FCm Travel Solutions today announced that it will once again have a new executive overseeing its U.S. corporate travel business as John Beauvais, vice president of airline reservations and ticket distribution in the United States for parent company Flight Centre, replaces FCm president of the United States and Americas Gregory Lording, effective March 1.
Lording said he is returning to Australia for family reasons and will remain with the company.
Beauvais joined Flight Centre in 2004 and was involved with the travel management company's 2006 acquisition of Chicago-based Bannockburn Travel Management and 2007 minority stake purchase in Garber Travel Service, which last year completed its rebranding as FCm Travel Solutions. Beauvais also spent three years managing all U.S. supplier relations.
Las Vegas-born Beauvais is the first North American to lead FCm's U.S. corporate business. His appointment is the latest executive leadership change in a series of moves that has seen senior management from the Australian parent company leave after relatively short stints.
Lording in mid-2008 took over from Dan O'Brien, who replaced Greg Dixon in 2007. Dixon, who transitioned to head Flight Centre Limited in North America, came back to oversee the U.S. business travel segment for an interim period, following O'Brien's departure.
Lording later shifted to president of the United States and the Americas as the company split its Canada and U.S. businesses and shifted its corporate headquarters to Chicago from Vancouver, Canada, with plans to aggressively grow the U.S. business, especially among midmarket clients
(BTNonline, Dec. 21, 2009).
Beauvais said he plans to continue with Lording's strategy in the United States, which is now FCm's second largest market behind Australia. Like Lording, he also will oversee the Americas partner network. "There is no change in strategy," Beauvais told
Business Travel News today. "Everything that Gregory had done, I intend to continue to do, and anything new that I do is something that Gregory and I had already discussed that we were working on."