ACTE Global :: Association of Corporate Travel Executives

James Harland
CFO
SilverRail Technologies

Nominated by Aaron Gowell

James has been instrumental in progressing SilverRail’s mission to simplify the complex process of rail ticketing.

Particularly in Europe, rail travel is continuing its march to be the dominant mode of travel for busy business travellers. However, despite this consumer demand, it is still extremely difficult for corporate travel managers to provide services for their travellers in order to book rail travel, let alone track the total spend, and manage the duty of care in this often opaque and disjointed travel sector.

SilverRail is simplifying this process by consolidating the world’s rail lines into a single platform, and allowing corporate travel sellers, both online booking tools and TMCs, to book rail travel through a single connection.

Despite the title of CFO, James has had a multi-faceted role, with responsibilities across the business. Some of these include managing marketing including including promoting rail travel, particularly focused on corporate customers and having driven average daily website traffic up by 3x through blogging and social media. As well as until recently being responsible for managing relationships with our current self-booking tool customers, understanding their needs for rail, and working to drive adoption of rail through the self-booking tools. During this time, two different customers have increased their total booking levels by 75% and 150%. This is on top of his core responsibilities of running the complex finance department at SilverRail.

Jan Leenders
Community
TravelClan

Nominated by Griet Troukens

He just started a unique project for the Belgian tourism sector, namely a secured social network for the travel professionals. A platform where professionals, like cruise agents, (business) travel agents, touroperators, airlines, hotels,... can communicate with each other.

Jan is a very motivated and young person, that believe in the power of social media, but is also aware that communication is crucial in the rapidly evolving industry.

Dr. Jochen Mundinger
Founder and Chairman
routeRANK Ltd.

Born and raised in Germany, Jochen graduated in mathematics from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He also obtained his MPhil and PhD degrees there, specializing in the analysis and performance optimization of networks. He was working as a senior researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne when - loosing the better part of an afternoon planning one of his frequent trips across Europe - he decided that a better solution was needed.

routeRANK provides a web-based software solution for travel planning. Unlike other solutions that consider only one means of transport at a time, routeRANK addresses the entire travel route by integrating rail, road and air connections and their numerous combinations. In a single search, the patent-pending technology finds and ranks the best possible travel routes, allowing users to sort them according to their priorities such as price, travel time and CO2 emissions.

Started in 2006, the company provides custom developed versions of the proprietary software to corporate customers and organizations. For example, the Travel Helper developed for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the integration with Nokia’s Green Explorer and the version contracted by the Swiss Government. Clients also include a number of leading travel management companies (TMCs) and the World Economic Forum.

A thesis from the Statistical Laboratory quantifies the benefits further, finding that 'a typical user could stand to save around 35% as well as around 2½ hours in research time' and Klaus Toepfer, former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), endorses routeRANK as a system that makes 'informed travel choices possible which are not only cost- and time-efficient but also benefit the environment'.

The company, of which Jochen is Chairman, has received multiple awards, including for the concept (KPMG Tomorrow's Market Award), the environmental impact (Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award) and the technology (TR35 by MIT’s Technology Review). The BCD Trip Planner, powered by routeRANK, was showcased as a top travel innovation at ITM's Travel Gadget Show.

Another version illustrating its software is also publicly available on routeRANK's website. Although here the focus is on European travel, airports and flight connections worldwide are also integrated. For an example, see here for the website with search parameters preset for the trip from Lausanne to Cambridge.

Ruggero Sgarbi
Business Development
AirPlus International

Nominated by Diane Laschet

Ruggero Sgarbi has joined the AirPlus International Concept and Business Development Team in November 2011 with a non-travel background.

After less than one year he has brought his innovative way of thinking not only into the company, but also in the entire local travel industry.

As a Business Analyst and Developer, Ruggero has demonstrated that even a form of payment for the B2B world can profit by those technologies designed for the B2C.

