Advisory Board

Business Travel Market has recruited an Advisory Board comprising leading travel industry figures from both the supplier and buyer communities. This group will help shape the event to ensure it is a relevant, dynamic and worthwhile forum for all to learn, meet, do business and network.

Darren Williams, Eurostar

Darren joined Eurostar’s Business Sales team in September 2003 after spending his previous life in Eurostar operational management. Since then he has risen through the department, spending time on both the Corporate and TMC sides of business sales before adding the leisure market and international sales to his portfolio. He now has an expanded role as Head of Global Sales which includes the account management teams in France and Belgium, and full responsibility for all of Eurostar’s third-party relationships globally.

Richard Oliver, Qatar Airways

Richard Oliver brings over 25 years experience within the aviation industry to the role as Country Manager UK and Ireland at Qatar Airways. He joins Qatar Airways from Air France-KLM, where he was latterly Head of UK Leisure, Direct and Northern Sales. Richard has held General Manager roles for KLM in markets including the Gulf and the Far East.   He has also previously been Head of Commercial UK and Ireland for Air France-KLM in the UK, and has extensive experience in both the Sales and Account Management arenas.

Herman Mensink, Prism Group Inc

Herman Mensink is an industry veteran, and is Vice President EMEA for The Prism Group Inc., a global, technology company specialising in contract management systems and consultancy for the business travel industry. Until February 2003 Herman was Director, EMEA for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE). Preceding these positions he was Director of Worldwide Corporate Travel for Philips Electronics as well as Managing Director of the company’s own IATA travel agency for two decades. Additional to his role at PRISM Group Inc., Herman is President of Corporate Travel Association CORTAS, a joint platform initiative of the top 20 large multinational corporations in the Netherlands. In 2004 Herman was appointed professor in business travel management and airline economics at the NHTV Breda University in The Netherlands. Prior to that in 1997 he was awarded the ACTE Industry Professionalism Award for significant contributions made to the Travel Industry. In 1998 Business Travel News named him as one of the business travel industry’s top 20 most influential executives in the world. Herman serves on various advisory councils and task forces on transportation for the European Commission in Brussels.

Tony Pilcher, Pilcher Associates

Following his retirement from HSBC in June 2007 as Head of Business Travel and Expense Management, Tony established Pilcher Associates, which provides independent consultancy to the Corporate Market across all aspects of Business Travel Management. In January 2007 Tony received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the prestigious Business Travel World Awards ceremony in London and the following month was named as one of the top 25 most influential Business Travel Executives in the USA by Business Travel News (BTN) for his work in raising the profile of the impact of business travel on the environment. Both Judging Panels made particular mention of the hours Tony had spent sharing his knowledge with both travel managers and travel suppliers at formal conferences and in one-to-one briefing sessions, thereby demonstrating his influence and leadership across all aspects of Business Travel Management. Tony was chair of The Institute of Travel Management’s ICARUS Project’s Advisory Group from its inception in 2006 until he stood down in April 2009. Project ICARUS was established to promote carbon efficiency and reduction in travel management programmes throughout the UK business travel industry as well as providing guidance on wider sustainability and duty of care issues.

Jo Stevenson, Accor

Jo began her career in meetings and events with Banks Sadler 18 years ago and worked in a variety of roles, moving into the hotel sector in 1994 specialising in corporate, mice and tmc sales. Having worked with forte, and Intercontinental hotels group, Jo joined Accor Hospitality back in 2004 to head up the strategy for UK and Ireland global corporate sales and to set up a business development team for the luxury brand Sofitel. Jo is responsible for the relationships that Accor Hospitality has with its Corporate clients, partner travel management companies and delivering profitability to the brands. Accor Hospitality, head quartered in Paris, operates over 4,500 hotels world wide brands including: Sofitel - luxury hotels, Pullman hotels, M Gallery, Mercure, Novotel, Ibis, All Seasons, Etap.  

Tom Stone, Sirius Management

Tom began his career as a business travel agent predominantly looking after the requirements of the music industry. He moved into his first travel management position with CBS Records, (later Sony Music) and this was followed with global procurement roles at SmithKline Beecham, Seagram’s and Universal Music. He left to establish his company, Sirius Management in 2003; providing both outsourced travel management and project based travel procurement consultancy to a wide range of organisations. Tom has served two terms on the Association of Corporate Travel Executives Board of Governors and was Chairman of the Institute of Travel Management 2003-5. He continues to support the industry through various working parties and as a speaker/moderator.

Lee Whiteing, HSBC Bank

Lee Whiteing is the UK Travel and Fleet Manager for HSBC Bank plc, with responsibility for the business travel and expenses policy for the bank's 50,000 UK based employees. He manages the relationships with the bank's main travel suppliers. Managing compliance to policy in a dynamic market where value for money and getting more for less is a constant requirement takes up a substantial part of Lee's working day.Lee is also responsible for the Bank's company car fleet of 4,500 vehicles and similarly manages the suppliers and liaises with internal customers on policy and cost. Lee has worked at HSBC since 1993 and been in his current role since December 2005, having previously worked in the fleet leasing business.

Chris Crowley, BCD Travel

As leader of BCD Travel’s Global Client Management team in EMEA, Chris Crowley is responsible for driving satisfaction, financial performance, retention and expansion across markets for core global customers.

Chris is a 20-year travel industry veteran whose background in the travel management and hotel sectors offers a firm understanding of the need for corporate travel programs to establish clearly articulated positions on a host of ever-changing industry challenges.

An industry leader, Chris recently completed a two year term as President of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives remaining a Board of the Association through his Chairmanship of the ACTE Centre to close of 2013.

A UK native, Chris holds a degree from the University of Kent in law and modern languages.

Anne Godfrey, GTMC

Anne Godfrey was appointed chief executive of the GTMC in October 2009. Well qualified for the role; her previous experience included positions at four very different membership organisations, including the Law Society, where she was director of commercial and membership services and the CBI where she was commercial director.

Anne quickly made her mark at the GTMC; reviewing and restructuring the relationship with members and partners and strengthening the GTMC’s lobbying activities. Anne also masterminded a membership drive resulting in a record six new members in a nine-month period. Anne’s previous career was in professional publishing where she had a range of sales, marketing and business development roles within Thomson Reuters and for Pearson.

Julia Surry, AirPlus

Julia Surry is the UK’s Marketing Communications Manager at AirPlus International, responsible for all elements of the communications programme. Julia has extensive marketing experience working client side on both B2B and B2C brands in the financial services industry.  Miss Surry has a history of delivering integrated marketing campaigns online and offline and values honesty and transparency at the core of ethical marketing.  Julia is fully qualified with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Advisory Board remit