Sabre accelerates technology evolution with key leadership appointment and new development facility

Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), the leading technology provider to the global travel industry, is executing a comprehensive strategy to evolve its technology foundation and advance product development capabilities.

This week Sabre has reached two crucial milestones in this journey – the opening of the technology company’s new development centre location in Krakow, and the appointment of technology veteran Sebastian Drzewieckit to lead the team. The new facility will be housed in one of the city’s most progressive office buildings, providing a cutting-edge environment to further improve Sabre’s development capabilities.

Sabre started charting a new course with the appointment of Sean Menke as president and CEO in December 2016. Since then, one of the key objectives has been to further improve Sabre's development capabilities leveraging agile development methods, which has been a core responsibility of Louis Selincourt, senior vice president, global development centers, since joining in July 2018.

The company has made significant progress on its technology evolution, realizing tangible benefits in stability, security, flexibility and efficiency. The technology provider now has more than 90% of its compute processing power in open systems and over 50% of total compute processing power in the cloud.

Leveraging cutting-edge opensource technology, Sabre is also building a next-generation platform that is intended to increase the company’s speed-to-market through tools and automation that streamline and accelerate how applications are developed, tested, deployed and run. Seven applications, including the upcoming NDC Offer and Order capabilities, are now live on the new platform and deployed in the public cloud.

Products scheduled for release this year include NDC-enabled solutions and Content Services for Lodging, an industry-first technology solution that integrates multi-source, multi-representation of GDS, aggregator, and agency-sourced hotel content into the Sabre GDS.

New leadership for Sabre’s global development center in Krakow

To lead the continued enhancement of its development and innovation capabilities in Poland, Sabre has appointed Sebastian Drzewiecki as vice president and managing director of the company’s global development center in Krakow. Reporting to Louis Selincourt, senior vice president, global development centers, Drzewiecki will be responsible for managing site operations, attracting new talent and enhancing product quality and development efficiency.

Drzewiecki is a seasoned technology expert with more than 20 years’ experience in the area of technology and IT. He joined Sabre from pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, where he led 1,500 employees in Poland, Malaysia and Costa Rica and helped innovate and mature the company’s IT business service center operation. Prior to that, Drzewiecki led business intelligence and consumer services for Hewlett-Packard in Poland.

“Sebastian combines deep technology expertise with relevant experience at some of the leading companies in Poland’s thriving high-tech sector,” said Selincourt. “He’s an engaging communicator and a business-savvy leader, and I am confident that he will contribute to decisively transforming our development ecosystem and positioning our team in Krakow for continued success.”

Sabre to move to a new office location by the end of 2019

One of Drzewiecki’s initial areas of focus will be building a world-class campus culture and increasing operational efficiency. As part of this process, he will manage the development center’s move into the state-of-the-art, environmentally conscious Tischnera building, one of Krakow’s most exciting architectural projects. Construction on the building is scheduled for completion in August, and Sabre aims to take possession by the end of the year. The new office will not only accommodate a larger number of employees but also will provide an environment that supports accelerated innovation. Employees will have an area of over 15 thousand square meters and four green terraces with a total area of 1400 square meters.

“It’s fantastic to kick off my time at Sabre with such an exciting initiative that will further improve our team’s work environment and set us up to deliver innovative products to our global customer base,” said Drzewiecki. “Sabre is undergoing a remarkable evolution and I am looking forward to helping my team deliver the next generation of solutions for customers and partners throughout the travel ecosystem.”