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HRG unveils major European shake-up
Hogg Robinson Group has announced a major restructure across Europe, appointing four managing directors for north, central, west and multinational.
Europe North will be headed by Hans Holmen, previously MD of HRG Nordic, based in Stockholm.
Europe Central is now led by Beat Bürer, previously MD for HRG Switzerland, based in Zurich.
Peter Kite, formerly MD of HRG UK, will head up Europe West, taking on responsibility for Belgium. He is based in Farnborough.
Europe Multinational Services, covering all client services functions for HRG’s key managed clients across the region, will be overseen by Ian Windsor, previously operations director Europe. He is also based in Farnborough.
All other country heads will now report into these four.
HRG said the restructure will enable it to operate on a “Europe-wide basis, rather than by country, which better reflects the growing international focus of HRG’s multinational clients”.
Reto Bacher, regional president for HRG in Europe, explained: “Providing our clients with a truly seamless operation in Europe is something that we’ve been planning for some time. The restructure allows us to further break down the barriers to business that can sometimes exist between countries.
“This European initiative follows the successful integration last year of HRG’s operations in the United States and Canada to form HRG North America.”
A spokeswomen for the group said the Europe heads would now be putting their own teams in place and there were likely to be other management changes.
As part of the integration, HRG is linking up travel reservation centres in the UK, Hungary, Sweden, Singapore and Canada.
It says this will allow it to “adopt a ‘follow the sun’ strategy with service centres providing continuous support for clients regardless of geographic location or time of day”.
Kite said there would be no cut backs as part of the restructure.
“It’s a case of matching how our clients have developed,” he said.
By Bev Fearis
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Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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