Travis VanderZanden (born 1979) is an American businessman and the founder and current CEO of

Bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

, a scooter sharing service. Before founding Bird, VanderZanden was Chief Operating Officer at

Lyft Lyft, Inc. offers mobility as a service, ride-hailing, vehicles for hire, motorized scooters, a bicycle-sharing system, rental cars, and food delivery in the United States and select cities in Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a ...

, then VP of International Growth at

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery ( Uber Eats and Postmates), pack ...

Education

VanderZanden graduated from

Appleton North High School Appleton North High School is a comprehensive secondary school in Appleton, Wisconsin that is part of the Appleton Area School District. Opened in August 1995, it is the most recently built of the three four-year public high schools in the di ...

in 1997, he later attended

University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire The University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire (UW–Eau Claire, UWEC or simply Eau Claire) is a public university in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It is part of the University of Wisconsin System and offers Bachelor's degree, bachelor's and Master's degree, ...

from 1997 to 2002, receiving a

Bachelor of Business Administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanc ...

. He earned a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accou ...

from the

USC Marshall School of Business The USC Marshall School of Business is the business school of the University of Southern California. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In 1997 the school was renamed following a $35 million donation fr ...

in 2007.

Career

Early career

VanderZanden worked as a product manager at Qualcomm. After leaving Qualcomm, he was Chief Revenue Officer for

Yammer Yammer () is an enterprise social networking service that is part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. It is used mainly for private communication within organizations but is also used for networks spanning various organizations. Access to a ...

from 2009 to 2011, then left to co-found Cherry, an on-demand car-wash service. He was CEO of Cherry until 2013, when the company was acquired by Lyft, and he was brought on as Chief Operating Officer. He left Lyft for Uber in October 2014. Lyft later sued him for allegedly breaking his confidentiality agreement, and the lawsuit was settled for undisclosed terms, with VanderZanden denying any wrongdoing. VanderZanden then left Uber in October 2016.

Bird

VanderZanden founded

in the summer of 2017. The company deployed its first scooters that September, before raising a $15 million

Series A round A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exc ...

of financing in February, 2018. In October of 2018, Bird released its latest edition of the scooter, Bird Zero, which was designed and built in partnership with Okai. As of 2019, the company is now in 120 cities across the globe. The company is valued at $2 billion and has taken in $415 million in funding. To date, Bird has provided more than 10 million rides. The company currently receives $1.27 on every Bird ride taken, which is inclusive of all costs. VanderZanden was a speaker at TechCrunch's Disrupt SF in October 2019. During the COVID-19 mass layoff of Bird employees, VanderZanden was criticized for not informing employees in person about their dismissal, rather, delegating the task to the company's Chief Communications Officer.

Personal life

In 2020, VanderZanden purchased a home in Bel Air formerly owned by

Trevor Noah Trevor Noah (born 20 February 1984) is a South African-born comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and former television host. He was the host of ''The Daily Show'', an American late-night talk show and satirical news progra ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:VanderZanden, Travis Living people Marshall School of Business alumni University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire alumni 21st-century American businesspeople American technology chief executives American technology company founders American transportation businesspeople Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area 1979 births People from Appleton, Wisconsin