether I had one more in me. This will be my third time taking a company public as a CFO, and I had to consider whether this is the right time and environment. I’m a single mom of a fourteen-year-old boy. I had a lot of personal changes in my life that led to asking the question, not “What do I want to do?” but “How do I want to live?” That was why I made the first transition from CFO to director.
At the end of the day, it’s very rare that you find a place that has the characteristics that are so ripe for [going public]—top-line growth, operating efficiency, rationale for the IPO process, whether that’s capital, currency for M&A transactions or marketing opportunity. But more so, this is an organization that is filled with people who are smart, direct and passionate. Ariel is a CEO who sets that tone from the top, and all of that together made me say, “This is an incredible opportunity that I would regret saying no to.” I’m ecstatic to be here.
This leads to my next question. What is your relationship with Ariel? As you’ve heard a bunch of times, the CEO-CFO relationship is perhaps the most important among the C-suite. I’m hearing people refer to CFOs as the deputy CEO. I’m curious, now that you are not on the board, you are the CFO, and you are building something together in an operating role, what’s that like on a day-to-day basis?
I had the opportunity to get to know him a little bit in that board role. We developed that mutual respect. I have so much respect and appreciation for what he has built here at Navan and the culture that he’s created. He also looks to me not as a CFO but as an advisor. I have his back, and he knows that, and that’s critical to the relationship.
World-Class People
The two of you are building something special. I want to chat a little about your philosophy on building a team because sometimes, a very entrepreneurial and small company has a different finance and accounting team than one that’s getting ready to go public and be public. What’s your philosophy on building that world-class finance team?
You have to find world-class people to be a part of that world-class finance team and make sure that each person brings a special sauce to the team itself. First of all, it’s a team. We talk about that all the time that finance is a team sport, and we think about it that way. I also have a very flat structure. When I arrived, it was important to me that we remove the silos between FP&A, accounting, tax and treasury. It was important that it was viewed as one team, and it was flat.
My finance leadership meetings include my direct reports and their direct reports because that communication is essential. It’s also about finding the people that complement each other. Since I arrived, I mentioned Ann has joined. We have a new VP of Treasury, I have a new chief of staff starting, I have promoted from within someone to run tax, and I’m excited by the culture that we are creating along with the people that were here and are on the bus to make more change within the organization. I’m also happy to say that 3 out of those 4 new people are all women, so I’m hoping I’m leading by example through the rest of the organization.
That’s great, and I know you are passionate about being an advocate for women leaders. You’ve promoted some and supported them throughout your career. What’s that like? You are in the tech industry, and right now, women are a little bit underrepresented in the tech industry. It’s fair to say in a non-critical way. What’s driving that, and what success are you making?
Success breeds success on that and that diversity within a group. I will say that the two senior women that I hired, like me, are moms of young kids or school-aged kids. They care a lot about their career but also care a lot about that commitment to their home. Something in the past that may have been negative, such as having a life outside of work on Wall Street, and you almost weren’t allowed to do that. It has become an attractive recruiting point, which is, “I get it, we’ll make this work.”
I have been told that that’s attractive to people, and hopefully, we are also setting an example throughout the organization that there will be more women. Finance tends to be a place where you can find incremental diversity because there is some more flexibility, but ultimately, it’s up to the CFO and leadership to offer that flexibility.
I have publicly stated that within ten years, the CFO role will be slightly female-majority. I am basing that on a few trends. Thank you for helping set that reality. I’m going to look pretty stupid in ten years if I end up being wrong.
Let’s make sure they are good female CFOs, too.
Navan’s Hypergrowth
I run a professional association and the young people are phenomenal. They’ve got everything except a few more years of experience. They’ve got the passion, the intellectual curiosity, the skillset, everything that you’d want in a CFO. They’re going to get there and they’re going to excel when the opportunity’s presented. No doubt.
I want to share a little about your role at Navan. You’re in one of the most hyper-competitive spaces that there is. The drawback of being in a growth space is that a lot of people are attracted to it. What are some of the biggest challenges and opportunities that Navan is facing in the near term, aside from getting ready to go public?
