Thomas Cook North America makes changes

Thomas Cook North America is making changes in order to make sure that its “business model remains appropriate in light of the current economic climate, the competitive landscape and product strategy.” As result, the company’s new CEO, Dean Moore has announced the elimination of the post of senior vice-president of sales. That position is currently held by Flemming Friisdahl and as a result, he will be leaving Thomas Cook North America on April 6. Dawn Rzepka, director of sales for Eastern Canada, will assume Friisdahl’s responsibilities and she can be reached at dawn.rzepka@thomascookgroup.ca . Moore explained that “a key factor of our review has been an assessment of our organizational structure and operating model to identify opportunities where we could continue to build a closer and more targeted relationship between our Sales team and our Commercial units, and unfortunately, as a result of this exercise, the role of SVP of Sales has been eliminated.” Moore continued, “Flemming has been with the company in a variety of roles for 19 years and has been an integral member of our team. In his most recent position as SVP of Sales, he made a number of significant contributions, particularly when it came to cementing strong relationships with our key travel agent partners. I look forward to building on these strong relationships forged by Flemming and his team — the travel agent community is an important and significant part of our distribution model and continues to be a key part of our joint success.” Go to http://www.thomascookgroup.ca for more.