Cleartrip: Rebuilding Growth Across a Travel Portfolio
Reworked product investment and commercial strategy across consumer and business travel lines.
Anuj Rathi
Co-founder and CEO, profound.me
From their time as
Chief business and growth officer
Cleartrip • Jun 2024 – Jun 2025
Overview
Anuj led growth across Cleartrip's portfolio while materially reducing the company's annual cost base. Within a year, daily hotel room nights more than doubled.
The Story
Anuj joined Cleartrip with a broad transformation mandate across flights, hotels, buses, trains, packages, corporate travel, travel agents, and API businesses. Flights represented most of the portfolio, while hotels and newer lines offered meaningful growth headroom.
He increased investment in the core product and reviewed each line through its own market and economic logic. The portfolio strategy combined shared product improvement with distinct commercial moves for each business.
For hotels, he expanded direct relationships to improve inventory understanding and create stronger commercial partnerships. For buses, he initiated a pass experiment that tested a membership model.
He diversified the corporate business beyond its concentration in the Flipkart group, building substantial monthly corporate volume. He also shifted the travel-agent strategy from a small set of large aggregators toward a broader long tail across India.
Ownership Snapshot
Broad role
Chief business and growth officer across Cleartrip's consumer and business travel portfolio.
Goal
Grow the core travel business while reducing its cost base.
Direct ownership
Owned growth strategy across flights, hotels, ground transport, corporates, and travel agents.
Team execution
Worked across product, commercial, marketing, and operating teams to execute each business-line plan.
Topics
- Business Transformation
- Travel Marketplace
- Portfolio Strategy
- Cost Restructuring
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