We are a growth company within a growing industry and an expanding TAM, which is exciting. For people who are not aware, we offer travel and expense. With the travel, there are travel payments, and with the expense, there can be expense payments. We offer a tool called Navan Pro, which is a more traditional, high-touch experience, and we are also expanding to meetings and events to be able to offer that both on-platform and off-platform.
What’s exciting is that the software wasn’t built to service all of the traditional travel requirements. This software was built so that individuals could have a positive UI experience. That means that we have enterprise clients and personal travel booked on the site , and because we are able to do this with efficiency, we can continue to grow and continue to offer it to more people.
I don’t know if you are aware, but about 50% of our customer support interactions come using AI. People are able to satisfy their customer support experience without talking to someone, and we have very high CSAT scores, which means that people still enjoy it and have a positive experience. The challenge as we think about planning is not about finding growth. We are a 30% growth company. [The challenge is] about how we allocate our investment dollars to the place where we can get the highest return, and how can we continue to fund that growth into the future?
That’s exciting to be in the 30% growth rate [range]. It does solve a lot of problems. I’m also curious because early in my career, probably unfairly but a little bit, finance and strategy were almost considered separate things, but the elite CFOs are making sure that the strategic plan and the financial plan are aligned. How are you doing that in your company?
We don’t call FP&A, FP&A. We call FP&A “strategic finance” for that reason. M&A, strategy, as it relates to acquisitions, that all now reports to the CFO function; it is important that they are aligned. We don’t ask ourselves the question through the plan, “What are you going to do next year?” We talk about what’s the meaning of next year, 2 years, 3 years and beyond. Once again, I’m fortunate to be working with a CEO who has a real long-range vision for what he wants Navan to be in this industry, and we are following suit as we think about where we are going to allocate those resources and where we are going to get the greatest growth for our investment dollars.
I am required to do this, and you gave me the opening, but modern finance teams, Gen AI or AI, generally, play a big part in it. How is Navan using technology internally, in the finance operations, and in the overall business itself? Do you have a company with a lasting competitive advantage?
Our AI bot, Ava, as I mentioned, means that we can provide customer support in a very efficient way. That’s why we also have 70% gross margins in our business, and so we are not talking about AI. We are actually using AI. There’s a real application for it. In the finance function, we are using data science to make sure that our forecasting is strong. I’m happy to report that on a very large piece of our business, we might be off by $100,000 in terms of what we planned for revenue [coming in].. I believe that you have to use data science and business intelligence everywhere and look for more and more ways to leverage it.
A Board Member Perspective
I wanted to change a little bit as well. You’ve been back in the CFO role. I’m curious how your prior and still your current experience as a board member impacts how you approach the role of the CFO and maybe the other way around, too. Does having been a board member impact how you relate to Navan’s board of directors?
Yes, it does. When you are a director, your job is to ask questions and encourage management to think about topics that they might not think about every day, whether that’s risk oversight, whether that’s investor perspective or whether that’s team building. Your job is to ask questions and to be an advisor. In a CFO role, you tend to get very day-to-day applications, operational. Coming back to the role, there are two places where I have found the board experience to be very fruitful
One, [it] encourages me to sit back and try to ask those advisor-related questions, not the tactical questions. I try to be an advisor every once in a while in my day job as well and try to, if you will, be one step ahead of what the board is going to ask us because I know what it’s like to be in their shoes. Two, in contrast to when I did this the first time, I’m finding that the EQ is very valuable. They taught us that in business school. We talked about our business school experience before. They spent a lot of time talking about leadership, organizational behavior and interactions.
That was a fun class, but I’m not sure I applied it before. Coming back into the role now, I’m finding that I’m using that EQ more and more. I remember my first week here, I was in a meeting, and after about 45 minutes, I had all this tension in my body. I’m like, “Why am I so anxious? Why is this so stressful?” I took a breath, sat back and said to everyone on the Zoom, “Your PTSD is palpable, and I’m not going to take it. Let’s make a decision and move forward.” I’m able to bring a different perspective now versus when I did this the first time.
