Portman strengthens management team
Portman Travel, the UK’s largest independent business travel management company (TMC), is strengthening its senior management team with the appointment of David Bishop to the role of Head of Customer Acquisition.
David Bishop, who was previously Commercial Director of Fleet Street Travel, will report to Bob Govan, Group Marketing & Development Director. The appointment follows the acquisition of Fleet Street Travel by Portman Group Holdings, owners of Portman Travel, in a multi-million-pound deal in February this year.
In his new role David will be responsible for Portman’s new business effort, looking after its sales management teams and sales support functions, in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands. One of his first aims will be to fully integrate the Fleet Street sales team into an enlarged Portman force. His strategic focus will continue to be on selling Portman’s full-service business travel offering to large and mid-tier corporates. He also becomes one of Portman’s seven-strong senior management team, reporting to the board.
He said: “We have set ourselves some challenging growth targets over the next few years and my role is to make sure we work smartly in getting the right people and resources in place to achieve them. This is an exciting time to join Portman, as we have increased scale to offer a complete service to customers both domestically and internationally, and I’m looking forward to ensuring the company continues to grow strongly.”
Bob Govan, Group Marketing & Development Director, said: “David is a highly experienced and professional manager and he will be a valuable addition to our talented team. We welcome David to Portman and look forward to him adding his contribution towards the achievement of our ambitions.”
Before joining Portman Travel David spent nine years as a board director at Fleet Street, five of them as Financial Director until he moved into the newly created role of Commercial Director. Previous to that he worked for 11 years at Barclays Bank plc.
Portman Travel’s acquisition of Fleet Street has reinforced Portman’s position as the UK’s leading independent TMC and has strengthened the Portman network of specialist business travel centres in major towns and cities across the UK. Portman turnover in 2008 is projected to exceed £400m, compared with £296m in 2007.