Founders
Our blogs
Our book project
Management and Consulting Team
DestiCorp's founding principals are seasoned, experienced and pragmatic practitioners in various aspects of both tourism and technology. Together we have over 120 years of applied experience in strategic planning, research, destination management, marketing, project management, operations and implementation.
We're specialists without the blinkers. We're specialists who revel in seeing the bigger picture, understanding the dynamics and then translating that into practical action-steps for our clients.
- Anna Pollock has over 30 years experience applying her skills as a strategist and visionary to the tourism sector and is internationally recognised as an innovative thinker and skilled communicator. Several of her papers and presentations are provided in the Resources
- Leon Benjamin also has a reputation for visionary thinking before many others and has advised and successfully implemented complex systems for corporations in both travel and finance. Leon was one of the first to write about the impact of web services in the banking sector — see Resources.
Our Skills and Values
We are recognised internationally as leaders and visionaries in our field and balance foresight, strong conceptual and analytical skills and insight with disciplined, results-oriented pragmatism.
We're passionate about what we do and stand for. We're glad that, in an atomised, collaborative world, the boundaries between client enterprise and supplier consultant are blurring. Our clients inevitably become our professional allies and partners as we co-create solutions to old problems and jointly pursue fresh opportunities.
Trust and integrity are not buzzwords with us. Ask our clients and technology partners.
We write and speak prolifically and post our thoughts on the web for all to review because we believe we are not owners of our ideas and creativity merely stewards. The more knowledge is shared, the more ideas are expressed and communicated, the greater is our ability to think creatively.
Our skill sets, ages, expertise and perspective are diverse but balanced. We share some common goals. We all want to make a difference and leave this world a slightly better place. Our differences in opinion about strategy, tactics and implementation keep our minds alert and open.
We'll reveal more about our dreams and aspirations throughout 2003 — come back and share in the revelations!
Team Biographies
As a consultant, strategist, entrepreneur and visionary Anna has acquired 30 plus years' experience working with the supply side of tourism in both Canada and the UK and has undertaken seminal and strategic work for tourist boards and their corporate members in both countries. Her clients have included most of the provincial departments of tourism, the Canadian Tourism Commission, the Pacific Asia Tourist Association (PATA), World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), Scottish Tourist Board (for which she prepared the major national IT and Tourism strategy in 1996), the European Commission, Telus, Opodo and Jersey Tourism.
Between 1989 and 2003, Anna focused her attention exclusively on the impact that emerging information technologies were having on intermediaries and travel providers. She re-defined the role of destination marketing organisations (DMOs) as information brokers, responsible for integrating and distributing content as the means to stimulate and support travel and guided much early thought on the development of destination management systems.
Anna serves on the Board and Audit Committee for VRX Studios Inc, a Vancouver-based TSX public company providing premium quality image and mapping content for the hotel sector to online intermediaries. Anna was invited to become a Visiting Fellow of Oxford Brookes School of Travel and Hospitality Management in 2003.
As former Director of The Pembridge Group she developed a Destination Management System that was recognised as one of the leading solutions for tourist destinations in the Government's white paper Tomorrow's Tourism. Bowstreet, creator of the innovative Business Web Factory © recently retained Anna to better understand the unique needs of the tourism industry. In 1999, she was awarded a Visionary of the Year award for her services to tourism in western Canada.
Since 2003, Anna has broadened her perspective by looking at the role of tourism as an agent of change and development. This has necessitated a deeper examination of the converging change forces acting on the tourism domain and the critical need for more thoughtful, imaginative responses. In 2005, she and business partner, Leon Benjamin co-founded Business For Good www.businessforgood.biz, a sister consulting, publishing and event company, designed to demonstrate the critical value of social enterprise in light of changing consumer, employee and investor values and concerns.
Anna’s bio may be viewed on Ecademy here or her resumé can be downloaded in PDF format here (size 21 KB).
Leon is a business oriented technology strategist and has spent 16 years designing and delivering real-time solutions in financial services, telecoms and travel, for blue chip companies, including UBS Warburg, Dun & Bradstreet, Andersen Consulting and Going Places.
His most notable achievements include:
- Assembling, directing and managing a team that delivered the fastest ever retail deployment of Windows NT infrastructure to 730 Going Places shops and 4,500 users in three months.
- For UBS Warburg, the design and implementation of the first internet site in UK investment banking for the secure warehousing and delivery of quantitative financial analyses of European government investment portfolios.
- Devising the technology strategy for a number of UK portals including www.diy.com (B&Q), and www.libertysurf.co.uk (now Tiscali); Programme management of the first ever electronic marketplace in the middle east with Ariba.
His strengths are being able to innovate without loss of operational efficiency, recognising that people make it happen and leadership through the culturally sensitive treatment of people.
Leon has recently written a book titled Winning by Sharing, New Ways of Working, New Ways of Doing Business that can be viewed and purchased on www.winningbysharing.net . This book chronicles his experience changing from a career employee into a highly flexible, adaptive “portfolio” or emergent worker, collaborating with peers to exploit opportunities in a global economic network. The book is the first title published by Business for Good www.businessforgood.biz
Leon’s Winning by Sharing blog can be viewed at http://winningbysharing.typepad.com/ and his resumé can be downloaded in PDF format (size 17k).