It’s interesting because I tell controllers who are aspiring to be CFOs that thousands of people have similar skillsets. Assuming a good skillset, the differentiator is going to be EQ. People want CFOs who are empathetic, and maybe that wasn’t true a generation ago, but it’s true now. It’s such an important leadership trait.
Several years ago, I never would have thought of saying to somebody in a meeting, “I sense your anxiety. Now let’s move forward,” but it works.
People want to be heard, and finance, in particular, tends to be a stressful way to make a living. An empathetic leader can pay huge dividends. I want to ask you a little about the nature of financial leadership itself and how it is changing. I tell people when I got my first CFO job, which was a while ago, admittedly, but I got it because I was a good controller and was due for a promotion. I got it and did a pretty good job, but that’s probably not what it takes anymore. How do you see the role of financial leadership? Not only has it changed, but what direction do you see it moving forward?
I believe that a good CFO is an advisor, whether to their CEO, their peers or their company, and they are a leader. A strong CFO should not be afraid to make decisions or move the organization in the direction that it needs to go. When I was at the New York Stock Exchange, I was used as an agent of change. I don’t think I have to go back and create that much change again, but it means I’m not afraid to do it. Advisor, leader, motivator, storyteller—all of those names apply to a strong CFO.
No, that makes a lot of sense, and I always say they used to be the CF-No. They would always look for reasons not to do things. Now it’s the CF-Go.
I always ask the question, how much change do you have to do? How much time do you have to do it, and how much resistance is there to getting it done? If you weigh all three of those things, it can help you set your plan or your action plan, and also hopefully communicate to your team, your CEO and your board, like how fast and how far.
Sports Lover
That’s a great philosophy. I want to turn it back a little bit to yourself. I always love to ask our guests because I want to change the stereotype of CFOs as dull people. Is there a fun fact or maybe an interesting hobby that you have in your life?
Growing up in Detroit means that you are an avid sports fan. That comes with the territory. A fun fact that I like to tell is that Jim Perry, who was the brother of Gaylord Perry, was in my backyard in Detroit and taught me how to throw a baseball when I was about five years old. I learned how to throw a baseball from a Major League pitcher, and I went on to play baseball with the boys and played softball as a pitcher in college. That’s my fun fact. Jim Perry taught me how to throw a baseball.
Not a spitter, but a baseball. To this day, I still very much love sports. I’m a big golfer. I love getting out there and playing, moving and being with people. As my grandmother used to say, “The best part about golf is that when you are out there, all you are thinking about is that stupid little ball.” It’s also a great way to escape from real life.
I remember Gaylord Perry well. He was known for doctoring the ball, as they say, spitballs, and he had like a nail file in his pocket or something like that. Was Jim Perry as accomplished as Gaylord, or do I not remember them?
Not as well known. Not as accomplished, and cleaner with his throwing style. When we had a chance to get to know him, he played for the Tigers, Oakland and Cleveland.
Gaylord, I remember the old spitball, and for some reason that changes how a ball moves or something like that. You wonder who’s the first person who thought to spit on a baseball to gain an advantage.
I don’t know. Fun fact, we should figure it out.
Hyper-competitive people will find ways like that. One thing that occurs to me, the CFO job is hard anyway. You have a lot going on. You have a teenage son. If I have my facts correct, you’re on three boards of directors. You’re a strategic advisor to a different company and one of the founding members of Extraordinary Women on Boards. The obvious question is, how are you able to fulfill all of these roles successfully because each one of them is a lot?
