According to candidates vying for three open seats on the Global Business Travel Association board, the group’s leadership needs accountability, transparency and diversity. The association also needs to do more to grow its membership, they said during a July 19 virtual meeting in which GBTA also outlined financial performance and proposed tweaks to its bylaws.
Open to all active GBTA buyer and supplier members, online voting got underway Tuesday and runs through Aug. 15. Results will be announced the next day during the annual convention in San Diego.
Three buyer-side candidates are chasing two direct at-large board seats for two-year terms, replacing travel buyers Rita Visser (Oracle) and Connie Smith (McCain Foods Limited).
McKinsey & Company global category leader for travel and transport Rick Bajaj emphasized the need for a “renewed focus on the customer experience.” He said that “our industry once was the gold standard in customer experience. What happened? Negative sentiment is on the rise. What do we do about that?”
Barbara Rose, meetings and events lead for EY in the Americas, wants to “bring the infectious spirit of GBTA Ladders to everything else the association does.” Ladders is the association’s mentoring program. Rose is as a mentor and member of the program’s advisory board.
Sue Spear is the travel and fleet manager for Cengage Learning. She stressed the “importance of diverse representation” reflecting the membership and said that “accountability and transparency really do matter.”
Find full platform statements from all direct candidates here.
Eight representatives from travel suppliers are competing for one allied at-large board seat for a two-year term. The winner will replace Phillip Peña of Hilton.
LTD Hospitality corporate director of sales development Samantha Bean said, “Now is the time to clarify the association’s value proposition so more people can benefit from participation.” She encouraged transparency, “diversity of thought” and the “power of engagement.”
Karim Bennaziz Houmane, global head of commercial card sales for BNP Paribas, said his company should be more involved in GBTA “because business travel is a true ecosystem with different players serving mutual clients. Commercial cards are part of this ecosystem. Having at least one representative on the GBTA board of directors would be quite beneficial.”
Hilton executive director of business travel sales Christiane Cabot-Bini focused on growing the membership and “recruiting new and diverse talent” around the world “who may not have thought of the travel industry as a place where they can grow their careers.”
Nomadic director Kim Conway said she was committed to listening to membership and bringing feedback and suggestions to the board. The GBTA Chicago chapter board member cited her team-building experience.
Serko VP of sales Mike Daly said, “We need to embrace the ‘every member matters’ philosophy,” and create an outreach program to bridge the buyer-supplier divide and share the successes of members. Saying the industry shouldn’t rely on the same “100 or 150 or so” people to speak at events and lead committees, Daly acknowledged his presence on that list.
Juliet Howie, VP and global head of enterprise sales at Reside Worldwide, said board representation of her sector, alternative accommodations, would add a fresh voice, as would her European perspective. “We have to actively engage in new cultural preferences and sectors in the industry,” she said.
Citing his many appearances at local events and service as education VP of the Wisconsin chapter, Traxo regional sales director Justin Morris wants to “share the voice of local chapters with GBTA as a whole.”
Southwest Airlines senior director of sales Kevin Sullivan centered his comments on the importance of relationships, the need for GBTA to “reinforce a healthy business travel ecosystem post-pandemic” and “continue to be better global citizens” by aligning on sustainability and advocating for a more diverse membership.
Find full platform statements from all allied candidates here.
GBTA members also will vote on bylaw changes that would be relatively minor compared with last year’s overhaul. The 2022 bylaws review taskforce recommended a change in member category nomenclature from “active” and “affiliate” to “voting” and “non-voting.” The idea, according to GBTA, is to allow members to “remain active if and when they are furloughed or become unemployed.”
The taskforce “clarified that members of the board of directors will not receive any compensation for serving on the board with the exception of expenses incurred while doing business for the association.” Also, the membership would no longer vote to remove a member without cause; instead such removal would require cause and a vote by the board “following the same process by which a board member would be removed.”
Among other proposed changes, the taskforce recommended a uniform process for handling vacancies on the board or among committees; changing all instances of “his” and “his or her” to “their”; and removing all references to absentee ballots (unnecessary in an age of online elections).
The full details of the proposed changes are posted here.
Financial Update
According to GBTA’s audited financial figures, 2021 revenues were $24.5 million and expenses were $12.1 million. “The surplus of $12.4 million is primarily due to the balance of the pandemic insurance proceeds from the cancelled 2020 events along with successful events held globally,” said GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang.
Assets as of Dec. 31, 2021, were $20.9 million, up nearly $8 million from a year earlier. Liabilities shrank by $4.6 million to $11.2 million, making for net assets of $9.7 million. Assets “continued to be strong and stable, and we continue to maintain a strong cash balance and healthy reserves,” Neufang said. Liabilities decreased “due to recognition of convention revenue in 2021 for receipts previously treated as liability from the 2020 cancelled convention.”
GBTA’s combined global and local chapter membership stands just shy of 7,000, with a 50/50 split between buyers and suppliers. Sixty percent of members are based in the United States, with another 34 percent in Europe.
The association claimed a membership retention rate of 63 percent.
As for staff, GBTA president and PayPal global travel manager Denise Truso said the board had “replaced critical staff positions.” An association official later pointed to Neufang’s hiring in February 2021, and new appointments in finance, membership engagement, marketing, communications, business development and sustainability.
2022 Convention
GBTA’s 2022 convention will be the first held during the traditional summer time slot in three years. “Our aim is to get to about 70 percent of registered attendees compared to 2019,” Neufang said. “We already registered a couple hundred new small and medium-sized buyer company representatives who never attended convention before.” In all, GBTA is expecting 5,000 attendees, including more than 900 buyers.
This year’s event will feature a “sustainability pavilion” running at the same time as the main expo. Attendees can speak with subject matter experts and listen in on roundtable discussions. Also different than in past years, a handful of educational sessions will occur during expo hours.
On the tradeshow floor, independent hotels get their own zone, according to GBTA global head of sales Robert Ambrozy.
GBTA also is relaunching the Winit Summit at the summer convention. The GBTA Winit initiative is focused on supporting career mobility for women in travel-related industries.
GBTA Executive Board Members
|
Seat |
Member |
Term ends |
Board |
|
Direct Member Officer (president) |
Denise Truso |
2023 |
2011 |
|
Direct Member Officer (vice president) |
Mark Cuschieri |
2023 |
2021 |
|
Canadian Region Direct Seat |
Sharlene Ketwaroo-Nanoo |
2023 |
2021 |
|
European Region Direct Seat |
Jens Liltorp |
2024 |
2021 |
|
Direct At Large |
Michelle (Mick) Lee |
2023 |
2021 |
|
Direct At Large |
Connie Smith |
2022 |
2020 |
|
Direct At Large |
Rita Visser |
2022 |
2013 |
|
Allied At Large |
Maria Chevalier |
2023 |
2021 |
|
Allied At Large |
Will Pinnell |
2024 |
2019 |
|
Allied At Large |
Alison Taylor |
2024 |
2020 |
|
Allied At Large |
Phillip Peña |
2022 |
2020 |
|
GBTA U.S. Chapter Presidents Council president |
Rosemary Maloney |
2023 |
2021 |
|
Allied Leadership Council president |
Dorothy Dowling |
2023 |
2013 |
|
CEO (Non-voting) |
Suzanne Neufang |
NA |
2021 |
Notes: All current directors were elected to the board following votes by GBTA members, with the following exceptions: Rosemary Maloney (elected by members of the CPC), Dorothy Dowling (elected by members of the ALC), Connie Smith (appointed to the board in December 2020 to fill a vacancy) and CEO Suzanne Neufang (ex officio). Mick Lee served on GBTA’s board from 2012 to 2014.
