Masqaţ, Oman
Highly experienced leader of teams across multiple commercial functions within the airline industry. Specialising in developing and implementing revenue and cost optimisation strategy, with advanced data analysis skills and extensive leadership experience. Having lived and worked across four continents I believe strongly in the value of cultural diversity.
Established the Strategy, Planning and Steering unit to manage the mid to long term commercial planning process, and to drive improvements across all aspects of commercial performance. · Improved RASK performance by 16% between 2022 and 2024 through implementation of country and route level budget delivery plans. · Developed the company’s five-year revenue and network plan for 2026 to 2030 to achieve EBIT profitability by 2027. · Reduced trade incentive cost of sale by 80%, cumulatively saving $63m by 2025. · Initiated strategies which, by 2025, had increased direct sales from 17% to 39% of total revenue, and increased NDC contribution to trade revenue from 11% to 32%. · Implemented multiple network optimisation initiatives to better address seasonal demand and improve route-level profitability by up to 31%.
Established the Commercial Planning and Steering unit to optimise revenue and distribution performance through improved coordination of all Commercial activity.
Headed the Network Sales unit, responsible for all sales planning, processes and policies. In September 2019, all global account management and offline markets were added to my portfolio. · Managed all global OTAs, TMCs and corporate accounts throughout the COVID pandemic and ensured rapid revenue recovery thereafter. · Handled all offline markets and offline GSAs, and all ‘niche’ nett fare products. · Managed all GSA procurement and contracting, saving $8m over a five-year period and developed guidelines and policies for all aspects of GSA management. · Automated all trade incentive approval, contracting and payments saving months of resource annually; significantly improved sales tracking and management tools. · Developed and implemented guidelines and policies governing a wide range of commercial functions, including corporate sales, irregular operations, service fees, outstation marketing activity, upgrades/downgrades and trade incentivisation.
Responsibility for Qatar Airways’ operations in South Africa and Namibia, and 11 offline markets in Southern Africa, including Sales and Marketing, Reservations, Finance, and Airport Operations. I directly managed seven department heads, collectively with a headcount of 55. · Four consecutive years of performance exceeding targets. · Generated a 156% increase in revenue, maintaining seat factors above 80%. · Successfully launched two new routes (Windhoek and Durban) and tripled frequencies to existing routes in South Africa. · Implemented multiple initiatives to improve customer service delivery. · Significantly reduced staff turnover rate.
Responsibility for all Sales, Revenue Management and Planning for the airline’s operations in Africa. · Increased revenue by 47% against a capacity increase of 15%. · Acted as Country Manager Nigeria for a six month period. · Co-ordinated the start-up of operations to Kigali (Rwanda), Entebbe (Uganda) and Kilimanjaro (Tanzania)
Headed a team managing all business intelligence used by the Head Office Sales department as well as all outstations, I also developed and was responsible for the multi-billion-dollar annual revenue budgets of the company. · Developed and implemented the global revenue budgets and sales targets for three financial years. · Implemented daily revenue reporting and forecasting, weekly market share, forward booking reporting, and comprehensive monthly cost of sale reporting. · Comprehensive development of analysis tools used by the sales organisation and outstations.