Capgemini global travel manager Jerome Drevon-Barreaux today assumed the chairmanship of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives' European region.
Drevon-Barreaux said during his two-year term he will focus on increasing corporate travel buyer involvement with the association in the region.
"We need to make sure there is the right balance with corporate buyers and suppliers," he said. "We should change to make sure that corporate [buyers] find their own interests for participating in ACTE."
One approach will be implementing buyer-oriented education and research programs. "We need to make sure the research is not all done by suppliers," he said. "I would love to see more exchange with benchmarking with corporate [buyers] and not just suppliers saying this is how it works."
Philips International BV global commodity manager Peter Sijbers previously served as regional chair for the Europe, the Middle East and Africa region since 2005. ACTE in May decided to split the Middle East and Africa from Europe into a separate region going forward, but it has not yet announced who would head that region.
Drevon-Barreaux manages €320 million in total travel spending at Capgemini, where he recently implemented the KDS online booking and expense management tool in France. Drevon-Barraeux said the next developments in his program will come after the European Commission completes its talks to deregulate global distribution systems
(BTNonline, June 7).
A 10-year industry veteran, he previously served as the global travel manager at BNP Paribas for a year and held buyer positions at Accenture and HSBC. Drevon-Barreaux also worked on the supplier side at the former BTI France.