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Times
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Times
‘Covid helped my travel firm to really take off'
Too many women struggle to get back into paid work after raising children — a 'motherhood penalty' that underpins the ongoing gender pay gap. Helen Cannon is among business owners trying to fix the problem. Cannon, 49, is a mother of five. She loved her old job in marketing but quit after having her second child because going part-time wasn't an option at her agency in 2003. A decade later, Cannon decided to launch Woking-based Ison Travel, in part because she believed no employer would take her on. 'For ten years I was not 'just' a mum. I was chair of the PTA, the NCT — I was working, but it was all centred around my children's lives. 'After the fifth child was born, I knew I had to get back to work … There was no way I was going to find an employer that would be able to cope with me and five children and the hectic life I have, including three dogs. I thought: 'I'll have to do something for myself … This is the time to start something brand new.'' Today, Cannon employs 120 people at her corporate travel management company, which does everything from organising business trips to chartering private jets and finding flights for school sports teams. Employees work remotely and Ison has 'no barriers to entry', including no hiring age limit. Its team is 70 per cent female and half of all the employees started in part-time roles. Cannon's mantra is that if you give talented people flexibility, they will deliver. 'I call it 'changing the workplace for good',' she said. 'Our first part-time hire is now our chief of staff … I think that's my superpower: seeing something in someone that no one else has seen, and combining those people.' Doing good has been good for business. Ison saw revenues of £53 million last year, up from £40 million in 2023 and £6 million in 2019. It now has a 24/7 operation serving clients including sports car business McLaren, and has bases in the US, Dubai, the Philippines and India. Last year Cannon began snapping up companies as part of a strategic expansion. Acquisitions were funded by retained profits — not an easy feat in a sector with slim margins. Ison reported pre-tax profits of £1 million in 2024 after investing in acquisitions and increased staffing. Cannon expects profits to rise in 2025 along with revenues, which are projected at £78 million. The founder and chief executive had no travel sector experience when she launched Ison, but was undeterred by the challenge. She grew up near Birmingham as a 'fiercely independent' only child, and says this has meant she is never 'phased at taking a bold leap'. The business idea came about during a conversation with a friend, Paul Richer, who had worked in travel for decades. 'It was as simple as: 'I love travelling … I know how to build a brand and take a brand to market, and build relationships with clients and a team. So if you can come on board with some clients, let's give it a go.'' Cannon founded the company and Richer became her employee. The pair initially grew Ison 'quite slowly', relying on traditional sales and networks. 'My youngest was still only a year old, so I was juggling coming to terms with working, being a mum and learning a new industry.' Then, in 2016, Cannon's husband Matt Gough, 60, a former IT salesman, asked if he could join as head of growth. Cannon agreed. 'He has been the hidden force behind me,' she said. 'We're very different and that works really well, because we often don't agree on something, but by the end we've come to the right decision. He's been really good at seeing new opportunities.' Opportunities included opening an office in India in 2017 to deliver clients a 24/7 in-house service. Openings in the Philippines and Dubai followed. 'We didn't want to go to a third party for our out-of-hours,' Cannon said. 'And these teams can win business and service local clients who want to be looked after by a local agency.' By 2019, Ison employed 12 people and was turning over nearly £6 million. Then, Cannon and the team managed to turn Covid — which hammered the travel sector — into a period of hyper-growth. Ison turned over £9.7 million in 2021 despite lockdowns and travel bans, rising to £32 million in 2022. Cannon puts this success down to Ison's already established remote-work set-up and her small team's ability to pivot 'really fast'. Ison was also fortunate that several of its core clients were in the marine and energy sectors, which were unaffected by lockdowns. Crucially, Cannon said, the firm invested in hiring top talent being laid off by competitors, setting it up for success when restrictions lifted. 'It was a crisis, but there was also a lot of opportunity for us … We knew [travel] would come back bigger, and we wanted to be ready.' When restrictions eased in 2022, Ison was poised to capitalise on pent-up demand. The team also began making the first in a series of moves to diversify the business. They decided to offer a service chartering private jets, after realising 'no one in our space had combined booking private jets with normal corporate travel', and set up a private client division offering 'bespoke services' such as chefs and yoga instructors. They also launched an events arm, and moved into co-ordinating trips for school sports teams' overseas tours, which Cannon said is a 'huge market' overlooked by rivals. • Jet cards — VIP travel without the hassle of owning a plane In 2024, global business travel spend reached 2019 levels, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council, a turnaround for a sector many predicted would never return to its pre-Covid boom. Against this backdrop, Ison is making bids to expand into the US and tap into niche corporate travel segments. Last year, it acquired Heathrow-based Screen & Music Travel, which specialises in managing travel for film and TV production companies, and the female-owned Global Excellence TMC, based in Rhode Island in America. In the six months post-acquisition, Global Excellence has doubled its team and turnover, and established three offices across the US, Cannon said. Ison has also just made a third acquisition, a UK events business. She said: 'A lot of people ask: 'what's your exit plan?' and we don't have one. We're on such an exciting trajectory.' It hasn't all been easy, however. 'It was tough coming into 2023 when we'd grown so quickly … We were 100 people and in different countries so there was a very different feel. Some people felt we were [becoming more like a] bigger corporate, and that's not why they'd joined us.' Cannon implemented 'top-down, bottom-up' listening sessions with the team, who said they wanted to retain flexibility and autonomy, and avoid layers of management. She shifted teams to retain elements of the company's original 'flat structure' and committed to doing a monthly town hall. It has worked so far, she said. Ison is also facing disruption from AI tools, and a fiercely competitive market where global tech-driven, venture capital-backed rivals such as Navan are vying for clients. Ison has looked to create an 'extremely flexible' tech suite through buying-in services. Next, Cannon plans to combine established staff's knowledge with 'younger, tech-savvy people', plus AI, to create 'something that's really quite magical'. • Travel agent's chatty AI call-handlers take off Fundamentally, she is confident Ison's personal touch will continue to ensure it stands out. '[Clients] want a hybrid approach. They want to know they can speak to someone and not always be pushed onto a tool. It comes back to our culture and our people: you can replicate the tech but you can't replicate the culture. That, for me, is the key and it's how we've grown.' Cannon has won awards including Everywoman's Woman of the Year in 2023, and hopes to be an inspiration for her three daughters. Gigi, 19, is already working in Ison's account management team. 'It's been an amazing journey and I'm so proud of what we've created as a team,' she said. 'The girls are quite like me, they're all very strong-minded. I just hope that I'm showing them that if you want to, you can go out there and do it.'
Times
27-06-2025
- Business
- Times
Ison Travel
Rank 73 Annual sales growth over three years 71.55% Travel management Whether it's chartering a private jet or finding last-minute flights for a professional football team, this Woking-based business is expert in arranging corporate travel. The chief executive Helen Cannon, 49, started Ison Travel in 2013 after deciding that she couldn't make the corporate world work for her and her family of five children. Annualised sales including all booked travel were £48.9 million last year, when Ison made two acquisitions — one in the UK and the other in the US — adding to bases in Dubai, the Philippines and India. Explore the Sunday Times 100 — interviews, company profiles and more
