It was 1998 and Kirsten Hughes was experiencing the lowest point in her life.
Eight months pregnant with her second child, she was going through a marriage breakdown, and nine months later had been left with no choice but to ask for a council house for her and her two young daughters.
Despite the fact she would have been financially better off receiving benefits than continuing with her job at Atherton agency David Speakman Travel, Hughes did not see that as an option.
Besides, she had other things on her mind.
Speakman’s fledgling homeworking business, Travel Counsellors, was going from strength to strength, and as one of the team of four who had worked to get the now £650 million turnover business off the ground, Hughes, then in her early 20s, was striving to demonstrate why she should be in charge of commercial.
Hughes, from Leigh, returned to work when her second daughter was just three days old, and brought her with her.
No nurseries would take care of such a young baby, and Hughes wasn’t about to stay at home and miss out on seeing the start-up – now seen as a pioneer of travel homeworking – succeed.
Competitive streak
But this dogged determination had not always existed within Hughes.
Coming from a fairly volatile home, she met her future husband aged 17, “jacked in” her A levels and went with him to Africa for four months. On her return, she got a job in accounts.
She got married aged 20 and had her first daughter at 21, at which point she applied for a flexible contract at Lunn Poly.
“I was on the counter on my first day and discovered at that point I’m probably quite competitive,” Hughes recalls. When Lunn Poly suddenly dropped her weekly hours from 45 to 11, Hughes in 1994 applied for a sales consultant job at David Speakman Travel.
“David was very much about the person. I think he saw something in me that I didn’t see myself. I had no confidence or aspirations, but he had faith in me and hired me.”
Hughes was immediately drawn to the work Speakman and his wife, Maureen, were doing to establish Travel Counsellors in the same building.
“David was setting this new business up with laptops, modems and travel agents working from home, which was all new at the time.
If something needed doing, I would just have a go – there’s being given opportunities and then there’s finding and taking them,” says Hughes, which fits with one of her mantras – “failure is a lesson”.
She adds with a laugh: “I think suppliers thought David was a little bit mad. In those days, you could only buy travel in a high street shop, or you rang the newspaper.
“But when you work for a successful entrepreneur who is so passionate about something, it’s never crossed my mind in the past 25 years that it could ever fail as a concept.”
At this point, Hughes was going through her divorce. “It was probably the toughest personally, yet most enjoyable time of my life,” she shares.
“You have a choice whether to be a victim, or to learn from what’s happened in your life and work through it.
“I was a sponge, always eager to learn, and the team was there for me emotionally. That’s one of the things that makes Travel Counsellors so special to me – I’ve always been able to rely on some amazing people within the company for support, both personally and professionally. It’s always felt like family.”
In around 2000, the company bought a new property in Bolton. “It was a six-storey building, and we had about 40 staff. It was much bigger than we needed,” Hughes tells me with a smile.
“But that was the mentality. I was then running commercial and we were negotiating deals that didn’t reflect our size.
“We never settled for second best because we knew where we were going.”
Business growth
Fast-forward to 2014 and Travel Counsellors underwent a management buyout with Equistone, which coincided with a move to new offices in Manchester shortly afterwards.
Speakman then stepped down as chair the following year.
Hughes, who had remarried and had a third daughter, tells me it was an adjustment period, but the company has always remained true to its values of “putting people first”.
“The business has continued to go from strength to strength with Steve Byrne, our CEO, at the helm,” she says.
“Particularly in championing female entrepreneurship. One of my greatest pleasures has been to see mums with young families run successful travel businesses, fulfil their potential and achieve their ambitions.”
In 2016, Hughes was promoted to UK managing director and chief commercial officer, and in 2018 Travel Counsellors underwent a second round of equity with Vitruvian Partners.
She continues: “In my teenage years I was quite headstrong, and that was probably why I left home at 17. As you grow older, though, you start to understand mental wellbeing – which I now realise my parents battled with – and you start to face some of your own challenges.
“But one thing my upbringing did was make me very independent and self-sufficient. I have become so passionate about business and learning, and people.”
She adds after a pause: “I thought my kids would grow up and resent me for working so hard, but actually they appreciate what hard work is. I’m really proud to say that two of my daughters have followed me into the travel industry, and absolutely love it. The youngest isn’t old enough to start working yet.”
People first
Taking an interest in people is what Hughes puts both her own and Travel Counsellors’ success down to.
“It’s not about the money, it’s always been about the people – and we still stand by that mantra. Of course, profit margins are important, but if you do the right thing by people the money will follow,” she says.
And while Hughes is responsible for commercial day-to-day, she still takes a meticulous interest in individual TCs – of which there are now 1,900 globally.
“I’ve seen the business transform people’s lives,” she reflects. As well as this empathy, Hughes tells me she’s “never given anyone an excuse to not give me the job”.
“I used to read the trade press at Lunn Poly and think ‘these men on the cover running these companies must be really intelligent’. Over the years I’ve met some of them, and there aren’t too many who have made me feel like I couldn’t do their job too.
“I started realising they weren’t necessarily better than I was – they’re only human like we all are – so why not work as hard as I can to be the very best I can be?”
Looking forward
I ask Hughes what the future holds.
“I’m not sure anyone else would have me, I’ve been here so long,” she jokes. “I’ll be here as long as they’ll have me. But I’ll go as soon as I feel I am no longer adding value – I never want to be a spare part in this business.
“Every day is a school day. I’ve had some great internal and external mentors, including David, Steve, and also now our chair, Matt Davies [former Tesco UK chief].”
She reflects: “The biggest demon we all have is the voice in our own head. The only difference between successful entrepreneurs and us are those voices, because they tell them they can’t fail.
“If you can control those and tell yourself you will succeed, you will be successful in whatever you do.”
