KAYAK Leadership

Melissa Reiter is a CFO/Treasurer at KAYAK and Board Member at SHOWROOMPRIVE. She has worked as Senior VP:Finance & Investor at KAYAK; Controller at ORBITZ WORLDWIDE, INC.; and Senior Manager at Arthur Andersen LLP. Melissa studied at University of Miami.

Debby Soo is the CEO of OpenTable, bringing expertise in product-first commercialization, strategic partnerships and international growth. She has spent the past ten years building KAYAK’s travel commercial team, establishing the APAC business, and then overseeing global business development for both KAYAK and OpenTable. In addition to managing the company’s revenue-generating activities and relationships with airlines, hotels and car renters, Debby has worked in various roles across business development and product marketing, including launching KAYAK Brazil and KAYAK Canada, running KAYAK’s affiliate marketing program, and mobile marketing activities. Debby is a graduate of Stanford University and has an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Giorgos Zacharia is the President at KAYAK, and runs the company technology, product, marketing and commercial teams. He has a PhD in Computer Science from MIT and was an MIT Fulbright Scholar. Zacharia previously served as co-founder, CTO and Chief Scientist of Open Ratings, Inc., a leading provider of supply risk management solutions. Zacharia was also instrumental in co-founding two machine learning-driven hedge funds, Stocknomics Ltd. and Emporics Capital Management, LLC. He holds four math and computer science degrees from MIT and has won five medals in International Mathematical and Physics Olympiads.

Keith Melnick is a Chief Commercial Officer at KAYAK, CEO at The Zebra, and Management Consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and is based in Stamford, Connecticut. He has worked as Manager at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), VP:Business Development at KAYAK, and Exec VP:Corp Development at KAYAK. Keith studied at USC Marshall School of Business between 1993 and 1996, Sigma Gamma Tau National Honor Society in Aerospace Engineering, and University of Illinois between 1987 and 1991.

Ko Baryiames is a Chief Technology Officer at KAYAK and is based in Concord, Massachusetts. He has worked as Chief Information Officer at KAYAK, Engineer at Tenor Networks, and Software Architect/Director at Enterasys Networks Inc. Ko attended University of New Hampshire between 1982 and 1988.

As the company’s Chief Scientist, Matthias leads KAYAK's use and exploration of artificial intelligence along with new user interfaces such as voice-enabled devices and chat bots. In 2016, Matthias led and launched successful integrations for KAYAK with Amazon Alexa, Facebook Messenger and Slack, which propelled the company into the spotlight as a category leader in AI and natural language processing. Matthias and his team have followed up with assistants and additional features on Microsoft Teams, Apple TV and Google Home, and the launch of voice-booking for hotels on Amazon Alexa - a first for the travel industry. In addition to managing KAYAK’s AI efforts, he also oversees the company’s mobile engineering teams (iOS, Android, Mobile Web). Prior to focusing on conversational travel and natural language processing, Matthias served as an analytics engineer, and later as a security architect at KAYAK. He holds a degree in Computer Science from TU München, an Honours Degree in Technology Management from the CDTM, and a PhD from ETH Zurich.

Peer Bueller is a Chief Financial Officer at KAYAK and CFO at OpenTable, Inc. and is based in Stamford, Connecticut. He has worked as Senior Consultant at Harvest, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis at Booking.com, and Finance & Strategy Manager eBay Local Classifieds APAC+ at EBAY INC. Peer studied at UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM between 2001 and 2005, UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM between 2006 and 2007, and San Francisco State University between 2005 and 2006.