Travel Bulletin heard from Debbie about her new role as the first female MD in the operators history, as she looks forward to "putting her stamp on the product and everything we do."
With a career at Jules Verne spanning four decades, Debbie O'Neill has been appointed as the operator's managing director.
After being promoted to general manager in April 2022, Debbie spearheaded the operator's launch to the trade in January 2023.
Francis Torrilla, who held the post for five years, celebrated Debbie's promotion: "Debbie’s experience in the business and the skills she has acquired in helping people to achieve their full potential makes her the perfect candidate to take Jules Verne on its next voyage."
Travel Bulletin heard from Debbie about the excitement around her new role, the operator's launch to the trade, and the 'next voyage' that awaits.
"I'm really excited. I've got the opportunity to put my stamp on the product and everything we do within the organisation, especially with a people focus. I saw our recent brochures and said 'We need pictures of people! Not just temples and lakes!' Whether it's Africa, Asia or wherever else, we're storytelling."
"I'm really looking at exploring that side of things further and figuring out where we can take that. To be able to put my stamp on everything we do, as a woman, with that focus on connection authenticity leaves me really excited for the future."
Debbie marks the operator's first female managing director in its 45-year history, and intends to use her experience to shape the future of Jules Verne.
"I'm an NLP practitioner and a women's coach. Through my training and talking to people, women are leaving certain industries in their droves. Women in other spheres have their eyes rolled at them in board meetings – senior leaders! While it's not really something I see in the travel industry, women do struggle with that confidence to get to those upper levels of management or get treated equally when they do.
"I'm set on getting that message out to the wider industry: helping women feel more confident and helping them manage their careers within travel."
Speaking of a "renewed energy" around the Jules Verne office since launching to the trade earlier this year, Debbie continued: "I hadn't really anticipated it, how things might shift for us day-to-day in the office. I've been at Jules Verne for a long time... it feels like we've been disconnected from the trade in the past. The moment we launched back in January, there was this instant buzz.
"Initially, agents reached out to us about how pleased they were that we were selling through the trade, some had travelled with us on their own holidays. Then we started getting calls through the dedicated agency line that we'd set up. More evident was the number of calls we got about how excited agents that were working with us, through me, Abbey (Renshaw, business development & communications manager), and our trade sales team.
"That instant buzz continued. It's given us more food for though because, we've thought about the consumer forever, but the trade is completely different. Abbey is really enjoying being out on the road and the relationships she is building."
As an ex-agent herself, Debbie couldn't be more grateful for those choosing Jules Verne. "Personally for me, the relationships I've formed have been great. A Travel Counsellor reached out to me asking if we sold Canada, unfortunately we don't, but she came back and booked an Egypt holiday with us. I reached out and thanked her. Those kind of connections have been really nice.
"We really appreciate that the agents are putting their trust in us to look after their customers. It's not an option for me to be letting them down."
