My background is sales, retail management and business development. I started in a sales role in Sports Direct which many take for granted as a Saturday job but I worked my way into a trusted position. I developed my sales skills and built confidence dealing with customers face to face. It also built my work ethic that hard work gets rewarded and gets you where you want to be. In 2014 I then moved to a travel agent to start my career in travel. Having no experience in the travel industry I was reliant on my sales experience to help me in this role. Being a fast learner and a focused person I worked my way up from a trainee to an assistant manager in 9 months in the busiest and highest volume store in the North West Region. In this short space of time I knew I wanted to keep achieving and growing and moving higher up the ladder. I was awarded assistant manager of the year in 2016 and then moved on to manage a brand new branch in 2017. Whilst I was a Manager I realised that I loved training and helping develop staff and other stores as well as my own to succeed; I decided to look at roles in business development. In 2018 I started my role in Jet2holidays as a sales executive where we work with independent travel agents to develop their business with Jet2holidays. This is done through the relationships we build but also through channels of marketing both external and digitally. We also carry out events. Throughout the pandemic I’ve thrived as I’ve been able to quite quickly adapt to working virtually from home and adapting well to this. I’ve also worked on running a training programme and social media marketing. In 2021 I was awarded individually the Outstanding Trade Support Award by the Northern Ireland travel trade for my work in continuously supporting and helping develop travel agents through the pandemic. In 2022 I was promoted to Business Development Manager within the trade team.