THE CONVERSATION


with Paul Wait of the Guild of Travel Management Companies


Paul Wait arrived at the GTMC in January as its new chief executive after a 40-year career at American Express and Virgin Atlantic. Andy Hoskins tracks his path through the industry and finds out what he has in store for the GTMC


getting used to. He refers to Virgin Atlantic as ‘we’ in the present tense on one occasion and jokes “I must remember to go to a different stand” at the then forthcoming Business Travel Show. But Wait nevertheless seems to have his feet squarely under the table at the GTMC’s London Fitzrovia offices and has already laid out some early aspirations for the organisation. He arrives in the position having worked for just


S


two companies over a period of 40 years. After leaving school in his home town of Birkenhead on the Wirral, Wait’s career in travel began at American Express in Liverpool where he worked as a British Rail clerk earning £45 a month. “I was told at the time that the most complicated


thing I’d ever have to do in travel was read a Thomas Cook Continental Train Timetable,” says Wait, “and they were pretty much right!” He has a remarkable talent for recalling dates and


figures – citing the price of a first class Liverpool to London train fare in 1972 as having recently risen to £14.30 – and a voluminous armoury of anecdotes from his tenacious rise through the ranks at Amex that would fill these two pages many times over. In brief, however, he moved with Amex from


Liverpool to Manchester and then from Manchester to Aberdeen as success followed success. “I was 24 years old and had been given the opportunity to run a fully owned profit and loss centre and learn about general management. The move to Aberdeen was worth it for the learning experience alone,” Wait says. Here, the operation grew from three employees to


PROFILE


Paul Wait joined the Guild of Travel Management Companies as its chief executive officer in January this year, taking over from Anne Godfrey who left the post in July 2012. Paul was previously general manager sales UK/ global and multinational accounts at Virgin Atlantic after joining the airline in 2000. He moved to Virgin from American Express where he began his career at the age of 16 and rose through the ranks to become vice president of sales over a period of 27 years with the company.


become the company’s second largest office in the UK, and the call to London was inevitable. In 1985 he transferred to the company’s Haymarket head- quarters to take over its business travel centre and 24-hour service, “so I’ve sat there on Christmas day answering calls from Aberdeen,” he says. After a boom period for business travel – “we doubled in size in three years and had implants across the City” – and around the time Amex bought Thomas Cook Business Travel, Wait heard for the first time from Richard Branson. When he declined an offer to join Virgin Atlantic he was told by Branson that ‘you will work for us one day’. Sure enough, a second approach from Virgin came in the summer of 1999 but Wait once again rejected the offer – at first. “I loved American Express to death but I only knew


the world according to Amex. I needed to broaden my scope. I had a real thirst for knowledge and I didn’t want to get past my sell by date,” he explains,


peaking to Paul Wait just 20 days into his tenure as the GTMC's new CEO, it’s apparent that his high-profile transition from Virgin Atlantic is still taking some


as the offer from Virgin sowed the notion of a career change. “So it was a shock to my wife when I went home and told her I’d handed in my notice at Amex after 27 years and didn’t have another job to go to. “I resigned on a Thursday but on the Friday I


picked up the phone to Virgin and asked if the job I’d been offered was still available. ‘Come in and see us on Monday’, they replied, when they said to me ‘so, six years later and Richard was right!’.” Wait sums up his 13 years at Virgin as a wonderful


experience in which “everything you can think of happened”, including the launch of Upper Class, new routes, new corporate accounts, increased market share and, of course, the horror of 9/11. With Virgin now coming together with Delta Air


Lines and the departure of both himself and CEO Steve Ridgway this spring, is it the end of an era for the airline? After a pause, Wait says: “Virgin will go through its changes now, with new ownership and new direction. I wish them all the luck in the world.” And what of the potential demise of the Virgin


name, as suggested by IAG CEO Willie Walsh? “No, not a chance,” says Wait. “I just don’t see it. You don’t build a brand like that and let it disappear. The marketplace needs Virgin Atlantic.” When Anne Godfrey left the post of CEO at the


GTMC last summer, Paul Wait’s name was among a 50-strong list of applicants to fill her shoes. And, after fulfilling a long-standing promise to exploit Virgin Atlantic’s network and take his family to the theme parks of Orlando, Wait felt the time was right to move on once again. “I’d run round the golf course on that holiday


wondering if I really wanted the job, what I could do here, and if I could have a positive effect on the industry,” he explains. “By the end of the trip I was 100 per cent certain I wanted the job.” When the GTMC’s chairman Ajaya Sodha called


to offer him the position Wait says it was a feeling of “relief and then euphoria. It’s now day 20 at the GTMC and I’ve loved every single one,” he says, with a smile on his face. He speaks highly of Godfrey, saying she has left the


GTMC in great shape, and his role now is to take it to the next level. Increasing the organisation’s influence in the corridors of Westminster is one of his primary objectives and he praises the work of the GTMC’s public affairs consultancy Cavendish Communications. One topic that has him leaning forward out of his


chair, though, is Air Passenger Duty, and here he thinks a change of approach is required. “Without any criticism of lobbying efforts in the past, it seems to me that everyone is simply going on about what an awful tax it is and how unfair it is. I don’t think anyone in government disagrees with that. But I


24 THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE


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