It was the summer of 1984, and looking to earn some cash before starting her A levels, 16-year-old Kerry Golds spied a newspaper ad for a travel reservationist. Three years later, she was leading a team of 60 at Travel 2, and by 28, managing 400 staff across three UK offices.
“It just sounded exotic – selling holidays, working in the West End,” Golds recalls of that first job at consolidator Skylink Travel.
“I liked the little bit of money in my pocket and the buzz – I never went back to school, much to my father’s disgust,” she laughs.
After that nine-month stint, Golds joined a fledgling Travel 2 in London – rising through the ranks over two decades and helping to grow the company to revenues of £220 million.
Following a “challenging” period at Western & Oriental, she became UK managing director of luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent in 2013 and has since more than doubled its British business.
Now, 35 years on from that summer job, I’m with Golds back where it all began, in London’s West End, though this time in A&K’s shiny new Covent Garden offices, which opened in 2018.
So how did it feel to start her working life at 16? “It was only me and one other person in my entire year that didn’t go back to study. I guess I’ve always been a bit of a rebel. I still am,” she smiles.
Despite many years as a travel boss, Golds is quick to self-deprecate and laughs at the memory of her “bouffant hair and blue eyeshadow” in the mid-80s when starting out. But you can sense the tenacity that saw her rise to the top so quickly.
The daughter of a “very analytical” Ministry of Defence chemist and a sales expert, Golds credits her upbringing – including her family’s love of holidays – for creating the perfect formula for a successful travel career.
“I was very lucky, as we’d go abroad every year to France, Spain… my friends didn’t go abroad much. We weren’t rich but we had enough, and Mum and Dad put a lot of onus on enjoying time as a family.”
By her own admission, though, the travel bug didn’t really bite until Golds joined Travel 2 in 1985 – “again on a bit of a whim” – as she followed a friend who had recently started. “She didn’t stay long – I was there for 21 years,” she grins.
