Highly accomplished travel professional with over 30 years’ experience in both incoming and outbound tailor-made educational travel for groups and individuals. Quite simply, I love receiving great feedback from customers no matter how easy or complex a trip has been to put together. After working as Tour Leader/Travel Rep to pay off my uni debts I joined PGL Travel as they embarked on a new programme of school tours to Eastern Europe. My first role provided an excellent opportunity to learn basics of tour operating as a ‘one man band’ – writing the brochure, contracting hotels and services, planning itineraries as well as selling and operating the trips. I quickly built up an extensive knowledge of the school travel market and popular destinations within Europe and when PGL acquired 2 ski businesses I took on the management of this business to drive commercial growth. Tactical and strategic plans as well as strong negotiation skills enabled me to secure hotel contracts, increase revenue & profits, and expand market share, impacting the bottom line.Along the journey, as I progressed with PGL, there have been many milestones, highlights and challenges. Managing a Customer Relations team during Covid and navigating all the travel changes and guidance was tough, but we got through it thanks to the incredible support from some wonderful colleagues and strong leadership from our CEO. I am proud of the part I played in rebuilding the business to make it better and stronger than ever before. My last role as Head of Customer Services (and part of the Senior Leadership team) has been very rewarding, allowing me to provide guidance, training, mentoring and support whilst managing a department of 80 people across 5 different functions: customer service, customer operations, customer relations, pre-travel sales and customer support services.I am now ready to move onto the next chapter and am keen to explore new opportunities.I am highly organised and adept at handling multiple responsibilities, from overseeing daily operations to developing and implementing customer service strategies. I have also played a key role in implementing new technologies, which have greatly improved our service delivery and customer satisfaction metrics.I would love to share my leadership and management skills with other organisations and will of course bring the same level of dedication, expertise, and passion with me. Feel free to drop me a message if you think I can help.