Anya Babbitt

Founder and CEO

SPLT

Anya Babbitt is the Founder and CEO of Splitting Fares, Inc. (“SPLT”), an enterprise ridesharing platform changing the way people commute together. Ms. Babbitt is a marketing and brand strategist dedicated to fresh insights, authentic messaging and measurable results in sustainability. An experienced entrepreneur, Ms. Babbitt has founded and grown three successful companies and exited one. Ms. Babbitt is not your typical entrepreneur. Number one, she is a woman in a tech start-up, number two, she is the CEO and number three she is working in an area (transportation) that is dominated by men. Ms. Babbitt, however, is not concerned about the gender inequality or the odds of success–she is laser-focused on changing the way people meet and move in urban environments.

Ms. Babbitt has guided SPLT from a small startup in NYC to being chosen for Techstars Mobility 2015 driven by Detroit. Her professional experience spans over 15 years working in the advertising, corporate communications, marketing, product design and sales sector primarily in Boston and New York City, including several years engaged in corporate brand development for multiple brands in domestic and worldwide locations. As a marketing entrepreneur, Ms. Babbitt has successfully provided marketing strategies to such notable institutions and luxury brands as WilmerHale (formerly Hale & Dorr), Trilogy Capital Partners, the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF), Vicomte A., Hermes, Cartier, Bombardier, Fraser Yachts, L’Oreal, Maybach, the Vicente Fox Center of Studies, Library and Museum, Citizens Energy Corporation and the international and domestic Polo Clubs Association. She has led large teams of individuals working under tight deadlines and with large committed budgets. Her ability to plan ahead and execute under pressure allowed her to excel within the closely tied luxury goods market creating clients out of partnership opportunities. Throughout her career, she has been engaged in testing the connection between purpose driven leadership and competitive bottom line performance. As a result, her teams have consistently outperformed peers in both growth and profitability. Since 2014, she has devoted her full attention to the emerging field of social and environmental sustainability, launching SPLT.

After having migrated from the institutional marketing arena into the travel business, Ms. Babbitt focused on special interest travel servicing groups of solo travelers to far-flung destinations and on educational pursuits. An example of a proposal included a tour of select European capitals and their judicial bodies, i.e. a private tour of Parliament in Rome as hosted by Berlusconi’s former speech writer/seasoned journalist and a panel of political leaders. Ms. Babbitt worked with partner destinations to create bespoke packages and unforgettable experiences for clients, mostly those traveling solo who wished to connect with like-minded individuals. Her uncanny ability to fuse curated packages with strategic partners while forming travel matches/groups, lends credibility to her continued pursuit of connecting individuals in the shared economy.

Congruent with her marketing and travel company, she co-founded a real estate business that after growing 20 fold in a 2.5 year period, she recently sold to her partner in order to continue her shared economy focus full-time on SPLT. Passionate about social responsibility, ecological awareness and systems thinking, she wrote her college thesis on the Kyoto treaty and the reduction of carbon emissions. While pursuing advanced studies in Economics at Boston University, she accepted a position at Citizens Energy Corporation (founded by Joseph P. Kennedy II), a non-profit company whose commercial subsidiaries support a wide array of social and charitable programs to help the poor and elderly in the United States and throughout the world. Under the tutelage of the marketing director and VP of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Babbitt realized early on in her career the importance of social impact for both non-profit and for-profit ventures. This idea of doing good, not just doing well intrigued her. She believes business has the power to lead and create change toward a sustainable future and is dedicated to inspiring others to “see the world differently.” Her involvement in Nexus Youth Summit, a global movement of young people from 70 countries working to increase and improve philanthropy and impact investing by bridging communities of wealth and social entrepreneurship, further explores her passion for social impact, philanthropy, and businesses that address sustainability. In addition to SPLT, Ms. Babbitt is also in the process of developing a foundation in which a portion of her latest business ventures proceeds will go towards funding women who wish to establish their own businesses in the category of social impact.

It was after intensely studying the urban landscape through the lens of real estate and deal acquisition that Ms. Babbitt realized that there has to be a better way to move about the city; in fact, there needs to be a better way. Her desire to foster social change led to her current passion of developing the latest in commuter ridesharing apps, helping people not only save money but, improving our environmental footprint as well. These goals are only attainable with a focus on research and development within the transportation industry. Her forte is in building an exceptional team and in her goal to foster partnerships with organizations and individuals to further the research of this issue.