BCD Taps Williams For Consulting

BCD Travel last week announced that Mark Williams, former president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, this month will become vice president of the travel management company's consulting unit, reporting to Mary Ellen George, general manager of BCD Travel Consulting.

Williams, who previously served as vice president with BCD—then WorldTravel—from 1988 to 1992, will assume his new post on Sept. 18 and focus on travel management program administration. Williams' hiring is meant to complement the benchmarking expertise of vice president of consulting Bob Brindley, who focuses on airline negotiating, and vice president of hotel relations and travel procurement services Maria Chevalier. Williams for several years served as director of travel management for North America at PricewaterhouseCoopers and most recently as business travel outsourcing client manager at IBM. "I want to get out there and help make the whole consulting branch of BCD grow," he said. "That's a challenge that I'm well-prepared to handle."

George said BCD Travel continues to expand its consulting unit based on customer demand, with a particular focus on meetings, an area the travel management company aims to grow in the very near future. "We have not been providing that, but we put the plans in place to do it," George said. "We are just beginning the recruiting process for a consultant that's a subject matter expert in meetings and hope to have an announcement in the next one to two months."

BCD's consulting unit has seen a 20 percent growth in revenue from existing clients since last year. George said, "We're projecting next year to double that."

—Jennifer Merritt