Jennie Ho has spent most of her first month as president of Delta Vacations on the road, or, more appropriately, "in the air."
"It's been a month since the announcement," Ho said, "but if this last month is any indication of what time feels like in this role, it has gone by in a blink."
Ho hit the ground running to rally her troops and assemble her resources.
"My first week, as soon as the announcement was made, I flew to Minneapolis with the leaders here [based in Atlanta] to meet with our team members in Minneapolis," she said.
"We need to have a strong presence there. I quickly met with all of our field sellers, who are spread out all across the United States. And this Thursday I am on way to Cabos to meet with our top travel agent partners for the annual recognition event, and so on and so on. I'll be on the road for the next three weeks."
The objective of all this flying around was to quickly establish strong communication channels with her team in the organization and her partners outside of it.
"One thing I know coming into a new job is the importance of focusing on the wellness of team members," she said, "to be visible and transparent, to overtly focus on communications to make sure people trust that we are going to manage through this transition together, our team members and our external customers. They see me, they can hear me and we can build trust that we will manage through this transition, that there is no rug getting pulled out from everyone."
Jennie Ho is taking over from John Caldwell, the previous president of Delta Vacations, who has been promoted to the role of Delta Air Lines vice president - Seattle. Running one of the world's largest vacation packaging operations, a wholly owned subsidiary of one of the world's largest airlines, is a daunting responsibility, but it's not a long leap from where Ho was.
She started working with Delta Air Lines as an analyst in revenue management 19 years ago. Her most recent position was managing director of specialty and Canada sales at Delta Air Lines. That meant she was in charge of all specialty sales from the U.S. and all Canada sales for the airline, which included 12 revenue channels, such as retail and corporate travel agencies, tour operators, consolidators, military and government travel, student travel, sports and university channel and meetings and incentives.
"Through that role, I've had a very close partnership with the Delta Vacations team, with John Caldwell, Tina Iglio [former Delta Vacations' senior vice president, recently promoted to managing director - global sales support for Delta Air Lines' Global Sales], among others."
Caldwell, Iglio and Ho are all staying within the same company-just moving to different positions on the team. Ho calls it a "warm move within companies."
But even with that advantage, she said, "the learning curve is still very steep."
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Caldwell is on hand to help with the transition to new leadership at Delta Vacations.
"John has already moved to Seattle," said Ho, "but he and I go back many many years. We both really grew up with Delta and Northwest. He has been a fantastic partner throughout this transition. I still talk to him a couple of times a week. He's been incredibly available and helpful."
Delta moved Caldwell to Seattle because it is a strategic focus market for the airline, a key outpost in its efforts to grow its Asia business and build its domestic presence in the Pacific Northwest.
Even though revenue continues to be the bottom line concern, Ho believes the first part of building a solid foundation for management is to build communication channels.
"It's important to know how to talk to each other," she said. "So that first and foremost is the priority for now. First, it's communications with employees and our business partners, and then it is to ensure that we continue strong revenue generation history and our margin production."
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