Holden out at Google Travel

Richard Holden, general manager of Google Travel since 2020, is no longer in that role. 

In a statement a Google spokesperson said, “We’re extremely grateful for Richard’s leadership of the Travel team over the past many years. Helping people find information and explore the world is core to our mission, and our new leaders, Rose Yao and Julie Farago, bring deep experience in this area.”

Yao and Farago are longtime Google employees with product and engineering experience. Yao, a vice president for product management, previously was a product leader in the company's Geo organization. Farago, a director of engineering, has worked in product and engineering roles across Google and Verily for over 15 years. Most recently, she led engineering for hotel and vacation rental search products.

Holden has not left Google, the company said, though it shared no details on any next steps.  

Prior to becoming general manager of Travel, Holden had led its product management team for seven years and had been with Google since 2002.

In the past decade, both Google Hotels and Google Flights have become leading metasearch channels, and the platform has brought in billions of dollars in advertising revenue from suppliers and online travel agencies. 

Holden was a frequent speaker at Phocuswright conferences, most recently in 2018 when the late Philip Wolf, founder of Phocuswright, interviewed him on Center Stage. Watch the full discussion below.

And later he spoke to PhocusWire senior reporter Linda Fox in the PhocusWire studio.