Navan used the European edition of its Navigate26 event in Paris to underline its intent on the continent. The travel and expense specialist, founded more than a decade ago, now operates more than 20 offices across Europe — including Paris, London, Berlin and Lisbon — and employs over 2,000 people in the region out of a global workforce of about 4,000. On stage, Chief Customer Officer Michael Riegel, appearing alongside company president Michael Sindicich, traced the scale of the expansion. “In 2018 we had something like 23 customers in Europe. Fast forward 2026, we have more than 3,000 customers here in the region,” Riegel said.
The choice of Riegel, co-founder of Berlin-based travel management start-up Comtravo, acquired by Navan in 2022, felt natural to set out why the company has taken a different tack in Europe. Replicating a US playbook, he argued, was never going to work in a market with its own specificities. “AI is an important topic in the US. It’s a very important topic in Europe. The type of questions that are being discussed are often different. … here we have a lot more questions on like security, data privacy and which are very relevant topics,” Riegel said.
Rail is perhaps the clearest example of that divergence, both in its importance and in the complexity of cross-border journeys. Navan has been building partnerships with local players, not just in rail but across categories, to match those needs. “We are very happy to have now more than 150 suppliers headquartered here in Europe, right?” Riegel said. “So, really really localizing wherever needed and there’s more to come.”
Acquisitions and trust in local teams
In Europe, as in other markets such as India, Navan has leant heavily on local roots. “Navan wanted to go more deep into Europe and had a clear understanding that you cannot be successful in Europe if you’re not like willing to like deeply invest, deeply understand the market and so on,” Riegel recalled. “It was very good that Navan actually understood that hey France is different than Germany, Germany is different than maybe Spain and so on … we need to localize and we’re trusting the team locally to actually do it.”
That approach has extended to acquisitions. Long-time Reed & Mackay chief executive Fred Stratford, whose company joined Navan in 2021, and Giovanni Tiradritto, founder of Italian TMC Regent International acquired in 2024, have continued with the group, underlining Navan’s stated intent to keep expertise in place.
The message in Paris was one of adaptation and attentiveness: listening to users, through research and direct feedback, and responding to what each market requires. “We are willing to make changes. We are willing to adapt and that agility even though you know we went public last year … is very important to really in the end become the player that is like winning in this market,” Riegel said. “Our mission as I said is like making travel easy for every traveler and we are still far from that … then we need to continue to adapt.”
