{"id":229725,"date":"2026-09-28T10:54:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T08:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=229725"},"modified":"2026-09-28T10:54:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T08:54:49","slug":"interview-with-sandra-levy-from-navan-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/interview-sandra-levy-navan-france","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Sandra L\u00e9vy, Head of Travel Advisory and Community, Navan France"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does your new role as Head of Travel, Advisory and Community entail?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sandra L\u00e9vy \u2013 <\/strong>That\u2019s a good question! I spent twenty years in purchasing, eighteen of them at Metro, eight years in indirect purchasing, and I was a member of the board of directors of\u2019AFTM<\/a>. I am well aware of the challenges faced by travel buyers, travel managers, CFOs\u2026 The idea is to help companies, prospects, clients, or more broadly the ecosystem, including consultants and other suppliers in the sector, to modernize their business travel and meet their challenges. And to create a community, with these same people, to share best practices, advance the industry, and bring forward ideas for new features by listening to customers. I\u2019m a bit of a voice of the customer internally; I connect with the product teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this transition from the world of purchasing to that of TMC give you a different approach?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sandra L\u00e9vy \u2013 <\/strong>I fully understand the purchasing challenges, especially the issue of visibility over spending. This complicates negotiations with the providers. There is also often a lack of fluidity for the user and traveler experience, not to mention CSR and the duty of care. When I saw that Navan reconciled all of this on a single platform, I was impressed by this ability to disrupt the market: instead of building one tool and then another and trying to link them together, they created a unified technology from the outset, bringing together travel agency, booking management, payment, and expense reporting on a single platform. Navan also recently acquired BoomPop for the meetings & events management part. I followed them, and I am happy to be joining a position I can build myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You obviously subscribe to Navan\u2019s vision of AI.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sandra L\u00e9vy \u2013 <\/strong>Absolutely. It\u2019s already good that we talk more about AI than in the past, but we often stick to a chatbot concept, which is a bit of a marketing gimmick. At Navan, it\u2019s completely different: we talk about proactive AI, which anticipates rather than reacting to a prompt. For example, it can detect that a train is late and suggest changing a taxi accordingly. We will soon launch Travel Pro, an agent-based AI, a true personal assistant that accompanies the traveler on a daily basis. Another example: a traveler who has a flight at 4 p.m. and a taxi ordered at noon. The AI anticipates that it will rain, that traffic will intensify, and suggests moving the taxi half an hour early. If the person doesn\u2019t respond immediately, they are reconnected. It can also memorize habits, for example that the traveler likes to take a shower before taking off, and book access to the lounge accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this obsession with simplifying the traveler\u2019s life extend to the back-office as well?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sandra L\u00e9vy \u2013 <\/strong>Yes, to the travel manager, the buyer, the HR department for the duty of care, and the dashboards. In terms of purchasing, I was struck by the automated dashboards, available in real time: you have the details of travel spend immediately, which allows you to make decisions based on reliable and up-to-date data, rather than having to aggregate different dashboards, formats, and suppliers to sort through them yourself, which was the real work of the buyer on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology wasn\u2019t the weak point that was pointed out about Navan. Does AI solve everything? What role remains for the human being, and what about the takeover of Reed & Mackay?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sandra L\u00e9vy \u2013 <\/strong>This is a question we often get asked. Our virtual assistant, Ava, now resolves more than % 50 requests without needing to contact human support. That\u2019s already huge. When she can\u2019t, we switch to a human support channel by phone or chat: Navan employees with an average of seven years of experience in business travel, paid not by volume, margin, or additional sales, but by customer satisfaction. A virtuous model, therefore. This service is available 24\/7\/365 and included in the offer: you can call ten times, it\u2019s free. That sets us apart from other TMCs that charge for this service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t the ultimate goal to automate 90 to 100 jobs % through AI?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sandra L\u00e9vy \u2013 <\/strong>I think there will always be a need for humans to make certain decisions, especially problematic ones. There is a governance issue behind it. The travel manager\u2019s role is transforming: we are moving from a role focused on crisis management and improving administrative processes to a role that focuses on strategic decisions that serve the transformation of the company. The ROI of projects, the duty of care, CSR\u2026 It is becoming a complete and strategic profession. Some thought their job would disappear in two years; on the contrary, it is transforming and becoming more interesting. On the Reed & Mackay<\/a> We work in symbiosis with them; they manage our VIP clients through the Navan Premier offer, which is directly managed by their private advisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n