Voice of Luxury: Abercrombie & Kent's Jennifer Charlton

Q. During your career you’ve worked for KLM and business travel management companies Carlson Wagonlit and Amex. What tempted you to join Abercrombie & Kent?

The A&K product is impressive and the strength of the brand is huge – to hold so much value in the US market is very difficult to achieve and that’s quite astonishing. I was also aware that the brand would be going on a journey from local companies to globalisation and I felt I could add value from a change-management point of view. It’s important to me to add value to a business as I’m personally competitive. I was also drawn in by how many strong women are in leadership here. To come and work for strong women like Marett [Taylor, chief sales officer] and Cristina [Levis, chief executive] was very attractive to me.

Q. What has been your focus since joining last October?

I came in at a time of a lot of change in the UK – Kerry Golds [former chief executive] had left and so had some of her sales team. There is often a domino effect [when someone leaves] and there was a lot of change in the reservations team as well. I inherited a team that had been newly hired but hadn’t really had the leadership needed to get up and running. It gave us a bit of a gap in our presence in the market. There was a lot to do on joining – we have had to get out and work very hard and we still have to [do that to] regain the strength and awareness that Kerry had built with the trade. It’s important to be constantly there supporting [agents] and being relevant in their day-to-day challenges for them to trust you and want to work with you. We had lost momentum with the trade and we are working hard to rebuild that – and we’ve had a good, receptive response.

Q. What would you like your sales team to achieve?

The guys have to keep walking the pavements. I don’t want them being brochure bunnies but they have to be solutions-oriented. They need to know how they can help agents with whatever they have on their desks and make their lives easier. If you keep asking that enough, and you keep delivering enough, who is going to say no? If I was a travel agent and I knew you were taking all the risk because you’re underwriting it under A&K’s Atol, you were going to find a solution for me and you were going to give me a bunch of commission for bookings, why wouldn’t I book with you? It isn’t rocket science; it’s about being consistent and supportive, and understanding the need and profiling of an agency business. There’s a lot of panic when we’re not fast enough to turn something around, but our team know we need to be responsive and earn the right for an agent to want to do business with us.