🚫 OTAs Suck ✅ Building a Book Direct, Decentralized, Open-OTA ➜ 🚀 Operators Get Direct Bookings ✈️ Travelers Get Rewards for Booking Direct 💰 Anyone Who Refers Travelers Owns Them & the Revenue Stream They Generate.

🐥 I'm a startup founder, launching a direct booking travel platform for the AI agent era.

Why? Today, Online Travel Agent (OTA) commissions are draining 10's of billions of dollars out of the travel ecosystem. They enrich "Big Tech" and "Big Travel", at the expense of everyone else. I know because I helped them do it. For years I was a super-affiliate of Expedia and other big OTAs. I fed $100m+ in hotel bookings to the OTAs, generating $10m in commissions, but adding little of value to the ecosystem.

Now, I'm building a new travel distribution platform and protocol that enables travelers and their AI agents to bypass the OTA middlemen and book direct.

👇 Want to be notified when we launch? Leave a comment in the featured post below titled "AI-powered community", or reach out and connect! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Previously...

🐣 I co-founded a venture studio. We launched 3 notable ventures:
 
1️⃣ 3Genius International. Network of travel booking websites. $100M+ in bookings and $10M+ in gross profit.

2️⃣ Moola.com. Multiplayer game. Grew virally to 450k community members, $7.6M economy. PCWorld's “Best Places to Waste Time on the Web”.
 
3️⃣ Locationary. Local data and community platform. Rewarded users for crowdsourcing local business data (eg. like for Apple Maps). $4.5M in funding. Acquired by Apple.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🧠 Current Interests: AI, community, machine learning, travel, fintech, loyalty rewards, web3 / tokens / blockchain, creator & influencer economy, social commerce, marketplaces, network effects.

Arlen Ritchie

Jonathan Brill

Center for Radical Change

HBR called Brill, "The world's foremost transformation architect." He works with leaders and boards of startups, governments and the Fortune 50 to spot, create and take advantage of radical change.

EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, Head of Strategic Innovation and Decision Science

100+ KEYNOTES, 20+ COUNTRIES. Let's change some lives at your event.

KEYNOTE — STRATEGIC LUCK
1 MILLION+ VIEWS, on HBR China. Luck is a science-based skill. It isn't fate and you rarely make your own. In less than an hour, your audience will discover how to have more joy, success with greater ease and less effort — No matter how lucky they are.

KEYNOTE — RADICAL CHANGE IS RADICAL OPPORTUNITY — if you’re prepared. In this talk, you'll master the emotional and business resilience to INNOVATE YOUR BEST FUTURE!

KEYNOTE — WHAT YOUR CHILDREN NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TOMORROW
The ten changes that will shape your children's future and the skills they need to thrive in them. This positive and personal talk is based on a $15 million dollar study Brill led for HP and a popular article he wrote with career expert Dorie Clark.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Author, ROGUE WAVES: FUTURE-PROOF YOUR BUSINESS to SURVIVE and PROFIT from RADICAL CHANGE (McGraw-Hill, Citic). #2 Economics book in China. Barron’s Book List, Spring 2022.

AUTHOR and JOURNALIST

Singularity University

Provide thought leadership and coaching on the impact of automation on organizational design and business models at senior executive retreat and global conferences.

Adjunct Faculty

Territory Studio

We invent future worlds for Hollywood films, like: Ghost in the Machine, Ready Player One, Blade Runner 2049 and Ex Machina. We also design visionary products and experiences for real world companies, like Cadillac, Intel and Microsoft using rigorous social, economic and technology research.

Futurist In Residence

Frost & Sullivan

Advise one of the world’s largest growth strategy firms on business model innovation and digital transformation.

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, they have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community.

Frost & Sullivan supports clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices.

Board Advisor and Fellow

Keynote Speaker

The Lavin Agency

Professional Speaker

Direct research that defines HP's longterm investment strategy. Topics cross socio-economics, demographics, technology and geopolitics.

Advise global leadership on development of new growth opportunities and functional strategy: vision, choice points and road mapping for products, go-to-market, locations, workforce and operations.

Lead HP Pioneers, the global executive team that coordinates long term planning and vision across the company.

Develop HP Megatrends annual report.

Present thought leadership content to C-Level internal and external clients.

Deliver keynotes at global conferences and educational institutions, like Singularity, Mobile World Congress, TED Women, Harvard and MIT.

Speaking subjects including: Megatrends, AI and Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, 3D Print, Next Gen Devices, Future of GTM, Future of Work, Smart Cities and Biotech in Manufacturing.

