Chris Mottershead is to take back leadership of Thomas Cook’s UK business as Ingo Burmester, who took the role earlier this year, departs for Kuoni parent DER Touristik.
Mottershead joined Thomas Cook from Tui in 2015 and moved to a group-wide role of chief of product and operations in April. He will continue that role as well.
Resuming his former role with immediate effect, Mottershead will be tasked with increasing the share of Cook’s own-brand hotels to UK customers and overseeing the operator’s ongoing “transformation work”.
Thomas Cook has issued two profit warnings in two months, which sent the stock tumbling from 48½p to 22¾p over six days of trading before they rebounded 51% yesterday. Its fund manager Invesco dismissed the sharp fall in its share price since the profit warning as an “overreaction.”
A Thomas Cook spokeswoman said Burmester has decided to leave to return to his home to Central Europe to be closer to his family. He starts the DER Touristik role in Germany from May.
He joined Thomas Cook in early 2017, and moved to the UK to take on the role as chief of source market in April this year, moving from his position as chief of Thomas Cook’s hotels and resorts business.
Mottershead will work alongside Anth Mooney, who will continue to report to Thomas Cook Group chief executive Peter Fankhauser as chief of UK retail and money.
Fankhauser said: “I want to thank Ingo for his contribution to Thomas Cook. Given the critical importance of turning around the performance of the UK business I have decided to hand back the leadership of the UK source market to Chris Mottershead for the time being. I am confident that his experience in running a British holiday company, along with Anth’s absolute focus on our retail and money business, will help to accelerate the UK’s return to profitable growth.”