Consultancy Festive Road has added three new associates to support its “growing global client demand” for independent insights, engagement strategies, event speakers and programme assessments.
Lora Ellis (pictured) is a business travel consulting professional with sixteen years’ experience in this sector in air and hotel sales and sourcing. Her previous roles were for United Airlines, Rosenbluth and more recently in consulting with Amex Global Business Travel. She will take a lead role for the North America region and is based in Miami, Florida.
Sara Rooney joins after an internship at the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) travel management team. She is a management training graduate of US retail leader Nordstrom. Rooney’s role is to provide actionable insights on a retained basis for a major global pharmaceutical company.
Asif Bashir is a corporate travel optimisation and data analytics expert who previously worked with Festive Road managing partner Caroline Strachan while at Amex Global Business Travel’s consulting division. His role is to lead programme assessments for customers.
Talking about the development, Festive Road’s Strachan said: “This is a logical step for Festive Road to support the longer-term vision of our client base. We are fortunate to be at the heart of the travel management eco-system and this unique perspective tells us that both buyers and suppliers derive considerable value from the provision of programme assessments from an independent partner.”
Strachan's business partner Paul Tilstone added: “We need to attract fresh, young talent into our sector. Our new hashtag #BeTheRoad represents our desire to help clients create a new path for travel management, not to simply follow a road created by others. The combination of Lora’s incredible expertise and guidance with these two young additions to the Festive Road team will help to create that path which will see the combination of actionable insights and effective engagement drive more relevant business travel programmes for the twenty-first century.”