Balderton appoints product expert David Vismans as Executive In Residence

David Vismans has joined Balderton as an Executive In Residence (EIR), to provide product-focused support for Balderton’s portfolio companies. He will also help in areas including diligence, sourcing, best practice sharing and thought leadership. The news follows the appointments of Andrew Wigfall and Dave Kellogg as legal and marketing-focused EIRs respectively, as Balderton continues to build out its expert advisory team.

A leading authority in Europe, David has extensive experience in product development and strategy and spent years managing large, multidisciplinary product teams to deliver quality results to millions of users. He is an advisor to leading European startups and scale-ups, including Fiverr, Omio and Virtuo.

David previously spent over nine years as Chief Product Officer at Booking.com, overseeing global cross-platform product strategy for the company in its pursuits to pioneer innovations that enhance the consumer travel experience. David was also the driving force for Booking’s ‘Connected Trip’ strategy, introducing various new verticals, like flights, car rental and activities, to offer travellers a one-stop-shop solution for travel. Over two billion travellers were served by Booking.com during David’s tenure.

Before joining Booking.com, David spent four years in a number of senior positions with the Netherlands’ popular social media website, Hyves, including Head of Development, Chief Technical Officer and Director of Product Development. David also worked as a Software Development Manager with leading provider of GPS and navigation devices, TomTom.

Although he didn’t join Booking.com until 2012, David’s first contact with the company occurred a full decade earlier when he founded HotelXChange. This was a generic platform for the publication of SEO-optimised content over a network of 1,200 travel websites, where he operated as an affiliate partner of Booking.com.