Member Article

Specialist travel company strengthens management team

Specialist travel management company Corporate Travel International (CTI) has bolstered its senior leadership team with the appointment of Zoë Tibell as Chief Financial Officer.

She joins Wilmslow-headquartered CTI from Treehouse Group, the international arm of young family marketing business Bounty UK, where she spent three years building the company’s presence in China and the US.

During her time with Treehouse Group, Zoe Tibell led the acquisition and integration of a US-based business and established a Chinese subsidiary. The group now has a turnover of $100m and more than 3,000 employees.

Zoe was previously Finance Director and board member at Bounty UK. Alongside the CEO, she led the private equity-backed purchase of the business from its Canadian parent in 2009 supported by Equistone Partners Europe, having previously been part of the MBO team in 2004 backed by ECI Partners.

She has extensive experience of building and leading finance teams within private equity-backed businesses and delivering successful M&A transactions, having completed six deals during the course of her career.

Zoe will oversee CTI’s finance function and work alongside CEO Ian White, CIO Chris Needham and COO Tony Norwood. The business, backed by leading mid-market private equity firm LDC, was established last year following the merger of TD Travel group and Hotelscene.

She said: “CTI has a unique proposition in the corporate travel market thanks to the quality of its people and the significant investment that has been made to equip the business with the latest technical innovations.

“The opportunity to work for a progressive, private-equity backed businesses was one of the key attractions of this role. I look forward to working with the rest of the management team to help the business deliver its growth objectives.”

Ian White, CTI’s Chief Executive Officer, added: “A key part of our strategy to build the UK’s leading travel management company is to recruit the best talent. Zoë has significant experience of leading organic and acquisitive growth within a private equity backed environment. Her expertise and commercial acumen is a valuable addition to the business.

Over the past 12 months we have invested heavily having acquired and merged Hotelscene into the group, developed our own online booking tool and established a specialist consultancy CTI Marine.

“These investments have started to reap rewards with turnover in our travel division rising by 17 per cent. We expect to see further growth as demand for our Sherpa booking product continues to increase.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .