Gennady Podolsky

Gennady Podolsky
Gennady Podolsky
	Gennady Podolsky
Born
💼 Occupation
🌐 Website	https://www.wired.com/2016/12/gennady-podolsky-travel-agent-profile/

Gennady Podolsky, world-renowned travel expert and managing partner for Vega International Travel Services, is an innovative problem-solver who specializes in helping travelers—no matter how complex their travel plans.

Fluent in five languages—Russian, English, Ukrainian, French, and Spanish—Gennady Podolksy wields an encyclopedic knowledge of air reservations and is known for problem-solving under pressure. From helping a client in Azerbaijan in 2002 flee the Russian mafia to helping reunite a family across the Atlantic, there are few travel problems too complex for Podolsky.

Gennady Podolsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and came to the United States in 1993 to study at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He opened his first travel agency shortly after. He and an IT-savvy friend created a proto-Expedia, with the real one following in 1996. Entrepreneur and problem-solver, Podolsky still relishes the challenge of getting clients the cheapest possible fares for the most complicated of trips.

In 2014, he helped seven chess teams from across Africa travel to Norway for a tournament, despite the fact that most African cities don’t offer direct flights to Norway. An added complication? None of the players possessed the visas needed for European airports, and few flights to Oslo depart from anywhere but Europe. Still, Podolsky managed to get everyone where they needed to be, securing the proper visas and the proper flights.

Gennady Podolsky works with people around the world, and understands cultural behaviors and mores, which help his clients cut red tape and get to their destinations—on time.

“Usually if there’s a solution, I’ll find it,” Podolsky told Wired magazine in 2016. “Transportation is the system of arteries that holds the world together. It’s just very exciting.”^[1]