The Client
Michael Paul Holidays, is a prominent self-catering holiday booking channel, working only with API technology, delivering real-time live availability, content, and pricing from their clients’ holiday booking systems, with the ability to place new bookings back into a live system. They also own the largest holiday park directory in the UK www.caravansitefinder.co.uk which, in its new format, will handle holiday lettings across the holiday park sector.
Clients range from boutique cottage complexes to large holiday parks who can list their UK holiday property on the Michael Paul Holidays website. The business has API-driven integrations with all the major booking systems including SuperControl, ParcVu, EliteParks, Prophet, Anytime, GemaPark and RMS.
Their Chair Michael Paul had known Vanessa Moon for some time and contacted Moon Executive Search as they were looking for a new Managing Director to run that business.
The campaign and outcome
This was a national campaign, led by Vanessa Moon and Simon Quinn and we were particularly interested to talk to candidates with who brought proven leadership skills in the property/holiday lettings sector and those who are familiar with the UK market. We also sought evidence of excellent client management experience and someone confident at building business relationships and pitching ideas to senior stakeholders.
We were delighted to appoint Stewart Black – a Business Development Director into the role. Stewart is a Senior Commercial Director who has significant experience in creating successful businesses within the estate agency and holiday rental markets. Stewart also brought extensive experience of e-commerce and payments systems for SME’s in the property and travel sectors, and have developed strong project management capabilities, including planning, implementing software integrations, and managing new website integrations.
Vanessa Moon comments, ‘This was a niche national campaign, and we had a really lovely positive response to our approaches. Stewart brings a great combination of sector knowledge as well as online digital and ecommerce experience so we knew he would be a great fit for Michael Paul.
Michael Paul, Chair adds ‘I have known Vanessa and Simon at Moon for a few years and knew they would be exacting, thorough and specific in their search. They presented a great short list in good time, and I know we will work together again.’