Sabina Chopra: Co-founder & COO of Yatra

Megha Rani

Apr 3, 2021 — 6 min read

Sabina Chopra is an Indian entrepreneur, who co-founded Yatra Online, Private Limited and serves as its Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Corporate Hotels. Prior to that, she served as an Executive Vice President of Operations at the company. She has 25 notable years of work experience in the Travel BPO sector and shares an astounding network within the travel community. She was appointed to the RCI India, where she escorted strategic priorities for the growth of the Indian travel market. She is an active Philanthropist and supports the "girl child" through NGOs. As of 2016, she has an estimated net worth of Rs. 263 crores.

Sabina Chopra-Biography

Name	Sabina Chopra
Born	Delhi, India
Current city	Bangalore, India
Nationality	Indian
Education	University of Delhi
Profession	Entrepreneur
Position	Co-founder & COO, Yatra
Net worth	Rs. 263 crores (2016)
Marital Status	Married
Spouse	Aadesh Chopra
Daughters	2

Sabina Chopra- Personal Life
Sabina Chopra- Education
Sabina Chopra- Professional Life
Sabina Chopra- Co-founder & COO of Yatra
Sabina Chopra- Business Idea
Sabina Chopra- Challenges
Sabina Chopra- Honors & Awards

Sabina Chopra- Personal Life

Sabina was born and brought up in Delhi, India. She loves to go for a walk and spend time with nature. She likes to play music and is a graceful dancer as well. She has multiple talents and is an inspiration for many aspiring entrepreneurs.

Sabina Chopra- Education

Before co-founding Yatra.com, Chopra headed India based Operations of ebookers, an online travel company based in Europe. She completed her education at the University of Delhi. She took up a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Sabina Chopra- Professional Life

Sabina Chopra Entrepreneur

Sabina started her professional career as a Supervisor/ Manager at Japan Airlines in 1991. She examined airport operations, ticketing, reservations and sales. She served at Japan Airlines for ten years and left the job in 2001. She has handled operations at Air Canada as well.

She then joined one of the leading European travel agency firm, ebookers (Mr Jet). She worked as the Head of Sales of the Indian counterpart of ebooks for three years and left the job in 2004. She started working at Rac Business Solutions (Aviva Plc) and headed the operations at the company.

In 2005, she joined a company called Hewitt Associates, which provides financial services owing to risk, retirement and health solutions. She soon left the job to establish her startup Yatra Online Private Limited in January 2006.

She also served as the Managing Director at Wyndham Destinations, which is the world's largest vacation club and exchange firm. She worked there for about three years, from March 2017 to July 2019.

Sabina Chopra- Co-founder & COO of Yatra

Sabina is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of corporate hotels at Yatra Online Inc. She examines several operations of the company. Under her leadership, the company experienced a substantial growth with 370 billion travel-related online market in April 2012.

Yatra Online Inc. is an Indian company which offers online travel agency services. It is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, India. It enables its users to book airline, railway and bus tickets online as well as car and hotel accommodations for customers.

Yatra is today one of the largest online travel-related websites in India. The company has received funding from Reliance Venture, Web18 and Intel Capital.

Sabina Chopra- Business Idea

After working for a bundle of travel companies, she knew how the operations worked there. She thus decided to establish her own travel agency. Accordingly, she co-founded Yatra.com with Dhruv Shringi, Manish Amin and launched it in 2006.

They aimed at availing services required for travelling be it, residential hotels, booking tickets, etc. Initially, she worked as the Executive Vice President of Operations at Yatra and later she sat on the position of COO. Some creative ideas like, "holiday-cum-shopping card" in association with the State Bank of India, developed more buzz and customer interests.

Sabina Chopra- Challenges

There was a time when Sabina had to take a break to support her family as the woman of the house. In spite of various challenges, she believed that she should never give up on circumstances rather learnt to fight and face them. She eventually returned back to start from where she had left. And today, people see Sabina as a wonder woman of all times.

While establishing her travel agency, there was a lack of facilities as the market was not ready for her online portal as people were using the offline model since a long time. She and her team struggled to face the rejection of their online model from the airlines and the hotels. They had to make the website lighter as broadband penetration in India was burgeoning.

Sabina Chopra- Honors & Awards

She was bestowed with Women Leader in Travel and Tourism (January 2010)
World Women Congress gave her Women in Leadership Excellence Award (January 2014)
Corporate Dossier- Spencer Stuart, Economic Times conferred her with India Inc's Rising Women Leaders (January 2015)
Financial Express named her in Ecom Startup Angels (January 2015)
Iamwire named her among 10 notable women in the Indian Ecommerce Ecosystem (January 2015)
She was named in LinkedIn Power Profile 2015. She was featured among the 10 most viewed profiles in India in the Internet Industry among 20 million plus users.
She was the Winner 2016 of She the People (October 2016)
She received Women Leadership Award for Excellence in Hospitality & Tourism Sector 2016 from Femina World Women Leadership Awards (February 2017)
She received Women of the Decade in the category of Innovation & Enterprise (April 2017)

FAQs

Who is the owner of Yatra com?

Dhruv Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra

How does yatra com make money?

There is a prospect of making good money with increasing demand for flight tickets. For domestic hotel bookings, your commission is based on the value of the bookings.

Does Yatra charge convenience fee?

The convenience fee for booking tickets through Online Travel Agents like Cleartrip, Yatra and MakeMyTrip has gone up significantly: MakeMytrip, Yatra and Cleartrip are each charging Rs 125 as a 'convenience fee'.