NOT EVERYONE climbs 6000m mountains for fun. But for Francesca Ecsery, general manager of cheapflights.co.uk, Mt Kilimanjaro’s snowy peaks, where it is ten degrees below zero and difficult to breath, is just another holiday.
Ecsery, 44, not only works in the travel business, but also eats, lives and breathes travel. The latest recruit to the online travel business, Ecsery spent her childhood moving from country to country.
‘Living in different places when I was so young gave me a sense of adventure which I still carry through with me today,’ she says. Her parents were political refuges from Hungary, briefly moving to the US and then settling in France. When she was eight years old her parents split up and Ecsery moved to Portugal with her mother until she was 18 – by then, the young globe trotter was already fluent in six languages.
‘Most of the languages I speak are Latin and I learnt them all before the age of 12. Moving around so much as a child definitely gave me a sense of adventure but it also taught me an important lesson – the ability to be able to make a home anywhere.’
Initially Ecsery studied political science at Geneva University before working in Spain and Portugal. At the age of 27 she embarked on an MBA at Harvard Business School, where she quickly realised how rare it was to be a woman in the world of business.
‘Harvard would be mortified at any suggestion of gender discrimination, but most first class honours were still mostly go to men,’ says Ecsery who thinks working within the travel retail sector taught her, first hand, the importance of nurturing a workforce which is predominately female. ‘Having mostly women employees means they can be more flexible, the travel industry is 80 per cent female, and flexible working is a very important aspect to allow women to reach their potential,’ says Ecsery.
After her MBA, Ecsery moved back to London and went to the UK snack food giant Walkers as an assistant marketing manager. As brand manager for Walker’s Crisps, Ecsery helped launch the now household tomato ketchup, Worcester sauce and pickle onion flavours made famous by the TV advertising campaign fronted by football legend Gary Lineker.
But Ecsery soon found herself becoming frustrated at Walkers and yearned for a new challenge. ‘The brand was fantastic but it had such a long turn around, I wanted something with a bit more pace, which is what drew me to travel retail.’
The insipid traveller first took a role at STA Travel international division, a company which extends over 76 countries, 32 of which were secured under her leadership. But five months ago she moved again becoming general manager of cheapflights.co.uk, which with six million unique users, has been the UK’s top search website for flights for nearly the past four years. ‘It works on the basis of a weekly cycle, its target focused and consumer lead, I think that is what attracted me to it.
Business wise, Ecsery is hoping to keep developing the online presence of cheapflights.co.uk to maintain and improve its position in the market. Cheapflights was ranked as the 8th biggest travel website in the UK, based on the number visits between April – June 2007, according to Hitwise.
‘I have always strived to work for a company that has the fastest possible turnover from concept to implementation.’ The instantaneous pace of the internet is something that Escery has taken from her personal life; she thrives on passion for adventure.
‘My idea of relaxing is doing something different’, says Ecsery, ‘sometimes when I am training for a marathon I might be running up to three nights a week.’ While Ecsery may have settled on living in the UK for now, she is planning to ski climb the Swiss Alps later this year. Ski climbing involves going to the top of ski slope via the lift and then putting skins on your skis and climbing the rest of the way.
In between her full time commitments to Cheapflights she is training for the trip by running three mornings a week as well as taking yoga classes. It seems Escery isn’t about to slow down, she says: life isn’t about living in second gear.’
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