3 Under 33

Jason Geall
Vice President, Global Sales & Chief Marketing Officer
GetThere

It’s an honor to nominate Jason Geall for this award.

Jason thinks differently. He is customer centric, very passionate about his work at GetThere and this industry and always looks to ensure that both he and his teams have a cause in life. This was reflected in the results that Jason achieved on joining GetThere in 2009, as Director, EMEA. He galvanized the regional team, gave them a real sense of direction, with clarity in a mutual business plan and provided strong leadership and communication to create a true team spirit and efficiency in their work. In turn GetThere’s business in EMEA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2011, and overall employee satisfaction across the team is grouped as “best in class” across the Sabre Holdings family – I offer this up front in this application as background, believing it to be important to recognize and celebrate strong people and leadership skills which can only be beneficial to not only GetThere but the wider travel industry.

One mantra that we work to here at GetThere, is to See, Own, Solve, Do. Jason continually works within this way of thinking, always looking at how our business and our industry can continue to evolve and improve with it, even when the specific change that he wants to help make does not sit within his direct responsibilities. Often seeking inspiration from outside of our industry for answers, Jason likes to encourage outlooking and creates solutions from other industry learning’s and experiences.

Over the last year, Jason has helped to instigate and drive a number of game changing ideas and initiatives across our GetThere business, including initiatives that have seen us develop a new product and engagement offering for the supplier market place. He as a result was also key in driving broader collaboration among disparate business units across Sabre Holdings, recognizing that as a collective our company network serves and touches the entire business travel ecosystem. His motivations were born not only out of driving commercial benefit here, but also to drive innovation to the marketplace through further connecting the key constituents across the market.

The key idea/initiative that I would like to nominate Jason for relates to a project that he conceived at the beginning of 2011. Whilst still responsible for the EMEA organisation, Jason approached me with a plan to develop a deeper understanding of GetThere’s global internal and external identity and to create a challenger brand mindset within the business.
This is what Jason outlined to me as an introduction:

Jason Geall wrote in April 2011
“When you stop and think about your favorite businesses and brands, what is it that makes them inspirational and delightful to interact with? They could be organisations you deal with within a business environment, or ones that you deal with in your leisure time.”

The common denominator between many successful brands, is that deep down, the organisation has a laser like focus and awareness of its identity which shines bright within. The company knows where they have come from, what they deliver to their customer group and what makes them special. They also have a deep understanding of their customers’ environment and how their product offering adds value within it. In addition successful brands have an acute understanding of how their customers like to interact and what makes them tick.

Above all of this though is how the company ensures that its identity is understood by everybody within, which ensures that the identity itself acts like a lens for everything that its people do on a day to day basis. This then in turn helps the organisation project this identity out into the market place with great success.

An identity is formed on a set of values and beliefs that stem from the product you offer, how you provide it and the market you serve. The challenge is to bring together all the different components, and package them into a resonate identity that reflects in the brand for all to follow and utilise.

How does the idea of a company having a deep routed understanding of its identity manifest itself? Simply put, those that put the identity at the centre of their brand, seem to communicate with extra resonance. They seem to have an uncanny knack of being uber consistent with their messaging and brand identity
which the customer group finds reassuring, relevant and enjoyable to read. “I know what this company stands for, and I know that they get me and what I need”

As I have already mentioned the identity provides a lens for everybody within an organisation to utilise. One area which would benefit more than most is Sales and Marketing. Who we are and what we want to be, play a big part in how we communicate. From our internal communications through to our customer facing communications in the shape of online communications, blogs, sales collateral, presentations, speaking engagements, product sheets and more. Having an identity lens that holds a company’s beliefs and values can only drive a more effective and ultimately successful communication effort underneath of a clear brand
vision.

The benefits of an identity lens extol far beyond communications of course. It feeds into strategy, product, culture and people across the board. Having a company full of people who live and breathe its identity does not happen organically alone, but when it’s achieved it’s extremely powerful and creates an environment that plays to strengths and positively eats up change.

Ends…

Jason set to work and formed a team of people from across every part of the GetThere business, to kick off the GetThere identity project. He then oversaw an extensive process within the group that saw them researching with customers and employees past and present – including the original founders of ITN, predecessor to GetThere – to get under the skin of questions like, What does GetThere stand for? Why do we exist? What do we really believe in? What change are we trying to bring about? Who are we for and against? The customer mindset we connect with?

A series of workshops that looked back at over 10 years worth of marketing material and multi industry outlooking sessions helped the group finally arrive at a GetThere identity lighthouse, which outlined 5 key tenants form the basis of our thinking in everything we do as a business.

Our identity centres around being fanatical about customer service and delivery, having a personality in everything that we do, making business travel personal whilst championing managed travel and inventing the future.

One immediate beneficiary of our new lighthouse identity has been our marketing team, who were all present on the project team. Using the new lens has helped drive more focus on being more consumer focused in our thinking and lighter and more engaging with our messaging. GetThere’s new key marketing message centers around “Happy Travelers” which can be seen on the homepage www.getthere.com along with a tongue-in-cheek video that was shot by the lighthouse team starring several key Sabre executives, to demonstrate the love and affection shown to a successful travel manager!

The identity project helps set GetThere up both internally and externally to support our growth plans over the coming years.

So I would like to nominate Jason for 3 under 33, or close to 33! He is very creative in his thinking and leads from the front in a style that people want to follow. Since this identity initiative got started, I have promoted Jason to Vice President Global Sales & Chief Marketing Officer, heading up GetThere’s global sales organizations along with the customer marketing and brand teams.

