BCD Travel has promoted Mike Janssen to the position of
president of the Americas, replacing industry veteran Danny Hood in the role.
This transition has been in the works for three years, ever
since Hood returned from retirement to head the American portion of the global
travel management company. It became effective July 1.
Janssen, who previously served as BCD's North American
president, now has responsibility for Latin America and strategic decision
making for the entire region. Janssen has worked for BCD Travel since 1993, and
has served in finance, operations, account management and supplier relations
capacities. Previously, he held management positions at Aon, Unisys and
Peterson Consulting.
BCD Travel global president and COO John Snyder described
Janssen as "a solid leader for many years" and said "he knows
all angles of the business very well and has great client relationships. He has
fabulous employee leadership and customer skills."
Janssen said he began to acquire those skills working for
his family business, a Firestone tire store and oil change business, as a tire
buster at age 15. He progressed to the front desk, where he learned that "you
have to look beyond each service experience so the customer comes in again.
Every action you take affects whether the customer stays with you for the long
term."
With his new responsibilities, Janssen is starting out
focusing on and visiting Latin America, where he said BCD has a strong
organization in place. "I'll continue to build on that cohesiveness. My
role is to support the team and client needs and ensure positive growth,"
he said, noting he will "continue looking for M&A opportunities in
Latin America."
Unlike other new positions, Janssen said, "this is one
I was a part of formulating," so he expects a smooth transition without a
need to make radical changes.
Snyder said Hood, who will stay on in a part-time executive
consulting role that will include strategic work and select client
relationships, "provided great leadership in the downturn."
Hood said he drew on his 30 years of experience to manage
through the tough times and make the difficult decisions required to weather
the economic challenges. In North America, BCD Travel is up 3 percent to 5
percent in sales from 2008 levels and 25 percent over last year, Hood said. "The
client base has come back strong and is finally ahead of budget for a couple of
quarters," he said. "That is when you want to leave it, when you are
back on top."
Snyder said that in 2009 and 2010, client retention was "spectacular"
despite the "huge activity in clients examining their contracts" and
that the company was "30 to 40 percent ahead of the aggressive sales goals
that he had set."
There were no other changes to the team running Latin
America, headed by Barbara Blue, Hood noted, adding there has been "phenomenal
growth in Brazil, Mexico and Peru" and that while other countries in the
region have had some challenges, BCD Travel has augmented growth in Latin
America by opening a new call center in Costa Rica.
Snyder said the strongest region for growth remains the
Asia/Pacific region. While he acknowledged that recovery in the Americas has
outpaced Europe, the Middle East and Africa, he said that he was "fairly
encouraged in the transaction levels in mainland Europe in the past couple of
months."
As a result of improving performance, Snyder said the
company has "brought back quite a few of the front-line staff" laid
off during the downturn, brought back others out of work-time reductions and
made new hires. "We hope to bring much more back between now and the end
of the year, but we'll be cautious about how we do that."
This story originally
appeared in the August 9, 2010, edition of Business Travel News.