Former Thomas Cook boss says she was forced out over digital direction
A former Thomas Cook chief executive has said disagreements with the company’s chairman over the future of the company led to her effective dismissal in 2014.
Harriet Green told the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee today she was “incredibly sad” when she was pushed out by former chairman Frank Meysman after three years in the role.
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Green told the committee that she tried to focus the company toward catering for millennials in the face of profit warnings in 2012.
This included moving the company to focus more on digital sales to try to chip away at the firm’s “wall of debt”.
However, she was summoned to Mesyman’s office during year-end board meetings in 2014 and told her services were no longer needed.
She said: “I was told, ‘You’ve done a great job, started the transformation, thank you, but we would like somebody now who is a traditional travel person to take this business forward’.
“I was basically being told, ‘Your services are no longer required and we wish to return to a more traditional travel leadership’.”
Green, who is now head of IBM Asia Pacific, was responsible for slashing £500m in costs in her tenure, partly through cutting 2,500 jobs.
The company’s value was estimated to rise from £150m to £2bn in her three years at Thomas Cook.
She told the committee that her strategy could have worked if it was pursued further.
“It was a business worth £2bn and would have got stronger,” she said.
“But being prevented from completing that…everyone has to think about what happened.”
Fellow former Thomas Cook chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa also faced questions from the committee over his potential role in the company’s collapse.
Conservative MP Stephen Kerr claimed that the failed travel company were using its suppliers “as a bank”, leading to large debts.
Kerr also attacked Fontenla-Novoa over the company’s strategy of using high street stores to sell travel packages in the face of growing internet competition.
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Fontenla-Novoa defended his strategy, citing TUI as an example of how the model can work.
“I believe there was growth in the [high street travel] market,” he said.