I’m an incredible multitasker. I get up early in the morning, and I have an incredible team around me. I’m on the DigitalOcean board, I’m on the Bain Capital Specialty Finance board. I do advise some other companies as well, and EwoB. I get to learn as much as I hopefully give at the same time. I have learned about cloud-based computing, SaaS computing, and SMBs through DigitalOcean and about credit through Bain. EwoB is a resource that makes me a better board member, and it makes me a better CFO to know what other people like me are talking about or are facing. It’s okay to ask for help, and then, as a mom, it’s about showing up and having an open dialogue. Multitasking and getting up early are two things that help.
I wonder if this person is like Count Dracula, they don’t sleep or something like that. It’s great you’ve been able to pull that off. I’d love to close this with any advice you have for the next generation of CFOs. Maybe those first-time CFOs, in their first year as a CFO, or the other professionals who are 6 to 18 months away from getting their first CFO job.
You want to find the right company that’s the right fit. I talked about how, in my first job out of college, I was a square peg in a round hole. I needed to be in a meritocracy, and I wasn’t. Make sure that the organization you are joining is the right one for you. If you run fast, you want to find a company where the culture moves fast and is going to reward somebody who goes above and beyond, and it’s important to find that fit.
[In addition,] find people you connect with. Whether they’re officially a mentor or not, add value, ask questions and be proactive. [If you do those things] your value will show. That’s important. I also think it’s important that you remember to bring the outside in. Many people in the finance function get very good at doing their job within the org that they’re in, but they forget that there’s a lot to learn by bringing the outside in as well. You’ll only be more valuable to your organization when you can say, “One of our competitors does it this way,” or “I learned about a company that’s doing planning this way that’s different. Do you think we should try it?” Go to those extra conferences.
The last piece of advice is probably to play more golf, which [isn’t] meant to be “Play more golf,” but I remember when I was a first-time CFO, I would be invited to these incredible outings, and I would say, “No, I can’t go. I’m too busy.”
What I failed to appreciate is that networking going forward is as valuable as that report you are finishing on that day. I encourage people to build their network, whether it’s playing golf or doing other things, but those would be some pieces of advice that I would give to people who are contemplating this role in the future.
Somehow, I have never learned to golf. I’m the consummate networker, and yet I struggle with the lighthouse at the mini-golf thing, so never mind actual real golf.
You didn’t ask this question, but I will say my favorite golf analogy that applies to finance is taxes. On my team, I call our tax leader the putter, and people are like, “Huh?” I said, “In golf, when you go out and you practice, you always practice your driver.” You tend not to practice putting. You practice your big clubs, and usually, you only hit that driver about 13 or 14 times through a course, and if it’s a round of 100, that’s less than 15% of your round. I shoot less than 100 but I’m making it easy math.
If you are a putter and you are 2-putting every hole, that’s 36 strokes. That’s 36% of your total score, yet people tend not to practice it or think about it. When it’s about tax, which can often be 30% of your net, we tend not to think about it till after the fact, and it’s important to think about tax like putting, to go practice it and think about it ahead of time.
I am stealing that, and I’m going to. You can’t trademark something like that, but I’m going to put a copyright on it as if it’s my own. That is brilliant, Amy. It’s cool. I know you have a lot going on, so I’m grateful you were able to find some time to talk with me and our audience. I want to give you the final word. If there’s anything you’d like to share with our readers.
Thank you for having me. Thanks to everyone for reading. I hope you have the opportunity to get to know Navan. Feel free to reach out. I want to be a CFO for CFOs. I want to help you do your job better. That’s what Navan offers, and if I can be helpful to anyone out there in the audience, feel free to reach out.
I haven’t asked this question to any of our guests, but you have the expertise, and I’m observing people are traveling more now than before COVID. What are your observations on business travel? How’s it changing?
Business travel is 118% versus pre-COVID levels. It’s growing. If your teams are not traveling, FYI, your competitors are but what’s more fascinating isn’t that it’s up. It’s where it’s coming from. People are traveling more for office visits, for conferences. Even though we live in a work-from-home environment, it doesn’t mean that teams aren’t craving a desire to be together. Part of the uplift is, yes, salespeople, and businesses getting out and speaking to their clients more, but it’s also a desire for teams to come together and connect in person.
