lastminute.com is making structural and leadership changes that will underpin lastminute.com’s position at the forefront of the online travel and leisure industry.

lastminute.com is creating two new company-wide divisions; business-to-consumer and business-to-business. The B2C and B2B focus will be adopted across all of the13 European countries in which lastminute.com is present and has led to a number of exciting new positions and appointments as well as a new operating mode.

Business-to-Consumer (including the flagship lastminute.com brand) will be led by Alfonso Castellano.  He is promoted from his current role as Managing Director, Italy and Spain and Group MD of Consumer Strategy to be Senior Vice President, Travelocity Europe and Group MD, Consumer Brands.  Castellano is responsible for the development and trading performance of all consumer brands and the consumer teams in each country will report to him.

lastminute.com’s Business-to-Business portfolio consists of its successful private label/distribution businesses (including OTC Technologies) and the leading well-known travel trade brands holiday autos and medhotels.com.

Vic Darvey is promoted from his current role as Commercial Director to the role of Vice President, Distribution and Business Development.  Darvey will have responsibility for Private Labels and Distribution deals (including OTC Technologies) across all of lastminute.com’s European assets.

Brian Murphy is promoted from his current role Group MD holiday autos to the role of Vice President, holidayandmore.  holidayandmore is the umbrella proposition covering holiday autos and medhotels.com, two of the group’s leading brands.  Murphy will take direct responsibility for these businesses at a European & International level. Murphy will report directly to CEO Ian McCaig.

UK Managing Director, Mark Jones, will work directly with CEO Ian McCaig to build out the B2B organisation defined above.  Mark’s role subsequent to this build phase being completed will be the subject of a future announcement.

As part of lastminute.com’s new European structure, the new role of Chief Operating Officer is created and all Operations and Customer Service teams across Europe will move to report directly to the COO to promote best practice and service excellence across the business and to work more closely with Travelocity’s industry-leading global team. Chief Financial Officer Ed Kamm is appointed COO in the new structure and all Operations Directors across Europe will report to him going forward. Kamm reports direct to McCaig.

Martha Ross, VP Global and Corporate Accounting for TSG, will move to Europe to replace Kamm as CFO.

The existing roles of Country Managing Directors will be divided into B2B and B2C leaders, who will report to their respective leaders in the B2B and B2C organisations above.

Group Marketing, technology, product, human resources, legal and programmes teams will work as central ‘shared services’ functions supporting both the B2B and B2C business divisions, sharing best practice and driving efficiencies.  All these functions will continue to report directly to McCaig.

McCaig said: “I am delighted to announce this new and exciting leadership framework, which I passionately believe will drive us towards achieving our strategic business objectives and creating an even more rewarding environment for our amazing employees.  lastminute.com is the most exciting consumer brand in the business and this approach will ensure it flourishes and goes from strength to strength.  Our other consumer brands will also undoubtedly benefit from our new approach. We also have a very strong B2B portfolio, which will be much better supported by the new organisation. I am excited about this new structure and the leadership we have put in place.  This will see us move to functioning with much more focus and delivering a better proposition to customers and partners, while driving true teamwork at a European level and with the rest of the Travelocity and Sabre family globally.”

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