Suzanne Neufang
General Manager – GetThere

Carel Aucamp
Global Sourcing Manager
Agrega (Joint Venture between ABI and BAT)

In an ever changing world, I believe I am the eternal explorer. This boyish naivety, coupled with my African roots, has led me to continuously challenge the status quo, to expect greater results from the norm and to embed a legacy of positive, sustainable change in the environment I operate and manage.

At 28, I am currently responsible for the global sourcing of Travel for our partner organisations Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) and British American Tobacco (BAT) in a joint aggregated process. Both organisations are Fortune 500 companies and leaders in their own right with a foot print in more than 158 countries.

In 2010 and 2011, we have successfully changed the environment of corporate travel within the organisations and the supply market with the following activities:

TMC:
Reviewed the TMC landscape for both organisations – changing from more than 25 suppliers per partner, managed at country level with no single source data or standardisation, to an optimised single source supplier solution – with global data integration, a single travel policy and the implementation of standard travel processes to ease the travel experience for our multinational travel community.

In an 18 month period both organisations went from a decentralised to a centralised network model which led to a 35% saving (including the use of e-auction), but far greater, it provided both organisations with the opportunity to create a global environment of managed control. It also led to a single monthly dashboard report which is used to discuss not travel compliance, but travel demand within IT, HR and Finance at a board level.

This project is currently the benchmark within the partner organisation for centralised indirect commodity management at a global level.

Accommodation and Air:
During 2011 we embarked on a more aggressive approach towards sourcing air and accommodation and collaborated with PepsiCo and Yum! Brand to resource the commodities. The project doubled the current ABI and BAT spend volume and provided PepsiCo and Yum! Brands with a diversified footprint aggregation opportunity in both developed and developing countries.

Through this project we challenged the supply market, especially airlines, to view the aggregation in the same light as alliance partnerships with mutual benefit to all parties involved. The end result was a global air and accommodation programme for all partners and clients, with 37 carriers providing true joint agreements (equal rate discount for all parties and combined volume commitment).

PepsiCo and Yum! Brands:
Due to the great success achieved in the air and accommodation sourcing Agrega has also been offered the opportunity to resource the TMC Service Provider(s) for PepsiCo and Yum! Brands on a global project, which kicked off in September 2011 for 50 countries.

2012 and going forward:
We continue to move towards two key drivers:
(1) Understanding travel behaviour better to ready the organisation for the Generation Y workforce in the next 5 years where information and technology is key to deliver value from consumerism; and
(2) Strive to the nirvana that is “demand management within a controlled environment” providing the partner organisations with a total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) calculation at time of booking.

This resulted into two new projects currently being resourced, namely Travel Tracking and Security Provider on a global level and an aggregated corporate card provided review to be completed in 2012.

This is a brief snapshot of the exciting operating environment and strategy that we face within Agrega to move from a low level of Travel Maturity to a global platform for the partners, while retaining the focus on the traveller. Managing the full scope of Travel in countries around the world, with two diverse and demanding partners driving different strategies for change and cost reduction, is a great opportunity.

I currently manage all sourcing activities for the Travel Cell with a virtual team based in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America (all four members aged under 35). The excitement that is integrated within the travel commodity ensures that I wake up every morning eager to take on the challenges ahead..

(Carel Aucamp currently holds a Masters Degree in Economics and is a board member of an African Based Investment Corporation and an executive board member of Vriendefonds, a Non-Profit Organisation working with developing youth in South Africa.)

Andrea Ronchi
Business Development Manager
ECO-WAY

Andrea Ronchi, 26 years old, is the Business Development Manager of Eco-Way, the Italian leading company for carbon management and carbon trading.

He comes from the Lufthansa group where he covered the role of marketing responsible and business development for Italy in AirPlus international, financial company of the group.

In AirPlus he started to focus on CSR topics, developing solutions to link the world of travel management with corporate social responsibility. He was project manager for Italy of the “AirPlus green solutions” project.

From 2011 he leads the ECOmpany project in Eco-Way, delivering solutions able to maximize the ROI of carbon offset for marketing and CSR targets.

Solutions:

Andrea Ronchi developed “ECOmpany Travel” and “ECOmpany Event”. These two solutions allow travel manager and MICE planners to set new criteria to enhance travel policies and to diffuse them quickly. It is an integrated service of carbon calculators and carbon offset schemes designed for business travel and MICE professionals. With ECOmpany, travel managers can optimize travel policies using the CO2 emission factor when choosing suppliers and travel patterns, reaching new saving potentials. The purchase of verified carbon offset credits gives the opportunity to share among the travelers and all the other stakeholders the CSR commitment of the company, reinforcing the corporate image.

New saving potentials, enhancement of the role of travel managers, improvement of corporate image: that’s what ECOmpany travel is all about.

Emma De Lange
EMEA Travel Manager (excluding Israel)
Amdocs

Emma De Lange, EMEA (excluding Israel) Travel Manager at Amdocs has been in the industry since 1995 in both a corporate and leisure environment.

Emma began her current role 6.5 years ago (at the age of 29) and has since seen the travel department through fundamental changes. Starting as the travel co-ordinator for a small software company called Cramer, Emma was subsequently promoted to Travel & Purchasing Manager within18 months and received a recognition reward by the CEO of the company for ‘Outstanding contribution and commitment for results’