Washington-based Flexcar announced Monday that it has added a chief technology officer/vice president of strategy position to its executive management team. The brand-new position is part of the continued shake-up at the company, which has been in transition since summer 2005, when Revolution LLC, the Washington-based investment firm owned by AOL co-founder Steve Case, acquired a controlling interest in Flexcar.
Flexcar is a car-sharing company that rents vehicles by the hour. Customers reserve cars online, then pick and return them to centrally located spots. Locally, there are about 200 locations in the Washington area, including at several Metrorail stops.
Luke Schneider, formally of the Malvern, Pa.-based company Verticalnet, was tapped for the new CTO job. Schneider, who has more than 15 years of experience in product and technology management, is charged with bringing Flexcar’s technology platform to the next level, said John Williams, a spokesman for the company.
The company is looking to integrate technology more efficiently into its business model in order to make the car-sharing process more efficient and user-friendly for its clients.
“We don’t believe that car sharing will look the way it does today in the coming months and years. … There’s a lot of innovations still in play,” Williams said.
“When you look at the magnitude of the acquisition by Steve Case and his roots in technology and his success in building businesses, I’d call [the addition of a CTO] evolutionary.”
Case founded Revolution in August 2005 and moved Flexcar executives from Seattle to D.C. Most recently, Flexcar hired J.J. Millard as the firm’s vice president and chief financial officer in October 2005.
The Washington area has the second most popular car-sharing market in the country.
