The business travel industry in 2021 felt like it collectively was feeling around in the dark for the light switch, past the bleakest days of 2020's despair but still far from a return to any real kind of normalcy. BTN's annual list of the most influential executives in business travel of the past 12 months reflects these efforts to manage the Covid-19 pandemic and travel's halting, tentative recovery. The efforts of government and business leaders to balance public health and safety with the desire to return to something approaching a 2019 footing are reflected, as are those surrounding the distribution and deployment of the Covid-19 vaccines. But other topics made news this year too, and this list details the execs behind the biggest mergers and expansions of 2021 as well.