The co-founder of Rentalcars.com has joined Manchester-based event and ticketing platform TickX as chairman to help drive the company’s global ambitions.
As co-founder and chief marketing officer, Laurence Marlor helped grow Rentalcars.com from its Manchester HQ into a global online car rental retailer, offering cars in more than 60,000 locations, before being acquired by Booking Holdings, which also owns booking.com, agoda.com and OpenTable, in 2010.
Following his success with Rentalcars.com, Laurence then became a non-executive director at Goldcar, supporting the B2C development and contributing to its acquisition by Europcar for over £500m.
He is also a non-executive director at Sykes Cottages, which was acquired last week by Skyscanner and JustEat backer Vitruvian Partners.
Founded in 2015 by Steve Pearce and Sam Coley, TickX simplifies the process of finding and buying tickets by comparing over 100 ticket selling platforms, including Ticketmaster, Skiddle and Eventbrite.
Laurence will guide the TickX team to become the ‘the global go-to destination to discover and buy entertainment tickets.’
Laurence said: “TickX represents an amazing opportunity for me to work with Steve, Sam and their very talented team to help them fulfil their vision to be the premier global platform for entertainment tickets.”
Last year, TickX received investment of £3m from venture capital firms BGF Ventures and 24Haymarket.
The TickX team has grown considerably over the past 12 months.
TickX’s service has expanded to offer millions of tickets to gigs, theatre, comedy, festivals, cinema and much more, giving users a selection of experiences to discover and highlighting the best ticket options for almost anything on sale, all in one place.
The company is now poised to develop its global customer acquisition strategy from its Spinningfields HQ.
Steve Pearce, TickX CEO, said: “We are delighted to welcome Laurence as our new chairman. His vast experience building some of the world’s largest consumer-facing
brands in the travel industry will be invaluable as we step up our international growth.
“The travel market shares a lot of characteristics with our industry, so Laurence’s expertise and guidance gives us a significant boost as we drive towards becoming the global go-to destination to search and book entertainment tickets.”
