Regional Council Chairs
In March 2008, Georgie Farmer joined the Microsoft Corporation as the APAC Travel Manager, Asia Global Procurement Group based in Singapore. Georgie is responsible for the overall APAC travel strategy including business alignment and cost management, policy, travel agency, airline, hotel, car-rental and technology in 13 countries.
Prior to Microsoft, Georgie was with JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. as their VP of Travel, Asia Pacific for four years. Before joining JPMorgan, Georgie held various sales management positions with Diners Club Australia, a division of Citigroup from 1997-2004. Working on developing travel and purchasing expense management solutions for large corporate and government clients provided her with the impetus to move from being a supplier to a buyer. These experiences provide Georgie with a balanced view of the industry and a deep understanding of corporate travel management practices and challenges in the Asia-Pacific region. Georgie started her travel industry career with Ansett Australia, an Australian airline in 1986 and worked in various operations and sales roles.
An active member of ACTE; having presented at the 2007 Asia-Pacific Education Conference and served on the 2006 conference steering committee, Georgie believes in the need for organizations in Asia-Pacific to work together with ACTE in order to sustain continuous improvements to legacy practices.
Georgie holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship.
I see my role as ACTE regional chair as a spokesperson of the corporate and make sure that corporate interests and opinions are taken into account. I encourage corporate to raise their voice on issues or changes which will impact them.
I want to promote ACTE as an educational & networking tool. We all need to learn on new topics; new technologies, new regulations, and ACTE will help corporate to keep on track. ACTE should also be the place where you can meet and exchange with your peers, share feedback and experiences or best practices.
As we say in France we all have rights but we also have duties, and I would like to see more corporate buyers or travel managers to participate in panels, forums, etc.
Mario Hidalgo has 16 years of experience in the travel industry. He initiated his professional career as a corporate travel agent in his natal Costa Rica. Later, in 1998 joined Amadeus as Business Unit Manager for Amadeus Costa Rica, responsible for the local operations and sales activities.
By 2004 Mario moved to Miami to manage the relationship with Travel Management Companies for Amadeus in Latin America. Since, Mario has been involved with the corporate travel agency issues at a regional and local level, interacting with TMC's regional headoffices, country operations and franchises, and multinational corporate customers as well.
Mario has ample experience with the Latin American market specificities and focuses his efforts on supporting TMC's and corporate agencies to improve their business by implementing e-commerce strategies, technology solutions and new business models.
Mario holds an Master degree (MBA) with emphasis on International Commerce from Universidad Alma Mater in Costa Rica.
Imran is a seasoned hotelier with extensive experience of the Middle East region. Presently working with the Jumeirah Group since 2000, he joined the pre-opening sales team as Corporate Sales Manager at what was then called, Emirates Towers Hotel. Since then, Imran has moved up the ranks and has worked as Senior Corporate Sales Manager at Burj Al Arab, before moving on to sales in Jumeirah at group level.
Imran played a significant role in establishing the Key Account Management structure at Jumeirah in 2002, acting initially as a Corporate Key Account Sales Manager for the Gulf region and moving up to Assistant Director of Corporate Sales for the region in 2004.
He is currently Director of Corporate Sales - Global for the Jumeirah Group, a role he has held since 2006..
Among other key outputs, Imran plays a key role in Jumeirah Group's Business Travel segment strategy setting, Annual Corporate & Consortia RFP solicitation processes, Global TMC / Consortia partnerships, and internal sales policies and procedures relating to the Business Travel segment.
Imran is currently doing his Executive MBA with the London Business School.