BCD's John Snyder (left) and Stephan Baars discuss:
- Succession plans, but not "retirement" for Snyder
- Where recovery is leveling off
- Navigating a still-challenging hiring market
BCD Travel last week announced that former CFO Stephan Baars, who left in 2017 to become CEO of Boron, BCD founder John Fentener van Vlissingen's private investment company, is returning to BCD to serve as CEO upon the July 1 departure of president and CEO John Snyder. Baars and Snyder spoke jointly to BTN executive editor Michael B. Baker and The Beat editor-in-chief Jay Boehmer about their succession plans, the status of BCD's transaction and staffing recovery and the areas that are ripe for growth for the travel management company.
BTN: John, what are your plans after July 1?
John Snyder: I definitely wouldn't label it retirement, but I am jumping off the train without any specific plans in place. My goal is to take a six-month period, spend some quality time with the family and do some travel, just relax and recharge my batteries. Then, after that period of time, I'll be looking at what is the next big opportunity that's going to be out there. I don't plan to retire, but after six months, I might say, "This is great, my golf game is getting better and I don’t mind doing this." Going 150 mph for more than 30 years down to zero is going to be a big adjustment, so I don't plan to retire, but you don’t know what's going to go to my head in that six-month period. I'm going to keep my eyes and ears open. I'd like to jump into another full-time opportunity after that period, but I might just decide to look at doing some board positions and taking it a little easier.
Stephan Baars: I'll keep him busy as well.
BTN: How closely involved will you remain with BCD?
Snyder: I'm going to stay connected, behind the scenes for a period of time acting as an advisor/consultant for Stephan and the leadership team, only when they need me. I'm not going to stick my nose in where it's not needed. Stephan needs to step in, spread his wings and do his own thing, but I'll be there in the background for a period of time, helping out when he needs my help.
BTN: Stephan, how did you reach the decision to return to BCD?
Baars: You need to look back at my history. John and I share a long history together, and we together have run the company for 11 years and stayed connected, when the family asked me—and there, it was really a call from the owner—if I wanted to run his family company six years ago. That was a tough decision because my heart was in travel, and I like the executive team, which is still in a great place today. I was asked and offered this opportunity, and to get an opportunity to come back to a company that is world-class and has such an executive team, there are not many opportunities in the world where you get this chance. Having John as support for the transition is even better for me.
Snyder: Stephan and I will have regular calls to do the handover to him, but it's a lot easier, because we've worked together for many years. Stephan knows the company and a lot about the industry, so the handover is going to be pretty easy. I've already talked to a lot of partners and suppliers. My inbox is massively overloaded with wonderful comments from employees and partners from all around the world. Quite a few of our major partners have asked to facilitate introductions with Stephan, so I know we'll be doing some traveling together, introducing Stephan to some senior leaders at our partners.
BTN: Stephan, where will you be based?
Baars: The plan right now is to split my time between the Americas and Europe. We were discussing the right place for me to settle down in the U.S., and the natural place will be in Atlanta. In Europe, I will be based where we have offices in Utrecht, and my home will stay in Germany. I will be where our clients and employees need us.
BTN: What are your top priorities as you transition to the role?
Baars: Continuity is extremely important in our business. I'm coming into a company that has been so well-run over the last years and has an outstanding executive team. We will put the focus on continuity and to stay where we are and be the best choice for our clients, and we are well prepared for that with the team we have.
Snyder: It's the perfect time for a handover because BCD is on a great path. I don’t want to say we have the pandemic 100 percent in the rearview mirror, but for the most part, we rebuilt the company and are in great shape. We had our biggest sales year ever last year and got back into a very strong level of profitability. We had very high client retention and employee engagement scores. Things are in great shape.
BTN: Where are you right now in the recovery?
Snyder: If you look at it, and it's hard to stop comparing to 2019, from a transaction standpoint, we look a lot like our other competitors, right around that 75 percent recovery level. It's helped tremendously that [Asia-Pacific] is in full swing and has recovered pretty aggressively. From a revenue standpoint, we're doing a little better than that, so transactions are the biggest challenge at this point, because ticket prices are up, and other things are helping the lift on the revenue side. It's hard to figure out where we're going to level off. I think it's probably going to be somewhere in the 75 to 85 percent range.
BTN: How about in recovery of staffing?
Snyder: We're recovering pretty aggressively on the staffing side. We're back up over 13,000 employees globally, so we're at a pretty good place. We still have some people to hire for sure. It's still a challenging market on the employee acquisition side, but we've had a lot of success there.
BTN: At The Beat Live in late 2022, you identified staffing as the biggest challenge for TMCs. Is that still the case?
Snyder: There's still challenges. There's a limited pool of talent to tap into. We've got to quit just changing talent between the industry and bring in some fresh new talent from outside the industry, and we put a pretty major focus on that at BCD—bringing in fresh new talent that will be the next leaders over the next 10 to 20 years. [New Distribution Capability] and a lot of the other topics are hot on mind right now. There's a lot of challenges that everyone is adapting to what's going on in that environment, and we'll leave it at that.
BTN: Are there any particular areas you see as ripe for growth, such as small and midsized enterprises or certain geographies?
Baars: SME is something that is not new to us. If you go back the last years where John and the team have invested, that was predominantly in the SME sector, and they have continued with technology especially for the SME sector. This is a focus for the whole industry. The question is who can service it best, and we believe we are well positioned there.
If you look to the geographies, BCD is in all the main markets, but you cannot rule out that in several markets there is potential for further growth as markets develop. There are several areas where we are already strong and from a client base where we would like to continue to keep our position, and I have some ideas where there are other industries where BCD Travel might not be that present that might be of great interest to us. The first thing I want to do is listen to the executive team, what ideas have been created over the last six years and which one we will take up first.
Snyder: [BCD SME-focused booking platform] GetGoing has rolled out in Germany and is in the process of being rolled out in the U.S. It's moving along very well. Time will tell if it's adopted well. It's going to be a good play for us in that SME marketplace, but it's still a little too early to tell how that's going to play out.
BTN: Stephan, what happens with your former role at Boron?
Baars: The reason why you don't know a lot about Boron is because it's the family company. We will never share any financials, nor will we give huge insight, and that will not change, I assume. This is the family company managing investments not in the BCD group. It's known that the family holds a significant share in [Netherlands-based SHV Holdings], another family company founded by the van Vlissingen family in the past. We do stock investments as well related to the travel industry, and we have real estate predominately in the U.S. and growing in Europe as well. We have foundations which are material and close to the heart of our owners' family, which have a significant amount of capital to manage. That kept me busy, and we were starting in the last years to acquire 15 companies in the service industry, all around real estate, and the dream is we will grow this business to a second BCD. We are still at the beginning, but that's what the company is doing. I will stay involved with part of my time, but only limited for some strategic projects we don't want to transfer at this time.