Global Futurist and Research Director, HP TechVision and Megatrends

Special Projects Agency

Special Projects Agency helps clients understand, articulate and prototype the future.

www.specialprojectsagency.com

I lead B2B, B2C and B2G clients through the identification, planning and prototyping of physical, digital and architectural experiences.

Deliverables typically include a combination of scenario planning, product planning and experience prototyping. In many cases we assemble and manage special projects teams to bring the key insights to market.

The outputs of this work have included 28,000 SF of exhibits at the most recent World's Fair. Smart kitchen appliances. Corporate venture strategy. Hardware and Software prototypes.

Clients Include:
- United States Government
- Samsung
- Verizon
- T-Mobile
- Simplygon

Cofounder

CCD Innovation

Partner in food innovation consultancy that has developed over $27 Billion of new products.

Doubled sales in 6 months when acting as interim CEO.

Chief Executive Officer/Partner

Frog Design

My areas of focus are: Interactive places. Smart objects. Networked life. Gestural interfaces.

At frog, I am lucky to work with some of the most passionate artists, engineers, strategists and qualitative researchers on the planet.

We help clients find and execute new opportunities that blend interactivity, industrial design and built environments.

Every day, I wake up excited to explore the new businesses and human experiences that are possible as our digital lives merge with the physical world.

Creative Director

#1 Ranked Futurist in the World by Forbes and "The world’s leading transformation architect," according to Harvard Business Review, Jonathan Brill helps audiences and executives spot, drive, and invent What Happens Next.™ Jonathan not only details a provocative case for why the world is changing but also what you can do about it, and how to take meaningful action.

An Inventor, best-selling author, and renowned keynote speaker, Jonathan draws upon his unique experiences as Global Futurist at HP, Board Advisor for Frost & Sullivan, Senior Fellow at the HBR China New Growth Institute, and Invention Consultant for numerous Fortune 50 companies and the US Government, to help global leaders future-proof their businesses.

AI Advisor and enthusiast, Jonathan has made numerous contributions to the field including collaborating on Microsoft's early touch computing interfaces and machine learning, advising Samsung on AI investment priorities, and his work with Frost & Sullivan on the use of AI and other technologies to enhance data analysis and decision-making processes.

His book, "Rogue Waves," offers a provocative perspective on how the collision of technology innovation, geopolitical, economic and societal trends will dramatically transform countries, cultures, and industries, and has become standard reading in the risk management field.

Jonathan shares his insights on global stages, in board rooms, with media brands like ABC, CNBC, Forbes, SXSW, and TED, at institutions like Harvard and Stanford, and with numerous companies including SAP, KPMG, Amgen, JP Morgan, and Microsoft.

Glad to be in such good company! Thanks Derek Sweeney

Business Futurist | AI Keynote Speaker | Executive Chairman @ Center for Radical Change

Director, The Sweeney Agency Speakers Bureau | Finding the Right Keynote Speaker for your Event | Live & Virtual Events

Stop paying for the name. Start paying for the impact. 

I’ve seen it happen dozens of times: A company drops $75k+ on a "celebrity" keynote speaker for their executive retreat.

The speaker tells some great stories, everyone claps, and by Monday morning, exactly zero things have changed.

In 2026, C-Suite leaders don't need "inspiration" from a name they recognize—they need intellectual horsepower they can use.

The best-kept secret in the events industry? There is a tier of "undervalued" speakers who are delivering 10x the ROI of the A-list circuit for 25% lower fees. These are the practitioners, the geopolitical experts, the AI architects, and the culture tacticians, who bring a toolkit, not just a teleprompter.

I’ve curated a list of 10 powerhouse speakers who are currently "underpriced" for the massive value they bring to a boardroom:

Sara Ross
Richard Newman
Jacob L. S. Shapiro
Kris Boesch
Dr. Jasmin Bergeron, CSP, MBA, Ph.D. 
Adam Smiley Poswolsky
Mike Robbins, CSP
Penny Zenker - The Focusologist
Jonathan Brill
Scott Steinberg

High-stakes events deserve more than a famous face. They deserve a strategic catalyst.

Check out the full breakdown of why these 10 are the smartest "Value Play" for your 2026 meetings & events via the link in the comments below.

https://lnkd.in/gvwk2Yjf

#KeynoteSpeaker #CSuite #LeadershipDevelopment #EventPlanning #ROI #FutureOfWork

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Jonathan Brill

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The Battle

Arlen Ritchie

Jonathan Brill

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jonathan Brill's LinkedIn Performance

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