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Posted:03-February-2023

The Travel Franchise's new Head of People launches "a wave of recruitment for 2023"

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Despite being in post for only a few weeks, The Travel Franchise’s newly appointed Head of People, Donna Stonehouse has taken on the challenge of recruiting up to 25 team members in the first quarter, including a number of C-suite roles. 

An industry heavyweight with over two decades of experience, Donna Stonehouse joins the company having worked in a nuclear power station, education, manufacturing, engineering. Most recently Donna worked at the $5.3billion global beauty brand Coty, which has 12,000 employees and looks after many beauty brands such as Adidas, Calvin Klein, Burberry, Gucci, Hugo Boss, Max Factor and Rimmel. As Coty’s HR Leader for nearly seven years, Donna helped take employee engagement from around 64% to 90%. 

At Coty, Donna also designed and implemented leadership development programmes at all levels which achieved a satisfaction rate of nearly 100% and contributed to employee turnover of less than 2% - a significant achievement against industry comparisons of at least five times that level.

Donna says that, as well as improving onboarding, training and development, her first priority in post is to launch a “fresh wave of recruitment for 2023, attracting and hiring the best people to take on a variety of roles from C-suite to marketing coordinators”. Donna is currently recruiting for a Managing Director, a Chief Business Development Officer, a Chief Operating Officer, as well as three Heads of Department roles and various digital and content Marketing roles. 

Donna says: “I turned down several offers to take on this role at The Travel Franchise. I saw the potential and possibilities of what I can achieve and had to go for it. Listening to Paul Harrison and Steve Witt talk about their vision for the future made it a dream job for me. Together, we can take an incredible company, expand it with the best talent and nurture the team and culture to become the industry’s brightest star.” 

“This is an opportunity to create and design pioneering ways of working. We are going to break boundaries, shake up the travel industry and put people at the forefront of a business to support its continued growth. If anyone out there is at the top of their game, looking for a new challenge in an exciting and growing business, they should take a look at our website and get in touch.”

Co-founder of The Travel Franchise, Paul Harrison says: “We attract the best of the best in terms of talent and Donna is the pinnacle. Coming from a multibillion dollar brand such as Coty and having achieved so much, the sky's the limit in regards to what she can accomplish for us.” 

Harrison continues: “In 2022, we doubled our size, both in terms of sales and head count, and we are looking to further this journey in 2023. Now is the time for C-suite candidates to get in touch. Not only will Donna expand our team from top-to-bottom with the UK’s top talent, she is going to make us one of the best franchise companies in the UK to work for in terms of culture, wellbeing, reward and career development.”

Interested and want to know more about The Travel Franchise?

The The Travel Franchise profile outlines all aspects of their franchise opportunity and allows you to contact them for further information or to ask a question.

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