Navan is a Finalist for Best Travel App at the
2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and it built its reputation on a heresy: corporate travel software that employees genuinely like. The platform fused booking, expense and payments into one consumer-grade experience — flights, hotels and trains bookable in minutes inside policy, expenses that file themselves from card swipes, and an AI assistant handling the changes and questions that once meant hold music. Adoption metrics inside client firms tell the story better than any demo — employees book in-policy because the in-policy route is genuinely the easiest one available. What began as a disruptor's pitch has matured into one of business travel's defining platforms. Growth has not blunted the product taste. Shipping velocity remains a company signature.
The product cadence stays aggressive. The launch of a
next-generation multi-city booking engine tackled the itineraries that break lesser tools — the multi-leg, multi-traveller trips that define real corporate roadshows — while automation now runs deep through approvals, reconciliation and reporting, giving finance teams live spend visibility instead of month-end archaeology. Travellers feel the philosophy in the details: loyalty numbers honoured, sensible inventory, and rebooking that happens in-app while competitors' users are still finding the agency phone number.
The strategic moves broaden the base. Folding the prestigious
Reed & Mackay operation into a unified brand and platform marries the software's self-serve speed with genuine high-touch service for VIP and complex travel — the combination corporates have long wanted from one supplier — and heavyweight aviation experience keeps joining the leadership bench. For UK firms, the pitch is complete cost-of-trip control in one system, from booking click to ledger line. Group and events booking, rail integration and card programmes keep absorbing adjacent budgets into the same pane of glass, which is precisely how platforms win: one more workflow, one fewer supplier, quarter after quarter, renewal after renewal.
The nomination recognises the company that dragged corporate travel tools into the consumer age and kept shipping once it got there. Winners will be announced at the 2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and Navan's users could book the trip, expense the tickets and close the ledger before the speeches finish.
