Devi Virdi has been appointed Head of Diversity & Inclusion at WHTT (Women in Hospitality and Travel-Tech)
A senior level advocate for diversity, inclusion and well-being, has been named Head of Diversity & Inclusion at WHTT (Women in Hospitality and Travel-Tech). With over 20+ years of experience in the hospitality and travel tech industry across sales, marketing, HR, operations, revenue management and partnerships, she believes being dynamic, bold and courageous in today's business environment is key to achieving lasting success. She helps organisations, partners and clients drive their vision and purpose. Most recently as Interim Managing Director at HRS Northern Europe, Devi's objective was building a diverse entrepreneurial team and leading the commercial functions. With her background in HR, she has used and valued her HR foundation across all her people management roles and combining with her commercial ability, aligning them to successfully deliver diverse teams and business growth. From first-hand experience she knows that diversity is an essential business strategy. Her career has taken to a number of global hotel chains such as AccorHotels where she led the Global Sales Business travel team successfully, and a leading travel management company and most recently to a travel tech innovator HRS.
Devi Virdi's appointment to WHTT is further the organisation's mission to support, inspire and promote women and underrepresented groups within the hospitality and travel technology industry. With international tourist arrivals projected to plunge by 60 to 80 percent in 2020, there are as many 120 million jobs at risks. WHTT mission to enable professional growth for women and underrepresented groups via education, mentorship and career development. WHTT believes that by inspiring communities to enter the industry and organizations to leverage and retain in the sector, will create more diverse and inclusive leadership. Devi sits on a number of UK and Global committees supporting and driving diversity, inclusion and belonging. Part of the LEVEL UK Advisory Board, she is an advocate for creating a level playing field to support gender balance in the UK business travel industry as well as co supporting the diversity and inclusion committee with the global Travel and Meetings Standard community (TAMS).
