Situation

A mid-cap private equity firm sought to appoint a new CEO for a specialist international travel management company. The mandate was to find an experienced leader capable of managing different strategies across multiple geographies, with a strong record of building scalable service propositions around a commodity product.

The key priorities for the incoming CEO were to:

1. Drive profitable growth in the core business by leveraging recent investments in people and the operational platform.

2. Embed a sales and service-led culture to create clear market differentiation through service excellence.

3. Lead M&A activity to support international growth and market expansion.

Approach

The search focused on three candidate pools:

• Leaders within travel solutions (e.g. airlines, car hire) or travel services (e.g. booking and loyalty platforms).

• Executives from consumer-facing, service-led sectors such as consumer FS, insurance, or subscription models, who had navigated similar strategic and cultural challenges.

• Proven ‘best-athlete’ CEOs with the agility to rapidly understand the business model and deliver value through strategic transformation and cultural leadership.

Across all groups, we prioritised candidates with a strong private equity mindset—combining operational pace, value creation focus, and a leadership philosophy aligned with the firm’s ownership culture.

Impact

The appointed candidate was a seasoned CEO with experience across both airlines and broader consumer services. Under their leadership, the company achieved the objectives outlined in the initial brief, improving commercial performance and successfully expanding into new international markets. This growth established the business as a market leader within its vertical, ultimately delivering a 3.2x return on exit for the private equity owners.