Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Strange change at TravelSupermarket

Okay, so yesterday we teased Lastminute.com (and John Bevan) a little bit with their job advertisement for a new UK marketing director.

But some breaking news from TravelSupermarket is straight out of leftfield.

Chris Nixon has demoted himself.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The core difference between an entrepreneur and a leader within a large business.... is that in a large, stable, business - as you climb the career ladder you gain areas that you are responsible for on a day to day basis.

As an entrepreneur in a growing business - the tough bit is letting go of areas you used to run hands on - as your team grows.

i.e. entrepreneurs have to learn to let go. Big business career folk have to learn to cover topics they never did on their way up (like accounts, restructuring, IT etc).

Therefore this isn't leftfield at all.

Mind you I have no idea how their company is structured - so maybe my generalisations don't apply. I am not commenting specifically about Travel Supermarket.

Travolution Blogger said...

i would argue that in terms of the travel industry this is a pretty leftfield development.

[travelsupermarket, yes, is not a travel company per se, but a technology/media company]

indeed the travolution mailbox has been busy of late with those keen to be seen as powerful or in powerful positions. :-)

i agree that start-ups et al have to learn to give up certain key positions to people that are basically better qualified for as and when the company grows.

this is what nixon has done - and has admitted to us this afternoon.

brent hoberman, for example, would be the first admit that he enjoyed being the innovator at lastminute.com rather than the CEO.

the travel industry, dominated/obsessed with personalities, would see Nixon's move as a strange one - thus why we said as such in the post.