Travel giant dnata has finally announced its travel executive team with Stella Travel Services UK chief executive Andrew Botterill taking the top trade job in the UK and Europe.
Botterill becomes chief executive of dnata travel B2B Europe, taking responsibility for all of the company’s UK trade-facing brands, including Travel2 (including Simply Luxury), Gold Medal (including Pure Luxury), and The Global Travel Group, with immediate effect. He will also be responsible for all airline relationships and commercial negotiations across all dnata UK brands, and for Netflights retail, the Thomas Cook relationship.
The news allays fears in the trade that one of the Travel 2 or Gold Medal brands might be ditched.
Gold Medal managing director Steve Barrass will take on a new role looking after all supplier relations, believed to be Dubai-based.
Barrass will leave the Preston-based operator to head up the supplier relations function for dnata and will be responsible for tours, hotel and accommodation, DMCs, public sector relationships, event management and the Mice market.
Responsibility for the B2C brands in the UK, namely Netflights, Travelbag and Sunmaster, will go to Ian Simmonds and Neale Chinery, joint bosses of Travel Republic.
Simmonds becomes chief executive of dnata travel B2C Europe (commercial) and will lead the e-commerce and marketing functions of all B2C brands. Chinery now widens his role overseeing Travel Republic operations to heading operations for all of dnata Travel’s B2C interests.
Adam Gill will meanwhile extend his current role as chief technology officer at Travel Republic to become IT director of dnata Travel.
Stella Travel finance director Jens Penny expands his current responsibilities to lead the finance function for all dnata Travel businesses in Europe, while Stella’s HR director Mary Wilson is promoted to oversee dnata Travel’s global people strategy.
The rest of the executive team remains unchanged and consists of Paul Gale in charge of dnata’s global contact centres, Geoff Wood responsible for business information & corporate development, including dnata’s global mergers and acquisitions activity, and other executives looking after the Middle East & India.
Announcing the changes, dnata Travel divisional senior vice president Iain Andrew, said: “Since 2012, we have followed an ambitious, but focused acquisition strategy, which has seen us welcome Travel Republic, Gold Medal Group, Stella Travel Services and Imagine Cruising in the UK, and Emirates Holidays and Arabian Adventures in the UAE.
“We now have some of the world’s greatest travel brands within the dnata family, and I believe, on the brink of a new era – one where we become a truly global force in travel.”
Dnata Travel has grown by 278% in the past year, according to Andrew. The new leadership structure takes effect from today May 11, 2015. All brands under the dnata Travel portfolio will continue to operate under their current trade names.