Travelport, a leading travel commerce platform, has announced four internal appointments within its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) agency-facing teams.

With immediate effect, the following internal appointments have been made in Europe, the Middle East and Africa:

• Rabih Saab, formerly leader for Africa, Middle East and South Asia, expands his responsibilities to include Europe and is charged with further accelerating Travelport’s recent growth in the region. He joined the company in 2005 and led the set-up of Travelport’s new direct operations for travel agents across the Middle East.  Prior to joining Travelport, he held senior executive roles in a number of international organisations including the French company, Chantelle, Japan Tobacco International and Procter & Gamble.

• Marcin Pilarski, who formerly led Travelport’s Eastern European region, moves to head up Product and Marketing on a global basis for Agency-facing teams.  Pilarski, a marketing graduate, joined Travelport in 2003 and before then held a number of senior roles in the travel industry including running a car rental network operating across Europe.

• Damiano Sabatino, who previously headed up Western Europe, now leads the newly created region of Southern Europe and North Africa, and has responsibility for driving Travelport’s growth and expansion into these strategically important territories.  In particular, Sabatino will be looking to optimise the high trade dependencies between Europe and North and West Africa.  Before joining Travelport in 2008, he held senior technical and commercial roles in a number of high profile telecommunications and technology companies including Motorola, Telecom Italia and SITA.

• Simon Ferguson will lead Northern Europe in an expanded role which sees him add the Benelux region, Germany, Austria and Switzerland to his current responsibilities of the UK, Ireland and Nordic countries.  Prior to joining Travelport, He spent 20 years in business, consumer and technology media, including eight years as Chief Executive of the UK’s Travel Weekly Group. With Simon’s promotion, Paul Broughton will now head up the UK and Ireland, and Peter Cramon will head up the Nordic countries.

Commenting on the changes, Jason Clarke, Travelport’s global managing director for Agency Commerce, said: “The appointments we are announcing in Europe and North Africa give new strength and depth to our EMEA regional team and allow us to leverage our presence and our unrivalled travel commerce platform offering more fully across this highly varied and complex region.  The expanded leadership team also means we can now better focus on some previously unexploited opportunities within the region.” – TradeArabia News Service