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Ward’s departure is not related to planned cuts, says TUI
TUI UK & Ireland director of retail Kathryn Ward is to leave the business after 28 years.
Her departure comes just weeks after TUI announced a major shake-up of its shop opening hours, which could lead to redundancies across the retail network.
The travel giant, which owns Thomson and First Choice, has entered a consultation period with staff at 270 of its smaller shops where it wants to push the opening time back by 30 minutes to 9.30am.
In 30 other small shops it wants to reduce trading days from six to five a week and to open from 10am.
But a TUI spokeswoman insisted Ward’s departure was not related to the planned cuts.
She confirmed that Jill Carter, currently head of sales, will take over responsibility for all ‘retail accountabilities’ in the short term while areas of responsibility are reviewed.
Carter will report directly into Fraser Ellacott, customer operations director.
David Burling, managing director of TUI UK & Ireland, said: "I’d like to thank Kathryn for her hard work and dedication to the business. Her enthusiasm and passion for our brands has been a great asset to the organisation and she will be missed."
Ward said: "Making the decision to leave was incredibly tough but I felt it was the right time to hand over to someone else and look for my next challenge. It’s my time to move on and I do so knowing that I’m leaving the retail arm of the business in incredible shape."
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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