Persona
3 minute read

How Persona Streamlined Travel Management and Saved Time with Navan

Results

  • 13%

    travel savings ytd

  • 90%

    CSAT

  • 24 days

    from signing to launch

Region

NORAM: North America

Headquarters

San Francisco, CA

Industry

Tech

Products Used

  • Navan Business Travel

Persona, an identity infrastructure company headquartered in San Francisco, enables businesses to securely verify individuals' and businesses' identities through a customizable, automated platform. As the company grew, rapidly adding employees in new locations, managing travel became a complex challenge — and a significant time drain.

After partnering with Navan, however, Persona has centralized travel, saved valuable time, and gained real-time visibility into spend.

Before Navan: Manual, Time-Consuming, and Hard to Scale

Before adopting Navan, travel at Persona was a free-for-all. Employees booked their own flights and hotels on consumer travel websites and submitted expense reports after the fact — a process that offered no consistency, visibility, or control.

When Persona was smaller, Dale Lynch — Persona’s senior accounting manager who oversees financial reporting, month-end close, and spend management — often helped employees book their trips. “Travel was an extremely manual process,” said Lynch. “We hit a breaking point once the company hit about 150 people; we knew we needed a scalable solution.”

Lynch’s workload spiked during quarterly offsites at Persona’s San Francisco headquarters, when he was responsible for booking travel for everyone —employees from the company’s New York office as well as remote employees. “I would have to set a stipend amount for flights and accommodation, and figure out where people were coming from,” said Lynch. 

One of the most valuable things about Navan was how easy it was to launch. Once we were ready, the whole thing was set up in just a couple of weeks. It didn’t take much hand-holding.

Dale Lynch

Senior Accounting Manager

Why Navan: Cost Savings, Ease of Use, and Positive Employee Feedback

Persona looked for a travel solution that would help them save time, streamline workflows, and deliver a user-friendly booking experience for both travelers and the finance team. The company was drawn to Navan’s intuitive interface, built-in policy controls, and quick implementation.

“One of the most valuable things about Navan was how easy it was to launch,” said Lynch. “Once we were ready, the whole thing was set up in just a couple of weeks. It didn’t take much hand-holding.”

The rollout was smooth, and feedback was overwhelmingly positive. “Employees appreciated that they could book their flight on Navan and then stay in the same tool to book their hotel — everything is centralized,” said Lynch. “And people were happy they didn’t have to front their own money for bookings.”

With Navan, the policies are built in and customized, so we can can confidently have employees book within budget and not have to chase them down.

Dale Lynch

Senior Accounting Manager

Results with Navan: Time Savings, Cost Control, and Real-Time Visibility

Since launching Navan, Persona has seen major improvements in efficiency, employee experience, and visibility.

Navan has cut travel planning time by up to 10 hours per offsite, freeing up Lynch and others to focus on higher-impact tasks. “What used to take me hours now takes five minutes,” he said. 

Navan’s built-in guardrails have also made it easier for employees to stay within policy and keep bookings in line with budget. “People would book out of policy, and by the time I knew, they’d already spent the money,” said Lynch. “With Navan, the policies are built in and customized, so we can confidently have employees book within budget and not have to chase them down.” These controls have driven measurable cost savings — more than 13% year to date. And Lynch now has the ability to report to leadership trends on overall travel spend, destinations, and customer visits. Navan also provides real-time booking and transaction reports, plus monthly spend summaries.

Navan’s customer support has exceeded expectations. “We’ve had very good interactions with support,” said Lynch. “Our reps are extremely communicative — if there’s an issue, they respond in a timely manner and always follow up with a resolution. You don’t have to chase them down. That’s rare.” Persona’s employees have also had consistently positive experiences, reflected in a 4.5/5 CSAT score.

If I met someone who wasn’t leveraging Navan for their travel program, I’d tell them they could be saving a lot more time and money.

Dale Lynch

Senior Accounting Manager

Looking Ahead: Scaling with Growth

Persona is experiencing rapid organic growth, which means more employees and more travel. The company plans to use Navan to support additional offsites, conferences, and customer visits, and is exploring new travel policies for its European employees, including train travel.

“If I met someone who wasn’t leveraging Navan for their travel program,” said Lynch, I’d tell them Navan would give them better control over their travel spend — and that they could be saving a lot of time and money.”

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