# David Chait

> David Chait is the co-founder and CEO of Travefy, the itinerary, proposal and client-management platform that thousands of travel advisors use to make their trips look as good as they feel. He started it in 2012 to untangle a friend's bachelor party booked across 75 emails, pivoted the whole company to serve travel professionals in 2016, and built it into one of the quiet workhorses of the travel-advisor economy from an office in Lincoln, Nebraska. A former McKinsey consultant and Obama-era SBA policy advisor with two Columbia degrees, he is now an industry advocate, vice chair of The Travel Institute board, and ASTA's 2017 Entrepreneur of the Year.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Travefy
- **Organizations:** Travefy, The Travel Institute, McKinsey & Company, U.S. Small Business Administration
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.A. Economics-Political Science (magna cum laude), Columbia College, Columbia University, MBA (Dean's Honors), Columbia Business School
- **Known for:** Co-founded and scaled Travefy into a widely used itinerary, proposal and client-management platform for travel advisors, ASTA Entrepreneur of the Year, 2017, PhoCusWright '35 Under 35 in Travel', 2014

## Career timeline

- **pre-2010** — Management consultant at McKinsey & Company, New York office, advising Fortune 500 companies, governments and nonprofits
- **2010-2012** — Senior Policy Advisor to the Administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration, working on small-business economics, credit and trade in the Obama Administration
- **2012** — Co-founded Travefy as a consumer tool for coordinating group trip planning and shared expenses
- **2014** — Named to PhoCusWright's '35 Under 35 in Travel'
- **2016** — Pivoted Travefy from a consumer app to B2B SaaS for travel advisors
- **2017** — Named Entrepreneur of the Year by the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA)
- **2024** — Joined The Travel Institute Board of Directors
- **2025** — Appointed Vice Chair of The Travel Institute Board of Directors

## Achievements

- Co-founded and scaled Travefy into a widely used itinerary, proposal and client-management platform for travel advisors
- ASTA Entrepreneur of the Year, 2017
- PhoCusWright '35 Under 35 in Travel', 2014
- Vice Chair, Board of Directors, The Travel Institute
- Regular contributor to Entrepreneur
- Raised roughly $4.1M in total funding to build the company

## Latest updates

- **2025** — Appointed Vice Chair of The Travel Institute Board of Directors
- **2024** — Joined The Travel Institute Board of Directors and continued positioning Travefy around AI-assisted itinerary and proposal tools

## Links

- Website: https://travefy.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dchait
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/travefy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Travefy

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/david-chait
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-04