He has used the social networks (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) to increase AirPlus International brand awareness. He has shown how Facebook and Twitter can be the easiest and fastest ways to share news and inform about the trends of the industry.

He has entered the concept of gamification, designing ideas that help the Travel Managers in following their travel policies.

Thanks to strong skills on Web and Mobile development, he has given the decisive input in building the first mobile solution of a centralize form of payment for business travel.

Julia Sullivan
Head of Program Management
CWT/Alshamel Travel & Tourism

Nominated by Jonathan Taylor

As Head of Program Management for CWT / Alshamel in the GCC, Julia was responsible for the implementation of the global travel program in the Middle East for my multi-national organization.

As we embarked on the program to switch providers from a completely fragmented and local travel program into a single TMC provider it was evident that it was not as simple a task as taking global policy and practices and replicating them here. We faced many hurdles including overcoming different cultural barriers, a lack of current data and knowledge as well as encountering less mature or robust systems than found in other markets. Importantly we wanted to overcome the typical price driven supplier relationship and create a true partnering model built on trust.

From the very first meeting Julia built a strong client relationship and was very supportive in sharing knowledge and benchmarking our approach, thus helping us to design a program that combines regional requirements with global best practice.

In addition, she was instrumental in designing a workflow that allows us to use a globally preferred payment solution despite substantial shortfalls of their local product. By designing a process to match travel data with payment data and HR information, Julia managed to close the shortfalls and create a solid financial process that delivers data beyond our expectations.

Julia's approach of trying to truly understand a client's business, culture and strategy is what makes her such an asset when it comes to finding solutions to complex problems. She pairs travel specific knowledge of Operations, Finance, Technology and Data with client specific knowledge, which results in solutions that benefit all involved.

The typical approach of travel arrangers within our organization was one of shopping around for best price and squeezing agents as hard as possible without focus on maintaining a close working relationship. This was a typical approach in the region, and it required a complete transformation and a fresh approach to make the travel program a success. In order to do this we set the example from the top demonstrating the behaviors required to the teams. A robust change management plan was developed which included bringing the travel arrangers and the CWT agents together on a number of occasions throughout the implementation cycle for training, and involvement in key decision making on processes to best meet their needs. Additionally, for the first time in such an implementation, a standalone half day development session was held with the two teams on communication and team building. This was an important initiative to build trust and strengthen the rapport between the two organiz ations and was instrumental in the successful program delivery.

At such a relatively young age Julia demonstrates expertise, knowledge and maturity as a leader in her field. She continually performs to a level beyond her years of experience and as such would be a deserved recipient of this award.

Natalia Tretyakevich
PhD Candidate in Economics Institute for Economic Research
Università della Svizzera Italiana

At the age of 27 Natalia successfully launched a Business Travel course as part of the Master in International Tourism. As a member of the Institute for Economic Research team, with a primary research interest in the field of Business Travel, she identified the absence of Business Travel as part of the curriculum of the Master program - a field of increasing importance and potential future employment opportunities for the students. The program administration at USI endorses innovations and new programs, and as a result of Natalia¹s personal enthusiasm and passion for the subject the new Master course in Business Travel was successfully launched in 2012. In addition she implemented a professional mentoring program for the students which is an online match-making platform for students to directly connect with a mentor of their choice based on their indicated area of interest.

Claudia Unger
Director, Research & Intelligence
BCD Travel

Nominated by Yves Galimidi, IKEA:

I have met Claudia many times during the past few months, mainly at ACTE Forums and I have been extremely impressed by her vast interest in the trends that change the indutry and by her desire to pass her knowledge on to the next generation. These are clearly leading her to her current role at BCD Travel where she finds innovative ways to spot trends and paint a picture of the future. Claudia does not hesitate to share her expertise, through White Papers, industry forecast and speaking at various events where her lecturing background makes her very comfortable.

As a moderator she is always mindful of the key points and is able guide discussions very accurately. Finally Claudia is for sure a great advocate of ACTE!