Maritz/TUI's TQ3 Taps Toby Joseph For EMEA - 2001-02-26
<B>Maritz/TUI's TQ3 Taps Toby Joseph For EMEA</B>
After 14 years with Carlson Wagonlit and a brief stint with Hertz Europe, Toby Joseph has taken a senior spot with the new global corporate travel company TQ3 Travel Solutions, the joint venture of three leading corporate travel companies announced earlier this month. Maritz Travel Co., the Americas partner, holds a 45 percent stake in TQ3; TUI Business Travel of Germany, the Europe/Middle East/Africa partner, holds 45 percent; and Internet Travel Group of Australia, the Asia/Pacific partner, has the remaining10 percent. As a sign the relationship will endure, all partners will rename themselves by the end of March. Maritz is to be known as TQ3 Maritz Travel Solutions.
"It was a swift and easy decision," said Joseph of signing on as COO for TQ3 EMEA. "This is a chance to get in on the ground floor. That type of opportunity doesn't come along very often." Joseph now is responsible for running the day-to-day operations of TQ3 across Europe, Middle East and Africa and is heading up all European sales and marketing, product development, industry relations and network development. At Carlson Wagonlit, Joseph held positions mainly in sales and account management. For most of the past two years, he was vice president of sales for the EMEA region, responsible for multinational sales and account implementation.
"My goals at TQ3 are to rapidly establish a team structure and headquarters based in London to help achieve the company's objective to provide the market with a new player, an established multinational operator that is already a global force," said Joseph. "I have talked to the marketplace and asked what they are looking for and they really do want to see a new player come in--it's a little stale right now. With technology and the resources behind it, we will continue to build on our qualifications from day one."
"Toby Joseph is going to lead a very dynamic team of people over in EMEA," said Jack O'Neill, president of Maritz corporate travel, who will serve on TQ3's global board. "The decisions are going to be made on a centralized basis, so our clients are going to see a real change and improvement in responsiveness in terms of global decision making."
TQ3 has established a centralized management structure that is similar in each of the three regions, which will work on a matrix basis around the globe. Joseph reports to Marc Hildebrand, CEO EMEA and acting board chairman, who joins TQ3 from his former role as a joint managing director for TUI Business Travel, a merger of German market leaders First and Hapag-Lloyd. Bob Diekmann, who has been with Maritz for the past 11 years, assumes the position of CEO of the Americas. Leslie Lofthouse joins the company as CEO of Asia/Pacific from ITG Ltd., where she worked for more than 20 years, most recently as executive director and deputy chairman. Sebastian Ebel, a member of the executive board for TUI Group's owner Preussag AG, the world's largest travel and tourism company, also will sit on the TQ3 shareholder board.
TQ3 collectively generates more than $9 billion in annual business travel sales and has 1,300 locations in 53 countries. TQ3 operates in 28 countries in EMEA alone, where it has $5.8 billion is sales. Eighty-six percent of the collective TQ3 business is wholly owned. Britannic Travel, the largest independent business travel agency in the United Kingdom, and Protravel of France, a longstanding partner of Maritz, are shareholders of TQ3 in their respective countries, each with a 15 percent share in TQ3 EMEA.
"We have a clear piece of paper in front of us. To take a global leadership position with a completely clear paper, and focus on finding the best of the best is very exciting," said Joseph. "I've been involved in multinational global almost 10 years; I know what has worked and what hasn't."
TQ3, which also has centralized sales forces by region, already is receiving multinational bids. Since its launch Feb. 5, TQ3 has received 16 major requests for proposals and innumerable calls from consultants, new customers and customers that would like to extend existing relationships into the global marketplace. Said Joseph, "The marketplace has become more global, globalization has sped up and we are in a position to deliver those requirements.