Richard Stokes is Senior Vice President, Sales and Relationship Management and reports directly to SITA CEO Francesco Violante. He has been in this role since January 2008 and leads the global sales team looking after SITA’s 1,800 customers in over 220 countries and territories.
Prior to his current position, Richard was Senior Vice President for Passenger & Travel Solutions. At the time of moving from this role customer satisfaction was at its highest among the 160-plus airlines which use SITA’s Horizon portfolio of IT solutions for e-ticketing, booking engines, reservations and other core functions. Richard’s leadership in this area of the business resulted in some of the world’s leading airlines such as BA and Cathay Pacific now relying on SITA’s Airfare Insight product to manage their fares.
Previously, Richard was Managing Director of SITA's Advanced Travel Solutions business, which SITA acquired from Equant in 2001. Richard joined Equant's application services division in 1999 as Director of Sales, responsible for managing the global sales and consultancy teams, and the development of regional sales strategies. Before joining Equant, Richard enjoyed a long and successful career with ICL where he held various positions, including Managing Director, Government Systems, with responsibility for all ICL's government revenues, worth almost US$1 billion per annum and Director Software and Services, Retail Systems, where over a five year period he grew the international business dealing with global clients to over US$100m per annum, becoming the number one supplier in Europe.
Richard is a Freeman of the City of London, and is a life-long supporter of the UK-based Ipswich Town Football Club.
Discussion topics:
- The impact of e-commerce and e-business on the air transportation industry
- Maximizing e-commerce return on investment
- Process automation to cut cost and improve yields
- The advantages of multi channel services, such as Mobile, Interactive Voice Response Technology and Interactive Television
- How can Business Intelligence tools help your business
- Web enabled travel booking engines
- The data gathering options available to Government for security purposes