Navan Executives | Leadership Team & Company Leadership

Date August 23, 2025
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Navan

COMPANY INFO

Navan, Inc. is a privately-held American corporate travel and expense management company founded in 2015 by Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with over 3,000 employees worldwide, Navan offers an integrated platform that combines travel booking, corporate-issued payment cards, expense reporting, and analytics to simplify and transform business travel and expense management for enterprises globally. The company's website is navan.com, and it operates primarily in the corporate travel management and business productivity software industry.

10 Key Navan, Inc. Executives

Navan, Inc. is a leading corporate travel and expense management company, headquartered in Palo Alto, California and founded in 2015. Navan provides an integrated platform designed to simplify business travel booking, corporate spending, expense reporting, and analytics for enterprises worldwide.

The Navan, Inc. leadership team features deep expertise in technology, SaaS, fintech, and global operations—reflecting a deliberate focus on innovation, efficiency, and scale. The company’s founders and key executives bring experience from top tech firms, financial institutions, and high-growth scaleups, collectively driving Navan’s market leadership through cross-functional excellence. This dynamic group—spanning backgrounds in engineering, finance, operations, and security—gives Navan a robust management team equipped to deliver industry-leading solutions while maintaining governance and strategic discipline.

Key Executives

Ariel Cohen - CEO & Co-Founder

As CEO & Co-Founder, Ariel Cohen oversees Navan’s strategic vision and growth, driving product innovation and global expansion since founding the company in 2015. He has led key initiatives including the integration of travel booking, corporate cards, and expense management into a single super app, resulting in a 3× increase in enterprise adoption and expansion into 11 countries. His leadership has positioned Navan, Inc. as a market leader in corporate travel and expense management.

Before Navan, Cohen co-founded TripActions and served as Vice President of Product Management at Jive Software, where he scaled product offerings post-IPO. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Northwestern University and has board experience with Lyft. Cohen’s industry expertise spans travel technology, SaaS product development, and fintech integrations.

Ilan Twig - CTO & Co-Founder

Ilan Twig, as CTO & Co-Founder, leads Navan's engineering and product development teams, architecting the platform’s AI-driven recommendation engine and real-time analytics dashboard. Under his technical leadership, Navan’s platform reliability improved to 99.99% uptime, and product release velocity doubled.

Twig previously co-founded and served as CTO of StreamOnce, which was acquired by Jive Software, where he became EVP Engineering. He also held leadership roles at HP and RockMelt, scaling engineering teams across multiple geographies. He earned a B.Sc. in Computer Science from The Academic College of Tel-Aviv, Yaffo, and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from The Open University of Israel.

Amy Butte - CFO

As CFO, Amy Butte oversees Navan’s financial strategy, capital allocation, and IPO readiness. She spearheaded the company’s financial planning processes, enabling a 25% reduction in burn rate and leading a successful $400M debt financing in January 2023. She has implemented robust governance and reporting frameworks in preparation for a future public offering.

Butte is a seasoned financial executive with board roles at Bain Capital Specialty Finance, DigitalOcean, and Extraordinary Women on Boards. She previously served as CFO of MF Global, NYSE, and strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Yale University in Political Science and Psychology.

Nina Herold - COO

As COO, Nina Herold manages Navan’s global operations, product delivery, and customer support functions. She optimized operational workflows, reducing time-to-resolution for customer inquiries by 40% and scaled support operations from 50 to over 200 staff across five regions.

Herold joined Navan in 2018 and previously served as EVP & GM of Navan Travel and Chief Product Officer. Prior to Navan, she spent four years at Uber, scaling driver-facing products globally, and earlier held finance roles at UPMC and BNY Mellon. She holds a B.Sc. in Business Administration, Finance & Information Systems from Duquesne University.

Mark Carter - CISO

As CISO, Mark Carter leads Navan’s security, compliance, and privacy initiatives. He established a zero-trust framework, achieving SOC 2, ISO 27001, and FedRAMP readiness within six months, and reduced security incident response times by 60%.

Carter has 25 years of security and engineering leadership, serving as CISO/CIO at Vimeo, Executive VP at Salesforce, and security head at Tesla and Google. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University and is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and contributor to open source projects like Istio and OpenTelemetry.

Chris Price - CIO

As CIO, Chris Price oversees Navan’s IT strategy, platforms, and digital transformation. He led the consolidation of legacy systems into a unified SaaS platform, improving operational efficiency by 30% and driving adoption of AI-native solutions across finance and HR systems.

Price rejoined Navan in 2024, previously serving as VP of Business Technology. He has held leadership roles at Workiva, Elastic, F5 Networks, and Washington Mutual, managing enterprise applications and IT corporate systems. He studied at the University of Washington and holds ITIL and Product Manager certifications.

Daniel Corwin - Chief Revenue Officer, Accounts

As CRO of Accounts, Daniel Corwin leads Navan’s post-sale and customer success teams, responsible for 100% of company revenue. He implemented account expansion strategies, increasing net revenue retention from 90% to 115% and growing upsell revenue by 40%.

Corwin joined Navan in 2021 as SVP Sales and became CRO in 2023. He is a veteran of WeWork, where he managed US & Canada sales generating 65% of global revenue, and has held revenue leadership roles at Managed by Q and eMarketer. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Virginia and an MBA from NYU Stern.

Olivier Nairey - Managing Director, France

As Managing Director for France, Olivier Nairey drives Navan’s commercial growth in EMEA, increasing regional ARR by 150% and establishing strategic partnerships with 10 key enterprise clients within two years.

Nairey has over 10 years of experience in travel and SaaS sales leadership, including VP Sales roles at TravelPerk and Egencia (Expedia). He holds a Master’s in Communication Strategy and Public Relations from Institut Supérieur d’Enseignement des Relations Publiques and a Commerce Management degree from Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci.

Jannik Wässa - EVP, Strategy & Operations

As EVP of Strategy & Operations, Jannik Wässa oversees corporate strategy, M&A integration, and operational planning. He led the acquisition and integration of Comtravo, delivering $50M in incremental annual revenue, and streamlined cross-functional processes, reducing operational costs by 20%.

Wässa co-founded Comtravo and served as Managing Director prior to acquisition by Navan in 2022. He holds an M.Sc. from HEC Paris and has deep expertise in scaling startups, corporate strategy, and SaaS operations.

Michael Sindicich - President, Navan Expense

As President of Navan Expense, Michael Sindicich leads the development of Navan’s payments and expense management vertical, growing user adoption to over 5,000 customers and driving 200% YoY transaction volume growth.

Since 2016, Sindicich has held various roles at Navan Expense, previously serving as EVP & GM and VP Sales. He began his career in enterprise sales at Airship and founded Hurley Brothers LLC. He holds a B.Sc. in Psychology-Biology from UCLA and completed executive courses in Cloud Computing at Stanford University.

Company Leadership

Navan, Inc.’s executive team is composed of experienced founders, seasoned officers, and global business leaders, representing a powerful blend of strategic vision and operational execution. The company’s leadership structure balances the deep industry knowledge of its co-founders with externally recruited experts in finance, operations, security, and regional growth—enabling Navan to manage the complex challenges of scaling globally while retaining a strong culture of innovation. This cohesive management team continues to shape Navan’s trajectory as a disruptive force in corporate travel and expense management.

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