Women in Travel: Denise Heffron

From the time Denise Heffron started her first job in travel 27 years ago, she was hooked. Working in a government job she didn’t love, she tagged along to a Sunquest Vacations product launch to help her good friend and former industry executive, Nancy Jackson, unpack some boxes. By the end of the night, she was with the sales team in a hospitality suite and thought “if this is work, get me a job.” Shortly afterwards, she started in the marketing department, doing graphics and copywriting.

At the time, Sunquest was iconic, it was the big tour operator run by the magnanimous Pat Brigham. In terms of leadership, it was mainly men who ran the place, though there were a couple of women in senior jobs, but in roles typically considered more traditional for women such as customer care, and human resources.

“All the top positions like sales and marketing, finance; all of these roles were held by men which I think early in my career, was a pretty common theme. The big jobs, the revenue-generating roles -- it was pretty typical in the industry at that time.

The funny thing is, our business is heavily weighted to women. But in those days, in the 90s when I was coming up in the business, primarily only low to mid-level management positions were held by women. After some restructuring at Sunquest, Heffron moved to Transat, where she would stay until her retirement in 2018.

Transat Holidays was run by Lina DeCesare at the time, which was very unique and as Heffron says, not as typical as what other women in the industry may have been experiencing. “When I started there 26 years ago the president was a woman and when I left last year, the president was a woman.”

Heffron says Transat was interesting in the way there was always a balance between the founders, 2 of whom were male and one female, but in the early days, it was the same story as at other companies - the big topline jobs were held by men for the most part, and the director level positions were held by women.

Women helping women, just because

Some of those women helped Heffron throughout her career, acting as mentors, friends or role models. Heffron says it hasn’t only been women who have supported her however, she’s looked up to many male mentors over the years as well, such as Paul Foster, Philippe Sureau and Jean-Marc Eustache.

"I’ve had great teachers both men and women, who have been my bosses or people I’ve looked up to over the years, like Paul Foster who continually gave me opportunities to move up to the next level. And I’ve worked for incredible strong women as well, like Lina DeCesare and Annick Guerrard.

In the beginning there were some women who believed in me and helped me like Jill Wykes for example, who was very good to me in my early days at Sunquest. Vicki Borenstein as well. These women sort of rallied behind me after I was laid off because I think they saw I was hungry and I wanted a career and I wanted to do more. And I think they just wanted to help. In fact, it was Vicki who tipped me off that Transat was looking for a marketing director.”

That was then, this is now

There’s a famous Frank Zappa saying, “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible” and it would seem this is consistent throughout the years in the industry.

“You know how things progress?” Heffron asks. “You end up with the people who hold the knowledge,the background and the skills all at that director level. It opens up opportunities because eventually those directors become vice presidents. When you look at it today, certainly at the time I left Transat, half of the executive team, if not more than half, are women. And I’d say that’s certainly near the same everywhere in the industry now.”

Heffron is now Managing Director, Canada for Uplift a service that’s new to Canada and offers innovative travel payment solutions. It’s a totally different industry than she is perhaps used to, especially as the Fintech world is notoriously male dominated.

“I would say it’s been interesting for me as I’m enjoying the dynamic of working with more men because in the past I was primarily working with women. I think the best productivity comes from a good balance, I really think men and women are wired differently and when you bring that together you get the best results.”

Heffron says she’s gone from an industry that is predominately female to one now that is predominately male and definitely appreciates that Uplift is a very progressive company, there is an understanding and acknowledgement that “yes diversity is important, more perspective from different people, more balance.”

“The good news story in all of this is I’ve seen a lot of progress in the travel industry. Significant progress. Really I’ve been in the industry 27 years and it’s really changed. All for the better.”

Look out Fintech world.