Good morning. What would make a veteran technology investor take on the role of finance chief for the first time? For Alex Melamud, it’s a deep conviction in the company and its leadership.
Melamud is the new CFO of Denver-based Engine, a travel technology startup backed by Telescope Partners, Blackstone, Elefund, and Permira. He’s leaving the investor seat to join the executive team full time at Engine, which serves over 1 million business travelers, according to the company. It surpassed 1,000 employees—up from 700 at the start of 2024—and is expanding rapidly while strategically using AI to fuel growth.
Melamud’s first connection with Engine was at the board level. In 2024, while a managing director at Permira, a global investment firm specializing in private equity and credit, he decided to join Engine’s board. “In my 16 years of investing, I had never come across such an enormous TAM (total addressable market) of greenfield opportunity,” he said, referring to the many small and midsize businesses with unmanaged travel booking—those handling it themselves instead of using a third party.
Melamud led Engine’s Series C financing, with a $140 million Permira investment that pushed Engine’s valuation to $2.1 billion in September 2024.
Engine is a modern travel platform designed for small and midsize businesses, as well as groups. Its standout feature is offering both publicly available hotel rates and a wide range of exclusive, proprietary corporate rates (“closed rates”) that aren’t accessible to the general public, Melamud explained. These negotiated rates, with average savings of 26%, are sourced through Engine’s marketplace, partnerships and wholesalers, he said. Businesses log in to access this closed ecosystem, keeping these exclusive prices confidential and separate from public hotel pricing.
The platform is free to use, with no contracts, minimums, or fees. Melamud also points to Engine’s Direct Bill feature, which extends companies a line of credit for one to two weeks. This lets businesses with frequent travelers settle payments twice a month, much like a biweekly paycheck cycle, he said.
Before becoming a prolific investor, Melamud began his career nearly 20 years ago as an investment banking analyst at Lehman Brothers and Barclays. Taking on the CFO role at Engine, he said, was “purely serendipitous.”
“I didn’t come into this year thinking I would become a CFO in the middle of the year,” he noted.
During a board meeting with Engine founder and CEO Elia Wallen, they discussed how the company didn’t have a CFO at the time. And Melamud has always enjoyed diving deep into challenges. Since joining Engine, he is no longer on the company’s board or with Permira.
Is an IPO next for Engine? “As long as we build a strong business tackling this market, we’ll have a couple of options,” Melamud said. “But right now, it’s not something we’re thinking about actively.”
On the risks and opportunities ahead, he said: “The current macro environment has much more volatility, which can challenge our customers’ ability to plan. But Engine’s opportunity is to alleviate that friction.”
And in his spare time, Melamud focuses on his family. “I have three young kids, and they’re at the ages where everything is still new,” he said.
Sheryl Estrada
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Leaderboard
Eric Christel was appointed EVP and CFO of Bloomin’ Brands, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLMN), parent company of brands including Outback Steakhouse. Christel joined the company on Aug. 4 for a transition period and will assume the CFO role on Sept. 8. Current CFO Michael Healy will assume the newly created role of EVP, strategy and transformation. Christel brings nearly two decades of financial leadership across the food and beverage sector, including his role as SVP and CFO of The Campbell’s Company’s Snacks Division and several leadership roles at PepsiCo.
Michael Graham was appointed CFO of ZoomInfo (Nasdaq: GTM), a business-to-business database and intelligence platform, effective Aug. 1. O’Brien has served as interim CFO since September 2024. Before that, he held various roles at the company since December 2017, most recently as VP of FP&A since 2023. Prior to joining the company, O’Brien held accounting positions at RainKing Solutions and Kaseya.
Big Deal
The 2025 Fortune 100 Most Powerful People in Business list debuted this morning, featuring agile disruptors, name-brand titans, Fortune 500 CEOs, and behind-the-scenes power players. The second-annual ranking of the most influential people in the world of business represents 28 industries globally, including finance, tech, retail, and automotive.
This list measures power and influence, and though net worth is a factor, Fortune was much more concerned with a leader’s ability to shape the thoughts and actions of those around them. Taking the top spot is Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. Under Huang’s leadership, it recently became the first company ever to surpass a $4 trillion market cap, driven by surging demand for its AI chips. This milestone underscores NVIDIA’s pivotal role in the generative AI boom, transforming the global tech landscape and powering many of the other top tech companies whose CEOs appear on our list. Jensen’s company does face competition from established companies and startups, but none pose a serious threat to NVIDIA’s dominance—yet.
Going deeper
“Elon Musk retains title as the highest-paid CEO in history with $26 billion pay package—and the only thing he has to do is show up for two years” is a new Fortune report by Amanda Gerut.
From the report: “The Tesla board on Sunday approved an “interim award” of 96 million restricted shares for CEO Elon Musk. His original 2018 moonshot mega-grant, previously valued at $56 billion, has been tied up in Delaware courts for the past seven years after a judge rescindedthe pay package—twice. Since then, Tesla moved to Texas from Delaware, and the board adopted a bylaw requiring any investor who wants to challenge Musk’s pay to hold 3% of Tesla stock. The amount is equivalent to roughly $3 billion, helping inoculate Tesla against repeat challenges to Musk’s pay plan.”
Overheard
“If we could close the gap for nine major conditions, it would create 27 million years of healthy life per year—or about three extra healthy days every single year for every single woman on the planet.”
—Dr. Anita Zaidi, president of the Gender Equality Division at the Gates Foundation, writes in a Fortune opinion piece titled, “Why investing in women’s health is good for business.”
