The Travel Agent Next Door has undergone a restructuring designed to position the host agency for continued growth in the next decade, following its 10th anniversary this year. Well-known travel industry executive Jeff Element will become Chief Operating Officer, based in Toronto, overseeing Marketing & Training, Finance, Support & Operations.
Element was president of The Travel Corporation for many years until recently, overseeing Contiki, Insight and Trafalgar brands as well as the call centre and accounting departments. He is a past chairman of CATO and a TICO board member for many years and holds both CMA and CTM credentials.
Chris Senior, CPA, CMA, joins TTAND as CFO. Senior has been in the industry for many years with finance roles at TICO, TTI Travel as VP Finance and HRG North America as Director of Financial Analysis.
Rounding out the management team are Rhonda Stanley, VP Talent Development; Kuldeep Gautam, Manager, India Division; Raj Gautam, Technology Head; Christine Ufniak, Director of Marketing & Training; Nicola Gowe, Director, Finance; Roxanne Jeffries, Sr. Accounting Manager and James Nguyen, Sr. Manager, Agent Support Team in Canada.
Flemming Friisdahl will continue as Founder and CEO and will have Supplier Relations, Technology & IT, Talent Development reporting directly to him.
“Our company grew organically over the past 10 years where we saw consistent growth, adjusting our organization and processes as we grew the company – including the addition of our India division. But to get ready for the next 10 years we will be looking at even more support for the staff and our agent partners through this restructuring,” said Friisdahl.
He added, “With the retirement of our VP Agent Experience, Penny Martin this coming July, we believe now is a good time to reorganize the company to prepare it for the future.”
The Travel Agent Next Door currently has 70 employees in Canada and India responsible for supporting over 1,300 travel agent partners and is the largest host agency in Canada.
