I’m at home at the moment,” says Steve Byrne, CEO of Travel Counsellors. “I’m heading off to London in about an hour’s time.” When we speak on the phone, he’s temporarily embodying the essence of the Manchester-based travel franchise he helms where remote working is the norm – at least for workers. For Byrne, it happens to be more circumstantial in this instance. “This time of year is quite busy for us with our overseas conferences,” he details. “I’ve just come back from South Africa and I’ve got a function tonight, so it’s one of those things.” Byrne notes support staff are actively encouraged to work from home once a week, which he can only dream of. “I probably do [one day per] month,” he laughs. “I try my best to do it more often but it doesn’t really work out – it’s nice when you can do it.”
But taking a trip back to Byrne’s earlier career, the relaxed travel industry culture wasn’t something he was accustomed to. He got his first break in the corporate world at professional services firm KPMG as a principal consultant where he worked for six years following his study of accountancy and an MBA. “It mainly involved what they called strategic option reviews, which was looking at different organisations and their options to get more competitive,” Byrne says of his role. “A lot of the work was involved in presenting to different organisations and convincing them of the value you could provide.” Having relocated to London with the business, his upcoming marriage prompted him to return back to his home in the northwest. And alongside tying the knot, there was another union that came about.
While the north isn’t necessarily known for its warm weather, the sun was shining on Byrne’s career prospects. “I met [a friend] who knew the owner of a travel business called ITC – International Travel Connections – based in Chester and they were looking for [a financial director],” he remembers. “I was thinking about my next step and at the time the only option would have been moving back to London with KPMG but that didn’t suit for personal reasons, so I was thinking about my next move anyway.” A chat with the owner of ITC and the post with the luxury tour operator, which arranges high-end holidays to the Caribbean, Africa and beyond, was his. “The role was based in a business with great people, in my hometown and in an industry that was really exciting,” Byrne says. Referring to the now deceased founder-entrepreneur Drew Foster, he calls his former boss and ITC owner “great.” “At the time [of joining] we were hoping to take the company forward,” Byrne details. “It had been very entrepreneurial until then, so we were looking to put structure into the business.”
During his time there, he happened to come across travel agency Travel Counsellors which was sourcing some holidays through ITC. Having visited the company in Bolton where it was based at the time, he got talking with the then managing director to find out more about the operation. “He left to launch his own business so they asked me to be the MD at Travel Counsellors,” Byrne says. While ITC ran using a “conventional workforce” it was turning over somewhere between £50m and £60m and Travel Counsellors was already doing around double that, so it was a bigger operation. There were also another reasons the franchise attracted him. “It had this nature to it where the Travel Counsellors were self-employed and working from home and that added a different dimension, so that was the appeal,” he says. “And it was still within the northwest and at the time I was thinking about [being close to] my three daughters.”
